Kindertransport Commemoration

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an exceptionally moving debate. As the grandson and great-grandson of people who sought refuge in this country in the late 19th century to escape the hostile environment in which the Jewish communities of eastern Europe struggled to live normal lives, I of course share the profound sympathy for those children who, unlike those who were saved by escaping to the United Kingdom via the Kindertransport, perished in the Holocaust.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Dubs—himself, as we have heard and know, a beneficiary of the Kindertransport who has been a truly powerful advocate for decades for those in most need of safety and support—on securing this debate. It is right to celebrate what was done 80 years ago, an anniversary recently marked by the revelation, as we have heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, that Clement Attlee, then leader of the Opposition, took a young Kindertransport boy into his home, characteristically without seeking any publicity for his action.

The world has seen and, alas, continues to see too much young, innocent blood spilled with ruthless indifference in wars between and within countries—sometimes in the name of religion or nationality, but always with shameless disregard for human life and well-being. Think of Syria, with 500,000 dead and millions displaced, or the conditions now faced by 1 million Rohingya in Myanmar. Often, people flee not only from the brutality of war but from the hardships engendered by poverty, hunger and disease, or in search of the freedom to practise their own faith, or to escape regimes that deny freedom of thought and speech, ruthlessly dividing the societies they purport to govern. How we react to the problems faced by these innocent victims is a measure of our claims to uphold human rights and needs to be assessed at international, national and local levels.

Much has been said about our national policy but I want to report briefly, as an illustration, on the situation in my own city of Newcastle. Just as members of my family settled there 130 years ago, some 64 families, comprising 267 individuals, of whom 145 are children—the majority escaping the carnage and horrors of Syria —have been resettled in the city by the city council, with a commitment to resettle another 27 families by the end of the current scheme in 2020. The numbers also include families from Sudan, Iraq and Eritrea.

Further, children’s social care is currently supporting eight unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, out of a total of 20 anticipated from 11 countries, who are now considered care leavers, having attained the age of 16. In addition, the council is discussing with the Home Office arrangements to receive six more Eritrean unaccompanied asylum-seeking children over the age of 16, who are currently in France, under the arrangements secured by my noble friend Lord Dubs under Section 67 of the Immigration Act. This, of course, will be mirrored in many other towns and cities.

However, while the council receives financial support from the Government for these asylum seekers, it receives no such support for the 1,062 asylum seekers housed by G4S and its subcontractor Jomast, whose performance in this area has given rise to concerns about the quality of the accommodation and the number of people housed under a single roof. Have the Government made any estimate of the cost to local authorities, schools and the NHS of support for these large groups and, if not, will they do so as an addition to their impending review of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children funding, an important but discrete issue? What efforts are the Government making to diversify the distribution of asylum seekers and displaced children across the country so that the cost of supporting these unfortunate people and assisting their assimilation into local communities is fairly shared?

The record so far is encouraging, but in the world we now live in, in which racism is apparently on the rise—not least in eastern Europe, Italy and the White House—the spirit of the Kindertransport needs to be rekindled.