Refugees: Mass Displacement

Lord Carey of Clifton Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carey of Clifton (CB)]

My Lords, a phrase in Deuteronomy 26:5 has long puzzled scholars. It says:

“A wandering Aramean was my father.”


I have no time to consider the strangeness of the text, but the obvious meaning and obvious admission of it is that the Hebrew people themselves were migrants, as the Bible clearly indicates. We can build on that: migration is part of the human story and of human history, and the history of these islands declares it.

I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this important debate and thank him for his impressive introduction. I want also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, a dear friend.

Behind the stark figures that reveal the displacement of millions of people is the misery and suffering of ordinary people who simply want to enjoy life as we do, but this long history of migration is now multiplying into a picture out of control. Something has to be done, and this debate is declaring it. We all have a part to play.

I want to offer two reflections. First, as a patron of Barnabas Fund, I am glad to say that this organisation is already at work with refugees in many parts of the world, including Afghanistan. We are currently attempting to assist several hundred Christians, pastors, converts and Muslims too to asylum in safe countries. Their situation is perilous. I have to say with some regret that our experience is that, in spite of warm noises from our own Government about Christian persecution, no practical targeted assistance is ever offered to persecuted Christians, be they from Syria or from Afghanistan. I wonder whether the Minister might like to offer a reason why this is so. The situation in recent years has plainly got worse, with organisations such as ours simply unable to address the basic issue of survival that many refugees, many of them children, face.

About a week ago, Gordon Brown said that we have got to act for moral reasons. As some speakers here have already mentioned, it is also in our own self-interest to do so. This reminded me of Archbishop William Temple’s dictum during the war years, that:

“The art of government … is the art of so ordering life that self-interest prompts what justice demands.”


Both thinkers are absolutely right. Allowing the situation to get worse is simply irresponsible.

A second point to note is the unspoken fear among us all in stable societies that we might ourselves be unsettled by the consequences of allowing large numbers from other ethnic communities to settle among us. I recognise the worry, which to some degree we all share. Clearly, those who join us must recognise that they have to embrace the values, traditions and history of the host nation, just as the host nation will allow the customs of the migrants a place among us. We are enriched by the presence of those who have joined us in recent decades. I hope that the United Kingdom will give a firm moral lead as the nations have to respond to the crisis facing the human family today.