Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

If the hon. Gentleman was going to make that argument convincingly, he would be making the same argument about the 19-year-old, the 20-year-old, the 30-year-old and the 50-year-old. The problem is the evidence. We must remember that other countries across Europe have these rules about family reunion in place, and we do not see it becoming a pull factor to Hungary, Poland or all sorts of other countries.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am very conscious of time. I will give way a final time, because this is an important point to address.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady; she is making a cogent argument, and that is what this place is for. She asks for evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) mentioned the example of Germany in 2015 and the impact that the change of policy there had. Could she comment on that and say whether that is evidence one way or the other?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have to remember that what happened in Germany was at a time when we had huge migration out of Syria by people desperately fleeing at the height of the conflict and a lack of proper support in Turkey, so a huge number of people were crossing the Mediterranean at that time. It was very unusual circumstances and an unusual period.

I think all of us would want to ensure that migration, in particular for those who are fleeing, should be provided through legal, safe and settled routes. That is why I support the Government’s Syrian resettlement scheme. It is far better to have legal, safe routes than unmanaged or illegal routes through trafficking and so on. All of that must be right. However, we can ensure that we have a legal, managed scheme to help refugees, and that is exactly what the Bill is all about. It is about having a legal settlement route, not unmanaged migration routes. We know that if we do not have legal family reunion resettlement routes, that is when we get people falling into the hands of traffickers, and that is what increases the number of illegal and dangerous journeys.

For example, on all the visits that I took to Calais, which was an awful and bleak place with so many young people, pretty much every young person I spoke to had family in Britain. They were trying to get to Britain through these awful, dangerous routes because they were trying to be reunited with family and with people to keep them safe. They were not trying to make the journey to bring other people; they were trying to be reunited. The current system, without that legal family route, is what is causing so many problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and so many other speeches. I congratulate the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil). I have been practising pronouncing his constituency name, but perhaps not for long enough. I, too, understand the difficulties of piloting private Members’ Bills through this House, having got a presentation Bill through to Third Reading, before it fell and failed at that particular hurdle.

It is not my intention to detain the Chamber for a particularly long time. Despite the disappointing cries from the Opposition Benches, there are still one or two points that I want to make. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this serious subject to the Floor of the House, particularly this week with the crisis and war in Syria having entered its eighth year. Parliamentarians also heard this week from the ambassador to Jordan, a country to which many refugees have fled for security. He updated us, telling us that there are 740,000 Syrian refugees and 100,000 others in the camps in Jordan. He also talked about the assessments being made by the UNHCR.

[Anna Soubry]

Conservative Members have rightly raised a very important point: what happens if an 18-year-old in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan decides to take advantage of this Bill by coming here and then getting his family over? Does my hon. Friend agree that that scenario simply could not happen, because somebody from Syria would be in Jordan as a place of refuge, and if they were then to enter this country illegally, they would not be deemed a refugee, and therefore they could not use this Bill? Does he agree that that dispels concerns raised by hon. Members about the exploitation of this excellent proposed legislation?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I heard my right hon. Friend mention that point earlier, but I do not think anyone else has done so as yet. I would like to hear from the Minister whether my right hon. Friend’s interpretation is right. The Bill title includes the word “refugees”, so she has raised a perfectly sensible point and I look forward to hearing the answer in detail. I will, however, turn to my concerns about the pull factor, because, despite cries from the Opposition Benches, I think they are legitimate points to raise and I will do so.

[Anna Soubry]

indicated dissent.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My right hon. Friend pulls a slight face, but I think there are legitimate concerns and I will address them as briefly as possible.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

We have to understand and be very clear that the pull factor cannot happen, because the person has to be deemed to be a refugee. All we are doing is giving under-18s in general the same rights as adults. If the pull factor is anywhere, it is with adults who can come legally, but the pull factor just does not and will not exist—the hon. Gentleman has to move away from it—because the person has to be a refugee. The Bill applies only to refugees and the Government will grant that.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is similar to that made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), which I answered. I still want to address the concern, because people have raised it with me.

[Joanna Cherry]

Has the hon. Gentleman read the House of Lords EU Committee’s 2016 report? The Committee found absolutely no evidence to support this argument about the pull factor. On the contrary, it said that if there was a pull factor of the kind that the hon. Gentleman has described, one would expect to see evidence of it in other EU member states that participate in the family reunification directive, and there is no such evidence. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should proceed on the basis of evidence, not myth?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I can give two answers to that question. First, no, I have not seen the report, but I did hear the hon. and learned Lady’s intervention—[Interruption.] I think it is worth my answering her question, and perhaps she can listen to my answer rather than heckling me at the outset.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House proceeded to a Division.