Brexit: Refugee Protection and Asylum Policy (EUC Report)

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by noting my interest as declared in the Lords register and, of course, by praising and congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and his committee, on such a comprehensive, interesting and detailed report. There are very meaningful recommendations, many of which stand the test of time, despite the fact that we are debating this report one year after its publication.

I also thank and congratulate the many organisations in this country and elsewhere which work tirelessly every day to try to ensure that Governments stop treating children, particularly asylum and refugee children—displaced children—badly. Those in this country, such as UNICEF and the Refugee Council, and those abroad, such as UNICEF again, Save the Children, the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières, are all working tirelessly to try to ensure not just that human traffickers, racketeers, as mentioned earlier, and those involved in conflict but legitimate democratic Governments treat children better than they have in the past.

Over the years, I have visited a whole series of refugee camps and camps for the internally displaced, and I am constantly struck by two things. First, where those camps are either in the countries of origin or nearby countries—perhaps Syrians in Iraq or South Sudanese in Uganda—there is an absolute desire on the part of children to go home. They want to go back to the villages and towns and to help to rebuild them and to carry on their education, not to move to Europe or another continent to get a completely different life.

I was also struck in camps in Europe, such as the huge Cara di Mineo camp, which was the largest asylum seeker detention and organisation camp in Europe in its time, although it has now been closed by the Italian Government, by the children and young people there and the absolute horrors they have been through. It was sometimes because they had been sold by their families to human traffickers and sometimes because they themselves had been duped by human traffickers and taken on hazardous journeys. At other times, they had been caught up in movements away from conflict and violence and, along the way, had been raped, beaten, tortured, sold and sold again. They had been almost drowned and had watched others die while they survived and felt the guilt that comes from that. Those are the children and young people whom we talk about when we talk about asylum and refugee children.

That is why the UK, if the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister mean what they say about the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Government as a whole being a force for good in the world, needs to set high standards in this area and stick to them. We need to do better than we have done in the past under successive Governments not just under this Government.

First, will the Minister say what assessment the UK Government currently make of the situation for the more than 600,000 people in detention camps in Libya, with approximately 40,000 children, one-quarter of whom are unaccompanied? What assessment are we making of the way in which Europe, including ourselves, has in recent years financed the system around the Libyan coastguards, which seems simply to have encouraged human trafficking rather than discouraged it? Secondly, the recent tragedy in the Moria camp on Lesbos in Greece has already been mentioned. I understand from reports that unaccompanied children caught up in that horrific fire and therefore made homeless are being relocated. Is the UK involved in that process, and will we take our share of children who find themselves unaccompanied and homeless on the outskirts of Europe?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

I move on to the situation once people arrive here. I understand that the number of unaccompanied children in detention in the UK has reduced dramatically over the past decade, and that is to be welcomed and the Government deserve congratulations on it. However, the way in which we treat unaccompanied children arriving on these shores says an awful lot about who we are as a country. Therefore, I would be interested to know the up-to-date figures for 2019 for unaccompanied children, not only those who arrived in the UK but how many found themselves in detention, contrary to the Government’s firm commitment to end that process. Also, more recently, clearly there has been an issue of unaccompanied children being included in the boats arriving on the south-east coast. It is vital that the local authorities in that area be able to provide the correct level of support for them. What provision have the Government made to ensure that Kent Council and others are able to provide the necessary services to support those children, many of whom will be deeply traumatised and scared and may not even have any access to the English language?

Like others, I would be keen to have an update on the negotiations on replacing the regulations and the way in which the Government will take this issue forward. If we are to have sovereignty over our own laws in the future, perhaps this is an opportunity for us to have even better laws than we have had in co-operation and agreement with the European Union. I urge the Government to think positively about setting an example here. The UK should be a shining light around the world for understanding the importance of family reunion for the safety and security of children. We should be firmly committed to meeting our international obligations, and humanity should be at the core of our approach.

Finally, I want to touch on the situation in Glasgow and Scotland over 2020. There is much debate today in Parliament and elsewhere about the potential for another lockdown and its impact on citizens throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There have been three deaths in the Glasgow area these past few months, not all directly related to lockdown but there is at least a suspicion that the conditions under which asylum seekers have been living under lockdown have contributed to in one case tensions, and in other cases the mental health problems of the individuals affected. I would be interested to know whether the Government have commissioned independent reports into the violent incident and the death at the Park Inn hotel in Glasgow and the two other deaths in Scotland this year. Will those reports be published? Have the Government received any correspondence from the Scottish Government about those incidents and will they publish that correspondence and any replies? Have any lessons been learned about how the asylum-seeker community in Glasgow in particular is managed and supported through this difficult period?

With these remarks I am happy to conclude, but I reiterate that the way in which we treat, support, house and look after child refugees and children who have become asylum seekers, especially those who are unaccompanied, in the UK and abroad will say an awful lot about us, and an awful lot about the 21st century and what kind of world we are. I hope that the UK Government will be a force for good in relation to that, as they have promised to be.