EU: Unaccompanied Migrant Children (EUC Report)

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on an excellent report, on the work she has done and on the way she has explained what the report is about and set out the case. If I were to utter a word of criticism it would be that, had the report come a bit earlier, it would have made the discussions on the then Immigration Bill even more straightforward, because we would have had the backing of the evidence that she has collected. But that is the way these things work.

There are still believed to be some 85,000 child refugees in Europe, many of whom have gone missing, and there are enormous dangers for young people and children, who are often in vulnerable situations and have very little protection. That is why I was delighted that the House passed, and the Government accepted, Section 67 of the Immigration Act. The Government said at the time that they would accept the letter and spirit of that amendment but, given the slowness of the response, I sometimes wondered whether they were doing that—it took a long time, and I wish the debate we are having about Calais and so on had taken place a few months ago. The Dublin III children could well have been here long before the Immigration Act, although I suppose the Act acted as a spur to get a bit of a move on.

Those of us who have been to Calais—the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has been there far more than I have, although I have been there on a couple of occasions—know that the camp there is really quite shocking. It is not a place to live; it is a place where people can barely exist, especially young people. I think we all felt that getting rid of that camp was a good thing, but many of us thought that it would only be right that the children should all be taken to places of safety before any bulldozing started. Instead we had the spectacle of the last few days, when there were children there apparently not being fed or looked after while other people in the camp—the adults—had been moved out. I do not know whether the British Government could have done much about that, as it was in the hands of the French authorities, but it was a bit depressing that this was going on. I only heard about it and saw the pictures second-hand, but the noble Baroness was there for quite a lot of the time and testified to what was happening.

At any rate, I understand that the position now is that the children are going to be moved to safer places, but that the Home Office will, as it were, go with them to start monitoring and assessing, so that those eligible to come to this country under one or other heading will be able to do so. I hope that process will be accelerated and that the children can all be here before too long.

It is of course good news that several hundred of the children are here, and the Minister will no doubt give us the latest number for that. It is a good-news story, and there are children here now who are able to live in safety and get the sort of support and education that they have for so long not managed to have. I remember the pleasure with which the leader of one London council told me that the night before—I spoke to him a few days’ ago—he had sent two social workers to collect two girls from Lunar House and take them back to his borough. By that evening, they were each with a foster family. He was pretty pleased about that, that was a good-news story and I hope there will be many more such stories.

I regret the fact that age became an issue: those in the media who are hostile to the policy seized on it. Had I been the Home Office, I would have made sure that we had particularly young ones and girls coming in first, or that they were not photographed in Lunar House, but that is the way these things happen. However, I kept repeating to the media that when young people, children, have travelled across half the world in terrible conditions, it may be that that process has aged them; it may be that what they escaped from has aged them; and, combining the two, it is no wonder that some of them looked older than I think they are. Equally, if a 19 year-old has got to Britain and that 19 year-old is still legitimately a refugee, I do not think that the world comes to an end. I think we can handle it, but the media made a lot of that.

What bothered me about that episode was that we need public consent for what we are doing, and that damaged the ability to get public consent. The policy will work much better if the British public as a whole—they will not all agree—agree that we should give safety to at least some unaccompanied child refugees. In that way, we can move forward on a happier basis.

I am grateful to the Minister for having kept me informed in detail over the past few weeks; that has been helpful and has enabled me to understand better what is going on, because she gave me some facts and figures. I always intended, and I think we agree on this, that not all unaccompanied child refugees in Europe should come here, but we should take our share, and other countries should step up to the mark as well. We are now concentrating on Calais because it is so close and the situation is not one where many other countries will want to step in, unlike in Greece. Nevertheless, even in Calais, I should have thought that the right answer is for us to take about half and for the French to take about half, provided they meet the criteria underlying our policy.

I understand that in Greece the situation is happier, in that UNICEF and UNHCR both work there and there is better co-operation with the Greek authorities than has perhaps been achieved in France. I do not want to knock the French, because we need their support and co-operation to make progress. However, I also understand that, so far, assessments are being made of those children who are in official shelters and that there are quite a few for whom there was no room in the official shelters. I hope we will not forget about them, because they are probably in a more vulnerable situation than the others.

I do not really know what is happening in Italy. I understand that quite a few of the children who arrived in the south of Italy have made their way to Rome, but I am not sure whether they are in a happy situation or not.

I go back to the issue of public opinion. I have felt all along that the reason why the Government in the end accepted what became Section 67 was that public opinion was largely on the side of this country doing so. I interpret this as a sign that the British people are humanitarians and wanted to express that humanitarian wish by providing support for the most vulnerable of the refugees. We are not taking that many—Germany has become the conscience of Europe, taking a million—nevertheless, we are doing something. I should like us to do more for adults as well.

Most of the emails and letters I have had are supportive. I will not read from one or two of the hostile ones, because I will not waste the House’s time. If there is one thread of criticism, it is that we are giving money to support refugee children, whereas British children already here are not getting the same level of support. I say to people, sometimes on the phone, sometimes by email, that it is not my job to defend the Government’s policies on cuts in support to local authorities or cuts in social care. Nor, I suppose, is it the Home Office’s policy—no, the Government speak with one voice, of course. I have tried to explain that we are a rich enough country and can surely not have to put the well-being of one lot of vulnerable people against the well-being of other children. I hope that argument will eventually win the day.

One criticism covered in the Select Committee report is that, for a long time, the children in Calais were given no information about what their rights were. I sat there asking them, through an interpreter, whether they had had any information about their position, and they said that they had had none at all. The result is that they were vulnerable to information from the people traffickers, of whom there were certainly some in Calais, and that they did not want to exercise their right to claim asylum in France, so Britain was the only place where they could go. That was a serious deficit. I understand that it has been overcome more recently and that they have been given the full information. If not, they are even more vulnerable through not knowing what their rights and entitlements are.

I know that according to the newspaper some local authorities are unwilling to have child refugees, but the majority of them are. I am certainly delighted that the local authorities I have had contact with, such as Hammersmith and Ealing, are stepping up to the mark very well. When people ask me what they can do, I say, “First of all, make a beeline to your local authority and urge them to accept child refugees”.

One of the more light-hearted moments—I am not sure that I have mentioned this before—was when a young Syrian who got here on the back of a truck, which was very dangerous, got out on the green opposite. I was chatting to him and he said to me: “Do you know what I want to do? I want to become a politician”, and pointed to the Palace of Westminster. I did not know what answer there was to that, except to say, “You’d better meet a few politicians first before you finalise the rest of your life”, but it was an endearing comment. He saw what politics had done in his country, Syria, and perhaps he wanted to do something better in a country where there are opportunities to do so.

Today, the Government issued a Written Ministerial Statement, which is a response to an amendment I have tabled to the Children and Social Work Bill. The Statement is an improvement on the amendment—in fact, it goes further—and the Government enabled me to have a look at it in draft and even make a few comments. It does not solve every problem, but it goes further than the amendment in safeguarding children and, as such, I welcome it.

I fear that I cannot be here when we have Report on the Bill next week, but I hope that a colleague of mine will be able to stand in, that there can be a debate and then I hope they will feel able to withdraw the amendment. I have one or two little questions, such as: does it cover the Section 67 amendment as well as Dublin III? Will the best-interest test be an integral part—as it must be? As the noble Baroness asked, when we are out of the EU, will Dublin III still apply? There will still be refugees who have family here, and they should surely have a right to come. I also flag up the uncertainty for those children who get here and then reach the age of 18, who will feel vulnerable, not knowing whether they will be allowed to stay here or not. That is a minus.

I pay tribute to the wonderful NGOs working with child refugees which I have met and co-operated with—I mentioned Liz Clegg in Calais, who has been mentioned before—including Citizens UK, Safe Passage, Help Refugees, Freedom from Torture, which recently asked me to become a patron, and support groups which have sprung up all over the country.

I believe that there needs to be a common European response, but there is not time to debate that, although I should like to have a chance to do so one day.

For those who come to this country, I hope that they will find safety; that they will be given the support to help them overcome the trauma that they have suffered; that they will have a chance to catch up on lost schooling; and that they will have the support of a loving family.