Queen’s Speech

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. I want to say something about refugee policy and add a few words, perhaps at the end, about the press and electronic media and, if time allows, a little bit about delays in the courts.

I hope when we get the borders Bill that, as a result of the consultation going on, it will be much improved compared with the policy statement of last March. My first point is that the Government propose to discriminate on the basis of how people make their journey to find safety. I believe firmly that the method of travel should not determine the right to asylum. I further believe that such discrimination would be illegal and a breach of the 1951 Geneva Convention. I am assured that this is so by many people, NGOs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In any case, the policy would be unworkable. Is there any reason to think that European countries would accept the return of asylum seekers who, according our Government, have travelled here by the wrong route? Can we see the French Government accepting people who have come over here on dinghies or in the back of a lorry? I do not think so. If that policy—which our Government want—was adopted by all countries, the accident of geography would mean that Greece, Italy, and Malta would have had to accept thousands, indeed millions, of people who reached those countries for safety.

Obviously, we in this country cannot take all refugees. I argue, however, that we should take our share of responsibility along with other European countries. The Government have closed the two main routes for child refugees in Europe, both under my amendment to the 2016 Act and by not seeking to negotiate the continuation of the family reunion provisions of the Dublin treaty, which expired at the end of December when we left the EU. It is important that the Government ensure that there are safe routes to the UK for refugees. Of course, the Government are right in wanting to undermine the traffickers, who cause so much misery and so many deaths on the seas. It is the absence of safe routes that ensure that the traffickers are kept in business—it is a godsend to them. Clearly, we need safe routes for refugees to come into the UK.

Secondly, we should give priority to the family reunion rights for refugees. What could be a more fundamental right than the family reunion of people who have fled danger in their country?

Thirdly, what is to happen to the child refugees who are now in northern France or on the Greek islands? We cannot just say no to them and say that they have to take a legal route to the UK. In effect, we are saying, “There is no legal route for you and you have to take your chances on the back of lorries or in unsafe boats and dinghies”—something the Government have been anxious to prevent. The way to prevent it is by opening the doors again to safe and legal routes. That has been put very clearly by a British writer born to Somali parents in Kenya called Warsan Shire, who reached the UK at the age of one. She wrote that

“no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land”.

That seems a clear summary of what we should be about as a country.

I turn briefly to the internet safety Bill and related measures. It is ironic that at a time when the future of local and national newspapers is in doubt, many are struggling to survive because online giants such as Google and Facebook are paying nothing for news content. It is the social media or online platforms that should pay news providers for the news. In 2019, Google and Facebook took 80% of the £14 billion spent on digital advertising, and national and local news titles took only 4%. The Australian Government have shown the way to do it; we should do likewise.