Refugee Communities: Covid-19

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for her perseverance in securing this important debate and her continued commitment and passion to ensure the voices of the most vulnerable and marginalised in this country and around the world are heard. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed today: the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). They all made excellent speeches highlighting not just the plight of refugees, but their vital contribution not just here in the UK, but across the world.

What this debate and the numerous ones in recent weeks —whether on Rohingya, Syria or equitable access to covid-19-related tools—show is the depth of feeling and support for development from across this House. I am proud to be standing here and responding as the shadow Secretary of State for International Development. The importance of the International Development Committee in ensuring these topics continue to be highlighted cannot be overstated. Does the Minister agree with me and Members from across this House that a distinct Select Committee focused on the Government’s development work and use of UK official development assistance is vital to ensure that these important issues are raised and that constructive scrutiny, which actually all Governments should welcome and encourage, remains in place?

In the last decade, at least 100 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to insecurity either outside or within their country’s borders. They have fled conflict, famine, environmental disasters and persecution. Some 18 million people remained displaced in 2019, nearly double the number in 2010. That is more than 1% of the world’s population. Despite the scare stories that this Government and their allies have been known to tell, the overwhelming majority of those people forced to flee their homes and countries are hosted by poorer countries. I know Members also raised this, but almost three quarters of all refugees remain in a country neighbouring their own.

The reality of why people flee their homes is heartbreaking, and we should never allow the statistics to let us forget the stories behind each number. In 2018, I met a young boy in northern Uganda in a child-friendly space providing children with psychosocial, welfare and emotional wellbeing support. He had seen his father killed in front of him at only 12 years old, and had no knowledge of where his mother was. He took his four younger siblings and fled from South Sudan to safety in Uganda, making that journey on foot. People do not choose to flee their homes unless there is no alternative for them.

As the poet Warsan Shire put it in her moving poem, Home,

“no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well”.

The story of the boy from South Sudan is just one of myriad devastating situations that force people to flee their home.

Over the coming decades, we are likely to see a huge increase in climate refugees. The UN has estimated that there will be 200 million people fleeing environmental disasters by 2050. Those disasters include the cyclones that we have all seen, but also droughts, floods, land degradation, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification, which directly and indirectly impact lives and livelihoods. Despite that, over the past decade, the UK Government have directed billions of pounds of public money into fossil fuel projects around the world, through UK Export Finance and the aid budget, including CDC investments.

Some 90% of the £2 billion invested in energy deals after the UK-Africa investment summit last year went on fossil fuel projects, and the Minister’s Government are funding fossil fuel projects in Mozambique using more than $1 billion of public funds. COP26 has been delayed for a year; we are looking to build back better, and ensure a safer, fairer world after the pandemic, and there are still opportunities for the Government to act and show clear leadership before they host that meeting. Will the Minister today commit to ending support for fossil fuel projects overseas, both from the aid budget, including the CDC investments, and from UK Export Finance, as a matter of urgency?

It is not only climate change that impacts migration; so, too, does the destruction of the environment and biodiversity, which affects people’s lives and livelihoods. From the Amazon to Borneo, habitats are being destroyed by legal and illegal deforestation and degradation, forest fires, over-grazing and cultivation. As well as working with those countries, we need to consider the impact that we have here. That is why I ask the Minister to support the amendment on due diligence that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) has tabled to the Environment Bill.

On food insecurity, more than 250 million people face extreme hunger—a situation that coronavirus has made even worse. Of those, about 30 million adults and children could be tipped into facing famine unless there is urgent additional support. No child should face growing up with famine or malnutrition, so can the Minister explain when his Government will make a pledge to the Nutrition for Growth summit?

Those are just a few of the drivers behind people fleeing their home. We have heard about a number of others today. When people flee, we have to make efforts to support them, especially in the interim before they can safely return home. That support includes immediate humanitarian assistance, and measures to ensure that they can live full, prosperous lives—measures on providing education, healthcare and job opportunities, so we are not faced with a lost generation of children in many refugee camps. Of course, in order to do this, we need access to those living in camps, and to those who are internally displaced.

During the global coronavirus crisis, the situation for people who have already lost so much has got even worse. Many live in camps where even basic amenities, such as soap, clean water and basic medical supplies, are often in short supply. Can the Minister explain what recent steps his Government have taken to support refugees’ access to basic sanitation? In Syria, we have seen failure after failure to open up borders, or even retain existing border access. Can the Minister explain the UK Government’s strategy for dealing with the veto by Russia and China at the Security Council on this issue?

The UK has a long, proud history of standing with refugees. We helped people fleeing Slobodan Milošević’s genocide in the 1990s, and we helped 10,000 children flee the Nazis on the Kindertransport before world war two, enabling them to build new lives in our country. Despite the Government retreating from that proud history, today communities right across Britain have shown, by helping refugees from countries such as Syria, that their commitment continues to run deep. I am lucky to have met a number of them who have started a new life in Birmingham, including one—her name is Nour—who came to Parliament last year to listen to a debate that I secured on English for speakers of other languages.

Refugees do not want to leave their homes. Their stories are tragic: leaving behind their homes and livelihoods and embarking on a journey of uncertainty. That is why the work that we do here, and with the multilateral institutions, is something of which we should all be immensely proud. It is something that should motivate us to support those who are seeking refuge and a safe place to call home. With the strategic direction and the size and shape of his Department still to be determined, will the Minister recommit his Government to supporting those who seek safety and sanctuary in another place or country, and can he tell the House what the overall overseas development assistance spend towards supporting refugee communities was in 2019 and the projected spend in 2020 and 2021?

Finally, as we have seen during the pandemic, when given the opportunity, refugees have made an enormous contribution in the effort to tackle the coronavirus crisis, including in our NHS in its hour of need. Will the Minister ensure that talk of the importance of helping refugees and displaced people to become productive equal partners in their communities is recognised and acted upon across the whole of Government?