Refugee Crisis in Europe

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The scale of the criminal challenge and the modern slavery that the Home Secretary has often talked about mean that we must have a response that matches the scale of the crisis and the scale of the trafficking that is taking place. Frankly, our response, not just in Britain but across Europe, does not match the scale of the challenge at the moment. We certainly need to support Europol and police forces right across Europe to work together to do more.

We agree that the Government should offer more sanctuary to those who are vulnerable in the camps in Syria and give them a chance to come to Britain instead. In fact, this House called for that nearly two years ago. I and Sir Menzies Campbell—soon to be Lord Campbell—and many Members on both sides of the House argued for it when we debated the issue in January 2014 and, as a result, the Home Secretary agreed to set up the programme in early 2014. That programme has so far helped just over 200 people and the Government have made a big change to their position by saying that they are now prepared to help 20,000. Even if the timetable is slow, I welcome the fact that they have agreed to do more.

I pay tribute to all those who in the past seven days have signed petitions and contacted MPs, charities and newspapers to speak out and call for action. That has changed the Government’s mind, which is welcome.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that the right policy is to go to the camps in Turkey and Jordan where millions of people have sought refuge, and that the last thing we want to do is enact any policy that will act as a magnet for more people to make treacherous journeys such as that which ended with that tragic death on the Turkish coastline?

[Yvette Cooper]

We agree that we want to do everything we can to help prevent traffickers from being able to prey on the situation and to prevent some of the problems we have seen, but I disagree with the hon. Gentleman if he sees that as an argument for not helping those in Europe itself. I will come to that and will give him a chance to ask a further question later.

This is where we start to disagree. We need to urge the Government to do more. The Prime Minister said yesterday that he would help up to 20,000 refugees over the five-year Parliament, but the crisis is now. Helping 4,000 refugees this year is not enough. Compare that figure of 4,000 with the 24,000 in France and the hundreds of thousands in Germany; compare it with our population of 60 million; with the 10,000 we helped in just nine months under the Kindertransport; with the 19,000 Vietnamese boat people who fled to Britain from the Vietcong; and with the 24,000 Kosovans who came to Britain in the late ’90s. We can do more than this.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that he wants to get on with it. That is good and it might mean more than 4,000 in the first year. The trouble is that when we first urged the Home Secretary to take in Syrian refugees, she said they would do it as fast as possible, but in the end the scheme proved slow—only just over 200 have been helped. If they can help a full 10,000 in the first year, why not say so and why set a cap for the whole Parliament when we have no idea what the circumstances will be in a few years’ time? In fact, why set a cap for the Parliament at all?

I am afraid that the figure of 20,000 over a Parliament has the feel of coming up with a plan to maximise the headline number but to minimise the impact year on year. That is the wrong approach. We need to know how many the Government will help this year. How many can we help before Christmas, when the crisis is now? What can Britain do to help?

I made the suggestion of 10,000 straightaway simply by asking every county and city to take 10 families. I said we should ask councils how many people they would be able to help. Has the Home Secretary asked councils whether they can help?

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[Yvette Cooper]

The Prime Minister himself has said that acting against ISIL is a challenge for a generation. A response is taking place in Iraq and Syria at the moment. We wait for the Government to set out any further proposals that they have, and we will need to look at those in due course. However, that does not change anything about the humanitarian response that we need for those who are fleeing the conflict—not just those from Syria, but people from other countries who are crossing the Mediterranean.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

rose—

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

rose—

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[Mrs May]

As has been pointed out, people are fleeing other parts of the world. The Government take a clear approach to that. People have the ability to come to the UK to seek asylum. Those claims are properly considered, and we grant claims for asylum to people here in the United Kingdom. The UK has always been willing to welcome those who are fleeing conflict and persecution. The situation is no different today from what it has been in the past.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

I have visited camps in Turkey and Jordan. I pay tribute to the support that the British Government and British people are giving to them. It is not a picnic, but my mind goes to what we can do to stop people making that treacherous journey in the first place. I accept what the shadow Home Secretary says about the hundreds of thousands who are already here, but what actions does the Home Secretary believe we can take with the international community to stop the treacherous journey in the first place?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes important points. I will come on to the support that we have been providing in the region for people who have found a place of safety outside Syria, but who are in camps in the circumstances he refers to. He refers to the treacherous journey. One reason why the Government and I believe it is important to offer people who have been displaced from Syria and who are in particularly need that safer, more direct route to the UK from those areas is that it clearly says to people that there is a route that does not entail them taking that treacherous journey. Sadly, as we have seen, many people have died as a result of that treacherous journey, despite the best efforts of countries throughout Europe to ensure that that does not happen.

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[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

This is a grim world. Dreadful events are taking place in many countries. Innocent human beings are dying and armies and guerrillas are fighting each other throughout the world, particularly in south Asia and the middle east. Only today, we read of a 27-year-old Palestinian woman murdered by Israeli extremists, leaving her four-year-old child an orphan, yet we—not me, but the Government—will welcome to this country Binyamin Netanyahu, the author of the oppression of the Palestinians and the man who will go on trying to wreck the nuclear agreement with Iran, which is one of the few bright spots in international relations.

What was once hailed as the Arab spring has degenerated in every single country in which it appeared to be taking place: Libya is one source of the tragic and pathetic people trying to get to Europe via the Mediterranean; Egypt, an authoritarian country that tries people for exercising free speech and once an attractive country even under a dictatorship, is now worse than ever; and we have Islamic State, the terrible slaughter it has carried out and the threat to historic Palmyra. But the worst tragedy is Syria, where so many people have been killed and made refugees.

What are the Government doing? They want to bomb. Bombing will achieve nothing whatsoever, but will kill more people and create more refugees. They are now following the deplorable Obama in carrying out murder by drones, almost certainly against international law. What is their response to the heart-rending refugee swarm—that is what it is—of people fleeing horrors that, thank God, we in this country will never know. In their programme for accepting—not welcoming—refugees into this country, they have imposed not a target, but a limit, of 20,000. And now the Home Secretary, in her speech this afternoon, has said “up to 20,000”; not 20,000 or more, but up to 20,000.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. When the refugees come to the United Kingdom, I expect them to be welcomed. I have received a number of emails from constituents saying that we need to do more, as I am sure a lot of MPs have. However, does the right hon. Gentleman not also accept that, in welcoming the number that the Government have proposed, there has to be some limit? Otherwise, what figure might he be talking about? Does he not believe that if there is no limit the huge warmth that the British people will show to the refugees may be jeopardised?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

That would be all very well if that was what other countries were doing too, but over the last few days alone the Germans have taken in 17,000 refugees. It may well be that Angela Merkel, creditably, is motivated by conscience and what the Germans did to the Jews. That is possible, but it is not discreditable. She is to be emulated. The French are taking a very great many more. Other countries are trying. I am not saying it is universal; I am not saying it is by any means satisfactory or creditable. But we are at the bottom of the list, and I find that deplorable, and so do our constituents. The Government, if they reach the target, which is now “up to” 20,000—the Home Secretary has the opportunity to intervene and say, “Yes, definitely 20,000”—