Immigration Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support my noble friend. The Government are to be applauded for the aid they are giving directly to the region and their recent statement regarding resettling some unaccompanied children, mainly from the region. However, as Heidi Allen MP said on the “Week in Westminster” on Sunday, no amount of such aid can help those in Europe now. In a recent Commons debate on child refugees in Europe, Sir Eric Pickles—not someone I normally quote in support of an argument—said that while the Government are quite right to keep children in the region,

“we are where we are. There are children at risk, and I urge the Government to look carefully at that”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/1/16; col. 41.]

Perhaps, more accurately, we should say these children are where they are. Refusing to help them is not going to result in them returning to their homelands. Instead, they are stuck in appalling conditions. The International Development Committee took up Save the Children’s recommendation that we should take 3,000 unaccompanied children. It made a very strong recommendation in support of that and called for urgent action from the Government on it. The committee warned that children are prey to exploitation by people traffickers—the very thing that the Government say they want to avoid by supposedly not encouraging children to make the perilous journey to Europe.

Ministers rightly say that any action to assist unaccompanied minors must be in the best interests of the children and that this is their primary concern. But how can it be in the best interests of unaccompanied children to be left to fend for themselves in the camps of Calais and Dunkirk without hope and, as we have already heard, at the mercy of hunger, cold, exploitation and people traffickers? Like my noble friend Lord Dubs, I am not totally clear what the Statement of 28 January promised. In particular, can the Minister confirm that, as Save the Children says, it is intended to try to reunite lone child refugees who are already in Europe with families in the UK? If so, that is welcome, but can he say exactly what is intended and how many children he expects will be helped in this way?

Finally, I take this opportunity to ask the Minister about a report in the Independent on Sunday that the Council of the EU is discussing measures that could have the effect of criminalising individuals and charities that help Syrian refugees, including children, when they arrive on the European mainland—in particular, on Greek islands. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, talked about what we owe those people, who are doing amazing humanitarian work. Can the Minister give an assurance that the Home Secretary will oppose any such measures? The very suggestion that such humanitarian action could be equated with people smuggling is, frankly, quite abhorrent. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the report is unfounded—I do not necessarily believe everything that I read in the newspapers but this is an opportunity to check it out—and, if it is not unfounded, that the Home Secretary will vigorously oppose any such move.

In the mean time, I hope that the Minister—I agree with what has been said; I know that he is a Minister who listens and cares—will be able to give hope to children who need it. I hope, too, that, even if it is not a final response to my noble friend, he will be able to give a response that at least leaves the door ajar.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and I have just one question for the Minister. I wonder whether he has noticed a statement by a small and rather obscure English NGO that has a database with the names of 10,000 would-be English foster carers. I apologise for not having the name of the organisation with me but, even if that figure has become inflated or if, when those volunteers are vetted, not all of them are suitable, surely there must be enough to cope with the 3,000 children mentioned in the amendment. Taking up those offers would greatly ease the burden that presently falls on the local authorities in, for example, Kent and Sussex, and it would spread the load much more evenly around the country.

Finally, I urge the Government not to insist on deporting children who reach the age of 18. They may once have entered this country illegally but they have been here for a considerable number of years. They have been to school in England and have made friends in England, and they should not be deported.