Refugees: UK Government Policy

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) on securing an important debate. It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Lady—I am not going to insult her by trying to pronounce the name of her constituency in Welsh—who made a powerful speech about Yazidi women.

The refugee crisis facing Europe is one of the defining challenges of our time. Millions are fleeing the catastrophic conflict, and are asking and pleading for our help and humanity. So far, the UK’s response has been shamefully inadequate. While other nations in Europe have stepped up and offered refuge to tens or hundreds of thousands, the UK has committed to taking just 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. That pales in comparison with the numbers taken by other countries in Europe. Although I do not want to put an arbitrary number on how many refugees we should accept and by when, I would very much like to see the UK Government step up their efforts to support those affected by the Syrian conflict and others by providing shelter and refuge.

As an MP for Glasgow, I am proud and heartened that Scotland has led the way in welcoming refugees from Syria—a nation all but destroyed by civil war. A third of those who have come to the UK thus far have been settled in Scotland, which is down to the work of the Scottish Government, councils, housing associations and other organisations that have put a concerted effort into making that the case. These people are not simply coming to our shores in search of a better life. They are desperately seeking any kind of normal violence-free existence—the kind of life we all take for granted.

The plight of child refugees fleeing conflict zones is especially touching, and is an area in which the UK Government could and should make tangible progress. The Government have recently announced their intention to identify and help more vulnerable unaccompanied children who have already reached Europe from Syria and beyond, but that simply is not enough. Save the Children estimates that in Calais and Dunkirk alone, 2,000 unaccompanied children are living in refugee camps in horrific conditions that we would never wish our own children to be anywhere near. Many of those children already have families living in the UK, but the reunification process can take as long as 11 months to complete. Save the Children estimates that there are more than 20,000 unaccompanied children without shelter and stability across Europe, and they are vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.

Any truly humanitarian response from this Government would treat helping those young people as an urgent priority and ensure safe refuge. Sadly, the Government’s record has been to put many refugee children back into harm’s way rather than to rescue them. This week the Home Office admitted that, over the past nine years, 2,748 young people who sought asylum in the UK as unaccompanied children were deported to conflict-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria—the place we are taking refugees from. I hope the Minister can justify that situation.

It is deeply disappointing that, instead of stepping up and offering leadership in tackling this humanitarian crisis, the Prime Minister has chosen to denigrate refugees seeking asylum and to treat them as political pawns. In referring to vulnerable people desperately seeking our assistance as a “swarm” or a “bunch of migrants”, he betrays a callousness in his approach rivalled only by the UK Independence party.

Language matters. Sometimes in the debate about refugees, humanity is lost. Refugees are ordinary people like you, Mrs Main, and like me. They are people with lives, not merely pictures on a screen. They have lost their homes, their dignity and their way of life. They are scarred by conflict and are fleeing in very real danger of their lives. In October, I met people like us in Camp Newroz in Rojava in northern Syria. Many of them were Yazidis who have suffered the most catastrophic and horrendous circumstances and continue to do so. Their homes in Sinjar have been completely destroyed—their way of life obliterated. They cannot see a safe future in returning to Sinjar. It speaks of the scale of horror and destruction if it is safer in the sea than it is on land. Does our humanity allow us to turn our back on those people?

It is deeply concerning that, instead of leading efforts in Europe to find a humane and sustainable solution to the crisis, the Prime Minister has dragged refugees into an EU referendum campaign. A constructive vision of how co-operation across Europe can provide answers to major contemporary challenges such as the refugee crisis would be a far better argument for staying in the EU than his petty scaremongering that a vote to leave would see refugee camps at Dover.

The simple fact is that the refugee crisis is not going away, and the UK Government must step up their plans to support desperate people fleeing warfare and disaster. That means reviewing their refugee policy here in the UK and engaging far more actively at EU level to find a Europe-wide solution to this global humanitarian crisis. The Government still have an opportunity to act, expand their support and improve their international engagement, but they must first admit that they need to do more. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Syria: Madaya

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Security Council resolutions of that kind are important, because they provide a statement of intent in making clear that we condemn what is going on and that we need to act collectively to at least provide humanitarian support for people. As the hon. Gentleman says, and as I said earlier, the countries that are on the Security Council need to back up those words with clear action. I welcomed the renewal, at the end of December, of the Security Council resolution that enables cross-border deliveries to continue. But that is the first step of putting that plan into action. As he says, we now need countries not only to support that, but to be clear in their condemnation of the Syrian regime and of other warring parties that fail to adhere to basic law.

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) on raising this political issue, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s condemnation of the Assad regime. She said that only one previous request to the regime to allow the delivery of aid to Madaya was granted, suggesting that the international community has for some time known about the potential for a humanitarian crisis and about the actions of the Assad regime. Does it not demonstrate the incoherence of tackling only Daesh without tackling Assad, when Assad and allies such as Hezbollah are so comprehensively breaching international law? To slightly misquote Harry Patch, the last remaining Tommy, surely this is a war that must end around a table.

Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate my friends in the Scottish National party on initiating this important debate. I particularly congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on the content and tone of his excellent speech. I am proud that we are collectively spending a very large amount of money supporting people in Syria and in neighbouring countries. I am glad that we are taking in refugees. That is very praiseworthy, as far as it goes.

There is a pithy Welsh proverb: “Nid da lle gellir gwell.” My rather clunking translation is, “The good is insufficient where better can be achieved.” That is the position we are in. We are spending lots of money, but we can do better. So I say plainly that admitting 20,000 people is not enough, not least given the UK’s position and responsibilities as a world leader and as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We should be taking in more people, and on a different basis.

I referred in an earlier intervention to how other European Union countries have decided on the total number of people that they will take in. They have used formulae that are dependent on GDP, population, the unemployment rate and applications already processed or considered. There are ways to do this. When I asked the Secretary of State for International Development earlier how we chose the figure of 20,000, she seemed to say that that was what we could support and afford with the resources that we had. The hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon have nearly all talked about the offers of help that have come from their constituents. I am sure that we can afford to take in more than 20,000, and I would impress that point most strongly on the Minister and the Secretary of State if she reads the report of this debate.

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am enjoying the tone of the debate this afternoon. I want to draw attention to something that we have not talked about particularly, because not only are our constituents and organisations in our constituencies doing work. I have already been approached by the housing associations in my constituency, which were doing preparatory work before the Government grudgingly came to their position on Monday. I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that that is welcome and that constructive work is being done by organisations that have the vast majority of the responsibility to house these people in our constituencies.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. Unsurprisingly, yet again, the third sector is quicker off the mark than the Government or even local government. Third sector and voluntary organisations in my constituency are already preparing. I am looking forward to the opportunity of speaking in a rally in Carnarvon on Saturday, organised by local voluntary organisations concerned with Calais and the refugee crisis that we are discussing this afternoon.

We will grant entry to 20,000 people under the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, which, I understand, has already relocated 216 people. Again, I referred to this earlier in an intervention. I have three questions for the Minister. I refer to a Home Office document—the Syrian VPR scheme document—which says in respect of numbers and types of cases:

“We expect that the caseload will include families (with both parents), women and children at risk cases (i.e. single parent families—female headed) and medical cases.”

Will the same sort of criteria be applied to the 20,000? I am thinking particularly of the phrase “with both parents”. Are we expecting the 20,000 to include both men and women? The document says:

“We do not expect unaccompanied children to form part of the initial caseload”.

That was how things stood when the document was released earlier this year. Will we now take unaccompanied children? I expect that we will. The document then says:

“and if they do, these will be brought across under separate arrangements”.

What are those separate arrangements? Are those arrangements superseded by the decision that the Government have now taken on the 20,000?