Forced Displacement in Africa

Debate between Stephen Twigg and David Drew

Thursday 4th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg]

The focus of this inquiry was east Africa, because we felt that it merited specific attention. However, in the previous Parliament our first report was on the Syrian refugee crisis, and one of the things that we highlighted was that Christians, and indeed some other minorities, faced particular challenges in the context of that crisis. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Nigeria; I will say something about north-east Nigeria in a moment, but he is absolutely right to say that Christians and a number of other minorities face particular challenges when it comes to displacement. It is very important that that is addressed, and I hope the Minister will feel able to respond to the important point that the hon. Gentleman has made.

I get it when DFID says it is determined that support should be based on vulnerability, but we need to be able to assess whether the funding being allocated is enough, particularly to reach the most marginalised internally displaced people. There are around 13 million such people, often living on the fringes of society in some of Africa’s poorest, often conflict-afflicted countries, and the number is going up. In 2017 the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre recorded more than 8 million new displacements, with more than half of all new conflict displacement taking place in the region, including more than 2.2 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and almost 2 million in South Sudan. I have privately expressed real concern to the Minister—I put it on record today—about reports of what is happening now in north-east Nigeria. More than 825,000 people there are described as being beyond the reach of aid.

IDPs are some of the most vulnerable people in the world, yet they remain largely forgotten in these debates; they do not have the same protections under international law as refugees and they were not included in the refugee compact. Providing support to IDPs, whose care remains the responsibility of their own Governments, is a complex policy challenge. Christian Aid told us that

“75% of IDPs do not live in camps, yet camps receive the majority of funding for IDPs.”

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I am very much involved with Sudan. We visited northern Darfur last year. One of the problems with the camps in such places is that they have become permanent settlements. That has resulted in conflict with the indigenous population, who do not want a camp on the edge of their town. There is a belief that these people will one day return, but in Darfur they are never going to return, given all the problems in Sudan at the moment. Does he agree that we need to look at the impact of forced urbanisation, because that will be a growing problem?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman is right. It is for the Government to decide on the numbers, but there is an enthusiasm and commitment in constituencies including his and mine and, I am sure, those of Members across the House, among faith communities, other communities and local authorities. I know that because when Syrian refugees came to Liverpool there was real enthusiasm and positivity. Although 10,000 would be a really significant contribution, it is not a large number of people; it is 30 refugees for each constituency. That is not a large number, and the hon. Gentleman is right to make the point that there would be a moral purpose to which faith communities and others would absolutely sign up.

The Committee, which is cross-party, endorsed the UNHCR’s call to increase resettlement places to 10,000, and we added the rider that we felt that at least a quarter of those places should be for refugees from sub-Saharan Africa. We were disappointed but, if I am honest, not surprised that the Home Office, and the Government collectively, rejected that recommendation. The progress that the UK has made with the Syrian vulnerable persons and vulnerable children resettlement schemes shows the capacity to scale up resettlement schemes quickly if the political will is there. Given the severity and urgency of the refugee crisis in Africa, a similar response is required. I hope that the Government will reconsider our recommendation.

I will finish by talking about some broader issues. We were very worried that the Government’s approach to forced displacement is too influenced by the desire to control the number of people coming to Europe. Migration is, perfectly understandably, central to the UK’s strategies on aid and on national security and defence. Both those strategies focus heavily on refugees and migrants travelling to Europe and the implications of that for the UK.

We received evidence expressing concern that the focus on Europe risked detracting from tackling the root causes of displacement—hence “Anchors not walls”. Action Aid said:

“The emphasis on preventing the movement of refugees towards Europe is short-sighted, unlikely to address the symptoms of deep-rooted power imbalances, structural inequalities or underlying drivers of conflict and climate change”.

There is real concern, for example, about the European Union emergency trust fund for Africa, to which the UK contributes both directly and through our contributions to the EU budget and the European development fund. Care International told us:

“EU Trust Funds…were not established with a vision to reduce poverty or meet humanitarian needs or human rights, but to stem migration flows to the EU.”

Programmes funded by UK aid should surely be driven first and foremost by the objective of protecting people on the ground, many of whom are the most vulnerable people in the world. That should surely be reflected in all our work in this area.

We also heard widespread unease about the human rights implications of some of the UK Government’s work on irregular migration, particularly with regard to Libya and the Khartoum process. The 2017 report of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact cited significant concerns about the potential for the UK’s support to the Libyan coastguard to breach the “do no harm” principle. There are serious concerns that the programmes are returning vulnerable migrants and refugees to Libyan detention centres, where Amnesty International have told us that migrants and refugees are

“routinely exposed to torture, extortion and rape.”

ICAI’s follow-up report said that

“DFID has taken action to strengthen analysis and risk management”,

but noted that

“the cross-government Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) has more to do in this area.”

The UK’s involvement remains a cause for apprehension. As a Committee, we are very worried that policies pursued by some parts of the UK Government risk conflicting with others. There is a pressing need for a more joined-up approach to migration across Government.

We concluded that the Government need to take a comprehensive look at all their policies on migration and displacement. We called for a national strategy to bring much-needed clarity and transparency, to consolidate the work that DFID is doing with that of other Government Departments to identify and resolve areas of conflict, facilitate better cross-Government working and create a coherent narrative that should reflect the UK’s position as a progressive voice in the debate on displacement and migration.

[Dr Drew]

By chance we visited the Khartoum process in Khartoum, and we were struck that it was nothing to do with Sudan, because they were mainly Ethiopians and Eritreans. I was not sure on what basis those people would be persuaded to go back. It would be useful to know the current status of the Khartoum process, given the state Khartoum is in. Is it an extant programme, or has it stopped?

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think the answer is that it is still an ongoing process, but perhaps the Minister can give us a definitive response.

School Funding

Debate between Stephen Twigg and David Drew

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), not least because I was the Minister for Schools when we introduced the London challenge. It is worth reminding the House that, prior to the London challenge, the performance of London schools was below the national average, even though their funding was above the national average—so the improvement was not simply a consequence of the London challenge. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to speak up for rural and coastal schools. The suggestion of a coastal challenge, similar to the London challenge, is welcome and I would be delighted to support it.

Investment in education is crucial for social justice, for tackling inequality and poverty and, of course, for our national economic future. When Labour took office in 1997, UK public spending on education as a proportion of GDP was at its lowest since the early 1960s; we lagged behind many European neighbours and other advanced economies. By 2010 we had overtaken key countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Australia, delivering real change with smaller classes, modern school buildings, higher per pupil funding and a big increase in the numbers of teachers and support staff. Yet since 2010, that progress has been reversed. Education spending as a share of national income has fallen from 5.8% to 4.3%. That is a shocking decline in our national investment in education.

In Liverpool, the council expects 16 schools that are currently in surplus to go into deficit and 24 schools to go further into deficit. Despite the funding challenges that schools across my constituency face, the situation would be much worse if it were not for the pupil premium. The pupil premium was a welcome initiative introduced by the coalition, aimed at improving opportunities for children from the poorest backgrounds. However, headteachers are increasingly saying to me and to other Members, as we have heard today, that they have no alternative but to use pupil premium cash to offset budget cuts elsewhere.

The head of St Margaret’s Anfield Church of England Primary School told me this week:

“without pupil premium I would be unable to deliver an effective curriculum and a safe working environment.”

I am particularly concerned that the children who most need extra support are bearing the brunt of changes. The head of St Paul and St Timothy’s Catholic Infant School told me:

“it is the most vulnerable children in our schools who are suffering the most as a result of this funding crisis.”

I want to echo what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said about high-needs funding. According to analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research, in north-west England, funding per eligible child through the high-needs block has fallen in the last five years by 24%—a quarter of the funding cut. Liverpool forecasts a budget deficit in that block of more than £3 million.

Bank View High School, a great special school in my constituency for students with complex learning difficulties, has seen an increase in its pupil numbers from 160 to 200. Next door is Redbridge High School, which caters for children with severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning disabilities. It has also experienced an increasing number of pupils, yet it does not have the funding to match the demand. The head tells me that, as a result, the school has had to make cuts.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a fundamental point, which I have raised with the Minister on a number of occasions, is that too much of the funding does not reach the schools but gets stuck somewhere on the way? We have to make sure that the funding is in the schools.

[Stephen Twigg]

I absolutely agree.

Despite the challenging environment that Bank View and Redbridge schools face, I am delighted that have they have again been ranked outstanding by Ofsted. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate both schools on that fantastic achievement.

Schools in Liverpool are highly dependent on the minimum funding guarantee, but that has not been confirmed beyond 2020-21. As the Chair of the Education Committee rightly said, schools need long-term certainty. Another headteacher has raised the issue of having to put forward three-year budget plans without confirmation of future funding arrangements due to the delay in the comprehensive spending review. Surely the message of this debate is that education deserves the same kind of long-term planning that we see for our health system.

I thank all the teachers and support staff who work so hard and go above and beyond. The headteacher of Clifford Holroyde School, Jane Pepa, said to me:

“I have spent large amounts of my time seeing how we can do more with less, applying for grants to keep us afloat and even selling Christmas trees to try to generate funding.”

The burden should not be on headteachers such as Jane to do that. As the Government expect more from our schools, they need to back that up with significant increases in funding and resources. We need a serious, long-term settlement for schools funding.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Debate between Stephen Twigg and David Drew

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure and privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) and the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). They make a powerful cross-party team in leading this debate, and in their excellent and ongoing efforts to ensure that the cause of the Rohingya remains firmly on our agenda in the House and the public debate.

The International Development Committee has followed closely the ongoing humanitarian crisis—the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) is our rapporteur on the issue—and over the past year we have published three reports relating to Burma, Bangladesh and the Rohingya. The first report, from January, focused on the issues that both hon. Members spoke about, including the culmination of decades of marginalisation, persecution and abuse that the Rohingya people have faced in Burma.

We then looked more widely at the work of the UK Government in general, and DFID in particular, in Bangladesh and Burma. Like others, the Committee visited the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, and we heard the voices of the Rohingya people and saw the huge challenges of life in the camps for those families. The scale and complexity of this humanitarian crisis is best experienced at first hand if at all possible. We also sought to visit Burma and to ask difficult questions about what is happening, but we were refused visas by the Burmese Government.

In our final report, we joined the call, already set out so eloquently today, on the UK Government to gather support for the UN Security Council to refer Burma to the International Criminal Court and to apply targeted financial sanctions against identifiable key figures with responsibility for what is happening. I am pleased again today to echo those calls for the UK to pursue such an ICC referral, but I will focus my remarks on the other issues raised in the motion, about repatriation and some of the broader humanitarian concerns.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the problem does not relate only to the Rohingya? The Kachin and Shan people have a long history of subjugation by the Burmese authorities. It is an absolute tragedy that the regime picks on those groups without any real comeback from the international community. Does he agree that that is part and parcel of the whole problem in Myanmar?

[Stephen Twigg]

I agree entirely and wholeheartedly; in fact, my hon. Friend has anticipated something I was going to mention later in my speech. A number of highly respected advocacy groups, such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Human Rights Watch, have documented appalling human rights abuses by the Burmese military in both Kachin and Shan states. There is a broader set of questions about the protection of minorities in Burma; the Rohingya example is perhaps the most potent and large-scale, but my hon. Friend is right to remind us of the Kachin and Shan peoples as well.

Let me address the issue of repatriation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow said, last month there was an attempted repatriation of refugees following the announcement by the repatriation joint working group of the Governments of Bangladesh and Burma that repatriation would begin then. When that was announced, many of the refugees fled and hid in the surrounding forest. There was at least one reported suicide—someone so fearful of what returning to Burma would entail that they took their own life. As the buses arrived at the camp in Cox’s Bazar, a number of refugees were offered the opportunity to return. There were anecdotal reports that they were offered food in return for boarding the buses. As my hon. Friend said, no refugee agreed to return, and the buses left the camp empty. That clearly showed the refugees’ fear about any suggestion of returning in the current situation.

Why is there that fear? As Marzuki Darusman, the chair of the UN fact-finding mission, reported in October, and as the hon. Member for St Albans emphasised so powerfully, the genocide against the Rohingya is ongoing in Burma. Why on earth would the Rohingya seek to return? We have a responsibility to hold both the Burmese and Bangladeshi Governments accountable on their stated commitments that repatriation will happen only when it is safe, voluntary and dignified.

I urge the Minister to commit again to ensuring that the important principle of non-refoulement is upheld—that people are not returned against their will and that the Government will continue to speak out clearly and publicly against any refugee returns that are premature, non-voluntary or in any way dangerous. It is pretty clear that the current lack of any sign of political will from the Government of Burma to address the conditions that led to this refugee displacement suggests, sadly, that conditions conducive to return are unlikely for quite some long time.

The protracted nature of the displacement crisis means that we have to think more about the short to medium-term needs of both the refugee community in Bangladesh and the local host Bangladeshi population. We need action to address the barriers to Rohingya self-reliance, including employment and access to services. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow said, nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees are living in Cox’s Bazar, and barely 4% of them have any form of legal status.

We can learn lessons from other protracted displacement crises. The International Development Committee was in east Africa last month, looking at some of the consequences of displacement from South Sudan, Sudan, Congo and Eritrea, and at how in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda there are now sustained attempts to set up programmes that provide hope to not only refugees and internally displaced people but the often very poor local communities. We can learn from that example.

However, the best example that we can learn from is what has been done in Jordan for Syrian refugees. The Jordan compact is an agreement between the Government of Jordan, the World Bank, the European Union and others to support Syrian refugees to access employment. Under the agreement, Jordan reduced its regulatory barriers on refugees’ right to work. Two years on, the compact has led to considerable improvements in labour market access for Syrian refugees and education.

If we fail to provide comparable opportunities in Bangladesh, for both the Rohingya and the often very poor local Bangladeshi population, we know what the risks are. We are aware of the boredom that comes from living in a refugee camp and what relying on humanitarian assistance does for the dignity and sense of self-worth of refugees and their families. Policy changes are needed to create opportunities for the Rohingya to enjoy wellbeing and self-sufficiency so that they do not have to rely so much on aid in future and can maximise their own potential.

As has rightly been said, the Bangladeshi people and their Government deserve praise for welcoming about 1 million Rohingya refugees. We pay tribute to them and rightly congratulate our own Government on DFID’s substantial contribution to the humanitarian effort in both Bangladesh and Burma. We must not lose sight of the global responsibility that Bangladesh has taken on. We now need to address some of the long-term issues. Will the Minister set out how the Government will mobilise the other donors, the United Nations and partners to build support for the long-term measures that I have talked about—in particular, the idea of a jobs compact? As the hon. Member for St Albans reminded us, the Bangladeshi people will vote in their general election later this month. What discussions have the Government had with the Opposition parties in Bangladesh? It is important that there is continued support for the Rohingya whichever party or alliance of parties forms the next Bangladeshi Government.

I turn to education. We know from other protracted crises, particularly those involving large refugee flows, that education has often not been given the priority that it deserves. There is a real risk of a lost generation of refugee children. I urge the Government, and DFID in particular, to give much higher priority to education in our aid for the Rohingya. In July, Save the Children reported that more than 70% of Rohingya children in the camps were not in school. They are being deprived of the chance of a proper education. UNICEF has warned that children living in refugee camps face a bleak future:

“If we don’t make the investment in education now, we face the very real danger of seeing a ‘lost generation’ of Rohingya”.

One of the central aims of the UN’s global goals is to “leave no one behind”; a substantial increase in finance for, access to and quality of education in Cox’s Bazar is required to achieve that for Rohingya children. As both my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow and the hon. Member for St Albans said so powerfully, humanitarian finance suffers from being short-term and unpredictable. The underfunding in this case is in line with pretty much all the funds for comparable humanitarian crises around the world. If education provision does not get priority and is ignored, the future of the children caught up in these crises through no fault of their own is at great risk.

In our report last year on education, the IDC recommended that the Government should establish a long-term strategy for education in emergencies. The reality is that, tragically, larger numbers of children are now living in these emergency situations—refugee crises often caused by conflict, ethnic cleansing and genocide and sometimes by climate change. The mechanisms to ensure that they get the education they deserve need to be in place; that is not happening at the moment. Support for programmes such as education cannot wait. That is now working, which is very welcome, but we need more of it.

We also need practical steps to minimise some of the risks that Rohingya people face in their day-to-day lives—basic but important things such as the quality of lighting, the lack of privacy in toilets and bathroom facilities and the absence of security for women and girls who have to leave the camps for whatever reason. All of that has come together to create, as the hon. Member for St Albans said, an environment that is incredibly unsafe, particularly for women and children, who form at least 70% of the Rohingya refugee population. Many arrived in Bangladesh having reported alarming gender-based violence by the Burmese military. Now that they are in Bangladesh, supposedly in safety, they still face enormous risks, with numerous examples of incidents of gender-based violence in the camps.

The International Rescue Committee says that despite that, there remains a significant gap in services that are targeted particularly at women and girls. I join the IRC in urging our Government to work with the Government of Bangladesh and other donors to secure a significant increase in support for programmes that relate specifically to the needs of women and girls, and especially to those of either sex who face gender-based sexual violence.

Finally, more needs to be done to ensure that we are ready for the monsoon season. When we visited in February, we heard a lot of concern about the 2018 monsoon season, and how ready the camp and its administration was for heavy rainfall. The Select Committee warned, in its second report, that without decisions and actions being taken very quickly, for example to enable relocation to begin and to facilitate other mitigations, people were going to die. When the downpours finally came, they did bring a lot of misery for the Rohingya—thousands of shelters and other structures collapsed, hundreds were injured and, tragically, some did die. However, the impact of the monsoon in 2018 was actually not as bad as our worst fears. I hope the Minister can perhaps say something about the Government’s analysis of why that was the case. Was it that we were better prepared and lessons had been learned, or were we more fortunate with the scale of the weather conditions, meaning that we could possibly face much bigger challenges in 2019? Decisions and actions need to be taken more quickly to mitigate the impact of landslides and floods that could come with the forthcoming monsoon season. In particular, there is the challenge of ensuring there is enough suitable land to enable the immediate relocation of the most exposed and vulnerable refugees, so that that can be done effectively and efficiently.

Let us remember that we face huge immediate humanitarian challenges on shelter, water, food, security, health and education if we are to provide at least some dignity and hope. We know that this is a protracted crisis. It is incumbent on the international community to work together to address it. There are three big challenges. I have chosen to focus, in my remarks, on investment in humanitarian and development support, and the crucial significance of staying for the long term. Alongside that, we must address the key challenges of politics and justice that my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow and the hon. Member for St Albans set out so powerfully.

In the end, we all have a responsibility to protect the refugees and to invest in humanitarian support and long-term development aid, but they have a right to go home, and that is what they want. That will happen only when there is true justice and when the Government of Burma—and, frankly, the people of Burma—address the need to make fundamental changes to their own laws and attitudes to the Rohingya, so that we can have in Burma a country that truly respects and protects the rights of all its people. That feels like a distant hope at the moment, but this debate at least gives us an opportunity, on a cross-party basis, to send a clear message that we will not forget the minorities of Burma. In this debate in particular, we continue to stand in solidarity with the Rohingya people.