Refugee Communities: Covid-19

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on securing this important debate.

This year, especially during the first covid lockdown period, much has been said and written about people attempting to reach our UK shores by boat. That treacherous crossing covers 18 miles of water between mainland Europe and Dover. We have heard the comments from pundits and politicians who want to build walls, either physical brick barriers as favoured by a former President or floating marine fencing ideas, allegedly investigated by our own Government.

Whether through increasing patrols of our waters, putting people in cages, prison cells or detention centres indefinitely, or leaving them statusless and unable to work, join family or simply make a home, the narrative is clear: they are unwanted and unwelcome here. They are detained, locked up, cut off and encamped in muddy, disease-ridden, ramshackle, makeshift and flimsy canvas or cardboard shelters that are not fit for purpose, and not fit for families, for children and for pregnant women—not even for animals.

To everyone who has ever shared anti-immigrant hatred and fear on social media, I would like to say, “Imagine it was you. Imagine it was your family. Imagine that you knew that staying in their place of birth was so dangerous that it was better, safer and a little less horrifying to attempt to cross an incredibly lethal stretch of water in an unsafe boat—overcrowded, ill-equipped and with the chance of drowning a very real possibility.”

In countries such as ours, we seek thrills and recreate fear by taking up certain pursuits. We set ourselves challenges and push ourselves to the limits of our endurance. We leave our comfort zones and get up off our sofas, run marathons and fling ourselves out of helicopters, mostly to raise money for those we want to help, those less fortunate than ourselves. Refugees are, of course, much less fortunate, and they do not get to go back to their sofas after an adrenalin rush as we can. Every hour of every day lived in a war-torn country, those dangerous thrills that we seek are an unavoidable way of life. Dodging bombs and bullets, persecution, torture, prison or death sentences are real-life everyday scenarios. Every single day, someone may not return home safely from school or work. Every day can simply be a fight to stay alive.

When those people—having spent months, decades or a lifetime living with everyday danger and risks as well as death, fear, terror, pain and loss—decide that they cannot endure another day of that and step up the danger to unimaginable next levels by seeking to trust a stranger who they have heard might help them to get out, how can we blame them? They sell what they can, get hold of whatever money they can and put their lives and their families’ lives in the hands of anyone offering a route out.

The Government rightly talk about the vile practices and lack of humanity of people traffickers, the criminals and gangs seeking to profit from people’s suffering, but what is the alternative for those desperate enough to risk their lives? When they do, what awaits them if they survive the journey here? The covid pandemic has greatly increased an already significant backlog in processing asylum applications. Charities such as the excellent Kent Refugee Action Network, or KRAN, do their best to support young, mostly unaccompanied asylum seekers. Kent County Council is struggling to meet the housing needs of those needing urgent accommodation as there is not enough affordable housing across east Kent. This is a particular problem for young people when they reach the age of 21. Young people are isolated, facing the lack of a college place, often of any decent accommodation at all and of any help with language, and they have no way to connect online to learn or access services or to find missing family members.

With the proper support, young refugees can and will contribute much to our society. They want desperately to work, become British citizens, pay taxes and raise families like several generations before them. We have many examples of those who have come to Britain seeking asylum, fleeing terror or war. To name just two, one of the best of people, as we have heard before, is Lord Alf Dubs, an incredible man who has dedicated his life to the safety of children who, like him, had to escape to a new place; and Gulwali Passarlay, a former asylum seeker, is the author of “The Lightless Sky”.

I urge the Government to pledge directly to help those countries in dire need of aid so that we create fewer refugees, fewer homeless and displaced desperate people, and less of a food, insecurity and climate emergency, and to allow the still relatively tiny numbers of the most desperate people to seek asylum here and a safe new start.