Immigration Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

It gives me the greatest pleasure to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Sometimes a situation will sweep through a country and bring compassion and tears to so many people. This is the case especially after the last weekend, when we saw the continuing destruction of Aleppo, with scores of thousands of people crowding on the border between Syria and Turkey. They will somehow move from there. They will join that trek, like hundreds of thousands before them, to some sort of hope. Many of them will be children.

I know that in Wales we sometimes have very sad cases where a child has been abducted or put in some danger and people say, “We’ve got to do something to save this child”. Whole communities will rally round to save that child, and so we should. Except it is not one child, but scores of thousands of children. But if we will do it for one child, so we should be prepared to embrace the children that are there—we cannot see the one child because of the hordes of other children. It is a matter of individuals, of little toddlers. I have seven grandchildren myself. They are usually fairly well behaved—not always—but you would defend them and speak for them. You would do anything. You would rather be hurt yourself than they be hurt.

We now have a situation with many unaccompanied children. I think of the parable of the good Samaritan. I should not bring my Sunday sermon here, but in that parable we remember that a traveller on the road—I am not preaching—from Jerusalem to Jericho fell among thieves. There he was, left at the side of the road. He had been robbed of everything. Two temple officers came by and said, “We’d better not touch him. We could be contaminated if he is dead”. They kept on talking. I imagine that they would have met in Jericho and one would have turned to the other and said, “You know, it’s a dangerous situation on that road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Let’s set up a committee to safeguard these people who travel along that road”. Now, we want committees; of course we do. What would we do without them? The House of Lords would be abolished tomorrow if we abolished committees. But that person was still at the side of that road until a Samaritan came who cared for him, took him to the inn and made sure that he was on the way to being well again.

We have a tragic situation from Syria to Calais and Dunkirk, but we need people who will not first go to a committee, but say, “Something needs to be done. We have to act now”. I mentioned yesterday in Questions our debt to the thousands of young people in particular who are in the camps and on some of the Greek islands and sacrificing so much to be there. We owe them a tremendous debt. It is the Red Cross, Calais Action, the Refugee Council and Save the Children—they are there. These are the people with their hands to the wheel in those places.

What are we going to do? If we say that the UK will do no more, where will those children go? Possibly they are asking on the Turkish/Syrian border now, “Where do we go?”. They get to Calais or Dunkirk and they say, “Where do we go?”. Are we going to pull up the drawbridge and say, “You can’t come here?”. If we do, we condemn these children not only in the present time. If they live through the present time to a childhood scarred with memories it will not be to the well-being of the rest of us. Action needs to be taken for the tens of thousands of children as if it was for just one child, for just one of my seven grandchildren.

It is a big undertaking, of course it is, but Canada has taken 25,000 refugees in two months. It was great, seeing that happen and hearing that an appeal went out on the radio in Canada when that first plane arrived at Lester Pearson Airport in Toronto: “Please, will no more people come to the airport? We’re under siege with people wanting to welcome these people from Syria”. The heart of the people is with those people who are tramping across borders or suffering in the camps.

In 1939, we said that we would accept our responsibility for people threatened by the blitz on our large cities—Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London, of course—and in two months there were arrangements for evacuating 3 million people. We could do it. If we could do it for 3 million people in 1939, we can do it for 3,000 children now. I do not think there is any reason for us not to do it. I cannot think of a valid reason to come to this Committee and say, “Oh, yes, it’s this; it’s this; it’s this”. They are tiny children, like our children. I urge the Government to think again. I assure noble Lords that Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted would be under siege by the warm-hearted people of the UK wanting to embrace and welcome them. I urge the Government from the bottom of my heart to think again on this.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I can see the point of the Government’s plan to collect child refugees from the Middle East, but the thousands of children who were seen on our television screens in October and November last year were already in Europe. The impression at the moment is that the Government are refusing to respond to what has become a public demand. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. This is not just an emotional issue; it is a case of practicality. The Government are talking about an admirable resettlement scheme, but, except in the case of family reunion, they are ignoring unaccompanied minors and ignoring this plea.

--- Later in debate ---

If we are not prepared to contribute, what is the position of genuinely unaccompanied children already in Europe? Who is responsible for them? Should we, as a European nation, not accept responsibility for some unaccompanied children entering Europe? I, too, hope that the Government will reflect on the situation. I do not think this is in any way an unreasonable amendment. It is not asking for large numbers, when you consider the totality of unaccompanied children across Europe. It is solidly based, in the sense that the figure of 3,000 is related to what I understood was the estimated 26,000 unaccompanied children in Europe today. I hope, as I am sure does everybody who has spoken, that we will hear that the Government may be giving further reflection to this issue, if they will not agree to change what appears to be their current stance.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, spoke earlier. Is he a grandfather or a father? Has he children? Would he trust his children to leave Syria to walk across Europe to reach the temptations of Italy and Greece and to meet the deprivations on the way? Would he really think that his child could manage unaccompanied? Is it not really a fantasy to think that these kids are not going to suffer in this way? I would not have thought of putting my children or grandchildren on that trek, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Green, would not either.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am a father and a grandfather and of course I would do nothing of the kind, but then I am not in the situation of families in Syria. It is almost unimaginable to do that, but the question is whether there is a serious risk that it could happen. There is some evidence that that is exactly what has happened in relation to Sweden and Albania—Albania is different because that is a peaceful country. I raise the question. We need to be careful. If it was done through the UNHCR, we would be saving the same number of children, but we would not run the risk of encouraging further children to get into serious difficulty.