Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

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

[Anna Soubry]

I completely understand my hon. Friend’s genuine concern; I just do not believe that there is any evidence to support it. Let us all stop and get real. History tells us: the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) referred to Biblical times, and we have referred to the plight of the Jews in Germany and other countries. As my hon. Friend will understand, these people are living in the most appalling conditions, surrounded by war and terror day after day, month after month, and year after year. To suggest that someone deliberately, cruelly tries to get their child out of that horror in order to follow them is, frankly, as appalling as it is clearly not right; it is verging on madness. People do not do that for that reason. They might well say, “How the hell can I get my child out of here?” because of their love and concern for that child and to try to keep that child safe, just as the Jews did in Germany. Nothing has changed in person-mankind over the centuries: our desire is to keep our children safe, not to use them as a route for our own escape. So let us crush that one. I gently ask where is the evidence of people doing that? It is the last thing genuine refugees would do.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

I completely agree that family reunification is in the interests of health, wellbeing and humanity. However, is not the concern the impetus that it could give to criminal gangs and human traffickers? We must recognise that genuine concern if we are to safeguard these families and children.

[Anna Soubry]

We are talking about people who are already here and whose status as genuine refugees has already been determined. The idea that there are gangs of people smugglers in Syria going through that desperate warzone and enticing families to put their children into their hands is the stuff of fantasy. [Interruption.] No, it really is the stuff of fantasy.

It behoves on all of us to conduct these important debates on the basis of facts and evidence—and yes, at times, emotion. Look at the problems we have in our country with the lack of understanding. If I may say so, perhaps that has been evident in some of the speeches we have heard today.

If somebody living in very poor circumstances comes to this country, that person is an economic migrant, and that is profoundly different. Even if they enter the country illegally, we can understand why they are coming here. These people come here not to take, but to give. For centuries people have come to this country from other parts of the world because they want to build a better life for themselves and their children. I have always welcomed them, because they contribute by virtue of their immigration status. They are fleeing poverty and come for a better life. They do not expect us to provide for them.

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[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I stand proudly today in support of the Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) on his determination in bringing the Bill forward, despite some efforts from people in this Chamber to show little empathy and to frustrate this process. I support this Bill for my refugee and migrant constituents, and for their loved ones unable to join them. This Bill will give a lifeline to families torn apart, first, by conflict, and, then again, by our unfair and nonsensical immigration rules. Currently, refugees can be joined only by parents or by children under the age of 18. Unaccompanied minors in the UK cannot currently sponsor anyone to join them. This Bill will expand who qualifies as “family” so that vulnerable people, such as the elderly and children over the age of 18, may be able to reunite with their families in the UK, and it will allow unaccompanied children, who have to adjust to life in the UK without a single family member there to support them, to sponsor relatives to join them.

I support this Bill because some of my constituents do not know when they will see their families again. Abdul Charif, a young man from Syria, came to study in the UK in 2006, but when he attempted to return to his home town after his studies he was forced to flee again and make the perilous journey back to the UK. He settled in Sheffield and applied for a visa to visit his family, who had made it past the Syrian border to Turkey, but he was rejected. He sought help from every agency and organisation available to try to be reunited with his family, but to no avail. In 2016, the Government brought in the vulnerable persons relocation scheme. Abdul applied, and later that year he was finally informed that his family had been registered and that his case has been passed to the Home Office. Two years on, and six years after attempting to see his loved ones, he has yet to receive a single piece of correspondence telling him when exactly his family can join him.

It is hard to believe, but Abdul and his family are considered some of the lucky ones. When I asked why his family eventually qualified for the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, he told me that his elderly parents had developed serious health problems, in part because his older brother was tragically killed by a handmade bomb. They are considered the lucky ones, and they are still waiting. I cannot imagine what Abdul and his family have gone through. I also cannot imagine the grief and worry that he could have been saved had he been aided by a process which from the start had regarded his parents and sister as “family” in the way that we would for any citizen, as they might very well be with him today.

I support this Bill because children are missing their grandparents, their uncles and aunts, and their siblings. In November, 21 pupils from Byron Wood Academy in Sheffield wrote to me about the injustice of our immigration rules, and many of them are refugees or have parents who arrived in this country as refugees and then settled.

[Michelle Donelan]

The hon. Lady said she was supporting this Bill as it would help to reunite grandparents, and aunties and uncles. I understood that the Bill did not extend to those categories.

[Gill Furniss]

That is a fair point, and it is an aspiration of mine to see that everyone has the right to be reunited with their family. As I was saying, many of these children are growing up never knowing their relatives. They are just children, but even they could point out that the British Government are not adhering to article 10 of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which says that if you live in a different country from your parents, you have the right to be together in the same place. These pupils urged me to challenge the Government’s double standard on who qualifies as “family” when someone is a refugee. So please, answer me: why should UK citizens be able to call their grandmothers and grandfathers, and their siblings and cousins “family”, given that this right is not afforded to refugees? Why should unaccompanied child refugees not be allowed to sponsor anyone to come over and live with them?

Members should imagine fleeing their war-torn home, risking their life to get to the UK, and trying to start their life over again in a foreign country, and the trauma that they would experience. They should imagine growing up and experiencing the difficulties and turbulence of adolescence while also having to learn to cook, clean, read and write, all without having their parent there to guide them; and then imagine being told that their family cannot join them. I cannot imagine that—in my opinion, that is too much for anyone to bear.

We do not have any Government statistics on specific refugee family reunion applications, although we know that they now make up the majority of refugee applications. That in itself is telling. We are not paying enough attention to the issues that matter to refugees in this country. We are not giving them the support that they need to help them to rebuild their lives.

I am so proud of Sheffield and our legacy of welcoming refugees. Sheffield has so far provided a home to more than 1,500 refugees since 2014 and it is one of the areas in which the vulnerable persons resettlement programme is operating. But we can do more, so let us rectify this. Let us vote with the spirit of Sheffield and pass the Bill, so that our families can start to rebuild their lives.