Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

rose—

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Goodwill]

I should like to make a bit of progress on section 67, which has been raised in the debate.

I am pleased to update the House today by announcing that the Home Secretary will be writing to her counterparts in France, Greece and Italy to ask for referrals of eligible children to the specified number of 350. The basis on which these transfers will be made will be published in due course. The Government have always been clear that we do not want to incentivise perilous journeys to Europe, particularly by the most vulnerable children. It is not and has never been the case, as has been suggested, that the Government would accept 3,000 children from Europe under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016—

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[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is right that the money follows the child, as I understand it. There is money there. As Members of Parliament, we know that local authorities are under financial pressure, but a significant amount of money follows each child, so local authorities should have the resources.

It would be helpful if the Government published the number of children that each local authority has already agreed to accept so that Members of Parliament, local communities, non-governmental organisations and charities can work with those authorities to welcome the children and ascertain whether the number of places can be increased.

I urge the Minister to use Members of Parliament who have an interest in this issue. From my time in government I know that officials are sometimes reluctant to involve constituency MPs, but we are able to ask questions of local councillors and local authorities. The Minister is not listening at the moment—perhaps he will read the transcript instead—but I urge him to use Members of Parliament to interrogate their local authorities on what capacity they have offered, whether they can offer more and what more we can do to get messages back to the Home Office if there are queries, questions and a reluctance on the part of local authorities to get involved in schemes.

I pay tribute to the charity Baca in my constituency, which has long worked with unaccompanied child asylum seekers and refugees. I hope its expertise—I am sure there are many other charities like it across the country—is being used, but I fear that that is not the case. Again, it is up to Ministers to challenge the Department to use their expertise and let them respond to this crisis and need.

Other hon. Members have mentioned that there are individuals in their constituencies who have wanted to step forward to help. What is being done to make use of their desire to help?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I want to again raise the issue of money following the placement. The evidence in the briefing from the Local Government Association suggests that the amount of money that follows a child is actually about 50%, so it is not true to say that councils are fully reimbursed for the investment they make.

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not think I said that councils are fully reimbursed, but money does follow the child. I have had some pretty strenuous arguments with local authorities, both as a local MP and as a Minister, and sometimes the interpretation of whether there is sufficient money can be at variance. But let us have that debate. Let us work out what the numbers should be. Let us not just accept it when local authorities say they do not have the capacity, ability or money to deal with the situation.

In the time available I want to move on to what we can do to help Greece and Italy deal with the issue of unaccompanied children who are on their shores. There is more that we can do, or the Government can do, to fulfil the spirit and letter of the Dubs amendment. We need to work with the authorities in Greece and Italy to set out clearly the Dubs scheme, the criteria and the numbers that need to be clarified, so that the authorities in those countries know exactly what the UK is able to offer, and the expertise and the people we have on the ground.

There is a danger in this debate—I think the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) talked about this—of talking about numbers rather than people. We are talking about young people who have their futures ahead of them. Another hon. Member talked about this being a smaller world, which we know is a challenge for many of our constituents. But people and stories are at the heart of this debate.

I want to make two more points. First, UNICEF contacted me today to give the example of Aamir, a 16-year-old Afghan child with a degenerative bone condition, who could be eligible for the Dubs scheme. Doctors in Greece advise that he needs urgent surgery. However, the necessary treatment cannot be given in Greece until he has finished growing. He needs specialist treatment with a paediatric doctor here in the UK. This highlights the spirit of the Dubs amendment: helping extremely vulnerable unaccompanied children who are forced to live alone in camps and in terrible conditions as they have been forced from their home. Aamir is now living in a UNICEF-supported shelter in Athens, and UNICEF is working with him on his application. He was forced to flee his home in Afghanistan when his parents, members of the Hazara ethnic group, were killed by the Taliban. He fled with his grandmother, who passed away on the journey.

Secondly, I am going to disagree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon just on this point: I think there is scope in this debate to think about our moral obligations and our compassion. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire said she hoped that the situation these children are fleeing from never arises here. Of course we hope that, but it could. As a parent, I know that if my son needed refuge I would want to know that the world was offering him safety. That is what this debate is about.

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[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, I shall keep my speech to only an hour—no, I appreciate the guidance, and I appreciate you not imposing a time limit.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this important debate and the tone in which she moved it. I also congratulate the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), on talking in particular about trafficking, which is the area I probably have the most expertise in and would like to touch on, perhaps at a different angle.

There was some comment earlier about not enough money being given to councils for unaccompanied children. I think the figures for this year are that £41,610 is given from central Government to local government for an unaccompanied child, which is an increase of 20% or 30% in the past year, so I do not think it is fair to say that the problem—if there is a problem—relates to money.

May I say at the outset that I do not in any way suggest that anybody who does not agree with my views does not care for the children? I have, however, been looking at the problem of vulnerable children who have been trafficked since 2005, and when we had Anthony Steen in this House, he used to talk endlessly about human trafficking when nobody would even accept that it existed. I had the great honour to follow him as chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking and modern slavery in 2005.

We lagged behind in dealing with human trafficking until the coalition Government came to power, and I give great credit to the previous Prime Minister in this regard. One of his greatest legacies was what he did on human trafficking. He set up the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and we now have an independent commissioner to challenge what the Government do in this area. I have to say that the then Home Secretary used to annoy me enormously because she would not get on and do what we wanted, but in fact she checked it all out. She worked it all out and then she did it to the letter. Now, as Prime Minister, she seems to be doing that in another field in which I would like her to press on.

This is an exceptionally complicated issue. Human traffickers are the most evil people in the world. They do not care for one minute about vulnerable children. They do not care about human life. They are quite happy to cut the finger off a child whose relative—the older child or the mother—is in this country being trafficked. They have no hesitation in executing victims in front of others, to terrify them. They are gun runners and drug peddlers, but they have worked out that they can earn far more from human trafficking.

I have always taken the view that the best way to deal with this is to stop the trafficking, rather than by looking after the victims afterwards, and we have worked across Europe to do that. I have travelled throughout Europe and to other parts of the world to discover the best ways to deal with the problem. One of the countries that led on tackling human trafficking before we did was Italy. We have to ask ourselves how we can stop the traffickers. They operate only because there is a demand.

The previous Prime Minister was absolutely right to say that we should look after vulnerable people close to the region they come from. I think that, for every 3,000 unaccompanied children we look after here, we could look after 800,000 in the region for the same cost. We have to worry about the numbers; that is incredible. If we look after them in the region, there is no need for them to be trafficked. There is an argument about whether there is a safe route. Yes, there is. We are taking 20,000 or more from the region, and that is the way to do it.

I can understand people’s feelings about unaccompanied children in Europe, but they are in safe countries. Greece, Italy and France are completely safe—

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bone]

I am sorry, but Mr Speaker has asked us to be brief. This is an issue that we should be able to debate all day. I was making the point that that is where the help should be. We are putting money in, and other European countries should be doing the same. We should have first-class facilities in Italy and Greece. They know how to do this in Italy, because they have done it already.

I could go on, but I shall conclude by saying that there is one area that worries me enormously. The Minister mentioned it in his opening remarks. We bring certain children over here, thinking that they have a relative here. The children go to those people but they are not relatives; they are part of the trafficking gangs. The children then go into prostitution or servitude. We have to deal with that. I ask the Minister to go away and find out how many of the children we have admitted are still safe. Let us find out that figure before we bang on about bringing more children in.

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[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Like other hon. Members, I genuinely welcome, yet again, all the good work that the Government have done, and continue to do, on resettlement and aid. However, the winding down of the Dubs scheme is a deeply misguided decision. It flies so far in the face of the evidence we have heard that it is a scandalous decision. I therefore warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this timely debate and giving us this opportunity to hold the Government to account. We have heard many fine speeches today.

If anyone wants to understand why this is such a deeply misguided and scandalous decision, I urge them to read the transcript of the utterly compelling evidence that the Home Affairs Committee heard yesterday from UNICEF, Safe Passage, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee, the Children’s Society, representatives of local government, and Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner. In the words of Tam Baillie, the last of those witnesses, the limit placed on the number of Dubs transfers is

“a shameful step back from an already weak UK response to the plight of migrant children stranded in Europe.”

I distinguish the situation as regards Europe from the help that the Government have provided in the region. SNP Members agree with the Children’s Commissioner. We need not only Dubs reinstated and expanded, but far stronger and faster procedures for Dublin transfers, and better and more generous family reunion and processes. One person in each of Greece and Italy transferring seven or eight people each year is not remotely in the ballpark of what this Parliament expected. All that is reflected in this motion, which we therefore wholeheartedly support. In short, the evidence of the witnesses we heard yesterday was that the Dubs scheme is a modest scheme. It is modest, but it is a very significant and, indeed, unique contribution to dealing with the migration crisis facing Europe, and completely and absolutely the right thing to do.

It is worth reiterating why this is such a precious prize. As we have heard, conditions for too many of the more than 90,000—probably over 100,000—unaccompanied child refugees in Europe are appalling. Of those in Greece—2,300 or so—more than half are living in tents with no heating, exposed to freezing conditions, lack of hot water, inadequate medical care, violence and mistreatment. Dubs, alongside other schemes, can help to stop that happening, ensuring that we are making our fair contribution towards this effort. That is the prize we are pushing for. If we are not going to do this, how can we say that any other country should step up to the plate and take its share of responsibility?

Most impressively, the witnesses yesterday utterly dismantled the two very tenuous reasons given by the Government for phasing this scheme out. First, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) said, it is wrong of the Home Secretary to argue that the pull factor caused by the Dubs scheme plays into the hands of people traffickers. In fact, the opposite is the case—ending Dubs would be an absolute boon for people traffickers. That was the expert opinion of UNICEF, Safe Passage, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee. As we heard earlier, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner has published a report on similar lines. That prompts the question of whether the Government took advice from their own independent expert before reaching this decision, because based on what we understand he has put out this afternoon and the letter referred to by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), he would give the Government absolutely contrary advice to what they have decided to do.

The second argument made by the Government for closing the Dubs scheme is about local government capacity. The witnesses yesterday were absolutely clear that it is not fair for the Immigration Minister to argue that local authorities have the capacity for 400 and that is the end of the story. On the contrary, there can be significantly more capacity. We were reminded that even if we just looked at the Government’s own 0.07% target for the national transfer scheme, that would leave capacity for 4,000 under Dubs. In a sense, however, talking about existing capacity misses the point, because as Tam Baillie, the Children’s Commissioner, pointed out, the question we should be asking is what additional capacity we can create. What investment and time are needed in order to ensure that we are in a position to take our fair share? The right question is not, “How much can we comfortably handle just now?”, but “How much do we need to do—how much do we need to invest—if we are to do our fair share?”

The 3,000 in the original Dubs amendment was not a number plucked out of thin air; it was a careful calculation by Save the Children, using the EU relocation formula, to decide what our fair share of the estimated number of children in Europe at that time would be. Of course, the number of children in Europe is now roughly three times that, so even if we stuck to the original 3,000 it is still a very modest contribution that probably underestimates the number of children we would rightly be expected to take. Instead of dodging our responsibilities, we need more than ever to live up to them.

As we heard earlier, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said that Scotland is ready to play its part, and next week she will host another roundtable on how to respond to the situation for unaccompanied children. As we heard yesterday, local government across England and Wales is absolutely prepared to get involved.

Based on yesterday’s Home Affairs Committee sitting and on briefings from other respected organisations, such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross, there is an abundance of expertise, ideas and detailed proposals not only about how we could continue Dubs alongside Dublin, but how we could expand it and make it work better and faster in France, Italy and Greece, Bulgaria and even the Balkans, where such schemes are desperately needed. The Government should be working with non-governmental organisations, local government and other public bodies that are prepared to make that happen.

The Government, as reflected in the motion, have a strong track record on international aid to the countries around Syria. I have always praised that when debating these issues, but it is not some sort of down payment that allows us to wash our hands of responsibility for hosting a share of the refugees. All the work undertaken by the Department for International Development risks being gravely overshadowed in the years ahead by the intransigence of the Home Office.

Hypothetically speaking, if 100,000 children arrived in the United Kingdom and travelled down the Thames, I think the Home Office would take a very different approach. It would not say, “Yes, we will deal with the 100,000 and take some aid from Europe.” It would expect other European countries to step up to the plate. We should take the same approach.

The Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister rightly received credit for their action in respect of Calais —action that their predecessors had dodged for too long, which meant that ultimately the process was unnecessarily messy. That action showed that, with investment, co-operation and political will, significant progress can be achieved and lives can be changed. They should stick to those instincts, revisit the consultation with local authorities, abandon the myths and make policy based on evidence. They should reinstate and expand the Dubs scheme, take out the restrictive nationality and age criteria from the guidance, and improve the Dublin and family reunion processes. Doing so would show respect for this Parliament, command respect from the public, show solidarity with our European neighbours and, most importantly, save children from exploitation and abuse.