Unaccompanied Child Refugees
Baroness Debbonaire Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Amber Rudd
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the Dublin arrangements. Until we had an accelerated process and really leant in to identify children who qualified under the Dublin arrangements into Calais, it was not really working. The numbers of children being transferred under Dublin previously were small. We managed to transfer nearly 600 under Dublin last year, and I now feel that the Home Office and associated organisations that help us to deliver on Dublin have learnt how to make sure that it operates better in the future. I am confident that those numbers will improve going forward.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
A two-tier—in fact, multi-tier—system in response to refugees and asylum seekers is emerging, with incomprehensible contradictions and many vulnerabilities, especially for children. To live up to our well-deserved reputation, which we should be proud of as a nation, among those fleeing war and persecution, who see us as a place of safe haven, and to do our best for a fair share of the thousands who are arriving in Europe—desperate, but with huge potential to offer this country—will the Home Secretary commit to appointing a Minister for refugees and integration?
Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. Lady for her recommendation. I have a substantial ministerial team and an excellent Minister for Immigration. I do not see the need at the moment for additional Ministers, but of course I will keep that under review.
Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill
Baroness Debbonaire ExcerptsFriday 16th December 2016
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Act 2017 View all Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Philip Davies
I am sure the Minister will get the chance to do so.
It is worth noting that the Equality and Human Rights Commission acknowledges in its briefing that
“most of the Istanbul Convention obligations are implemented through UK legislation”,
and recent steps have been taken on many areas. For example, a prohibition on possession of rape pornography was introduced by section 37 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. This applies in England and Wales, and brings the offence of possession of extreme pornographic images more in line with that applicable in Scotland. A new offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in intimate or familial relationships was introduced by section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. An offence of forced marriage is now provided for in sections 121 and 122 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 was amended by section 73 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 to include FGM protection orders, civil measures that can be applied for through a family court which provide a means of protecting actual or potential victims of FGM.
An email I received from the Muslim Council of Britain in support of the Bill quoted the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon:
“Violence against women continues to persist as one of the most heinous, systematic and prevalent human rights abuses in the world. It is a threat to all women, and an obstacle to all our efforts for development, peace, and gender equality in all societies… Let us take this issue with the deadly seriousness that it deserves”.
I do not understand how violence against women can be an obstacle to gender equality—I sometimes think I must be speaking in Swahili—because this would mean that all violence against women is committed by men, and as I have already said, that is patently not the case. Perhaps someone can explain to me how violence by women on women can be an obstacle to gender equality? In relation to making the Istanbul convention law, the Muslim Council of Britain goes on:
“This is indeed a unique opportunity in the UK so that we can show our support to women and girls who should be living free from any form of violence, and the fear of it.”
I agree with the sentiment, but I would agree more if it talked about everyone, not just women and girls.
The Fawcett Society has said:
“This new landmark treaty of the Council of Europe opens the path for creating a legal framework at pan-European level to protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence. It also establishes a monitoring body to evaluate implementation and progress.”
There will be more meddling from afar if we ratify this convention.
The Council of Europe provides details of the monitoring mechanisms that must be put in place if we ratify the convention. It says that there would be
“an independent expert body, the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), which is initially composed of 10 members and will subsequently be enlarged to 15 members following the 25th ratification”,
and
“a political body, the Committee of the Parties, which is composed of representatives of the Parties to the Istanbul Convention. The task of GREVIO is to monitor the implementation of the Convention by the Parties.”
We will not do that in our own country; we will have an international body interfering and telling us how we are doing.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
That is 78 minutes that I will never get back.
Thangam Debbonaire
I have read the convention and I have spent 26 years working on violence against women and domestic violence, including working with male victims of domestic violence. I will start my very brief speech by answering some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
If the hon. Gentleman refers to what he said in his own speech and to the British crime survey statistics, he will know that the overwhelming majority of victims of sexual assault, rape, chronic ongoing domestic abuse, severe domestic abuse causing injury, coercive control and domestic homicide are female, and that that is specifically connected both to their gender and to gender inequality. Violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality. That is why we have a gender-specific convention.
If we want to tackle gender inequality—and I do—we have to tackle the specific circumstances, belief systems, structures and behaviours behind violence against women. Hence the need for the convention. The hon. Gentleman asks for neutral legislation. I say to him: when you remain neutral in a situation of profound inequality, you are only siding with the powerful against the powerless.
The hon. Gentleman asked why there are so few purpose-built refuges for men. I can tell him exactly why there are so many refuges for women because I have been part of that movement for 26 years. Women set up refuges for women. There was never anything stopping men setting up refuges for men, but I know why they have not set up many. For 10 years, I worked for Respect, which among other things runs the men’s advice line—the national helpline for male victims of domestic violence. I was the research manager there, so I know a thing or two. I can tell him that many men called the men’s advice line each year, but refuge was very rarely what they wanted. They wanted a listening ear, practical advice and legal information, and that is what they got.
I was going to speak extensively about the work with perpetrators that I have been involved in for about 10 years, but I have crossed out much of my speech because I do not want to filibuster so that the Bill runs out of time. Instead, I will quote briefly from research that I helped set up while I was the research manager at Respect, the national organisation for work with perpetrators of domestic violence and male victims. It is called the Mirabal research and people can look it up on the Respect website.
The research was carried out by Professor Liz Kelly and Professor Nicole Westmarland, who were profoundly sceptical about the value of perpetrator programmes when they started. However, they found that most men who completed a Respect-accredited domestic violence perpetrator programme—and yes, we only examined men in this research programme, but that does not mean that there are not female perpetrators; it just means we were looking specifically at men in this research—stop using violence and reduce the instance of most other forms of abuse against their partner. At the start, almost all the women said that their partners had used some form of physical or sexual violence in the past three months. Twelve months later, the research team found that after their partner or ex-partner had completed the programme, most women said that the physical and sexual violence had stopped—most, but not all.
Programmes do not replace the criminal justice system or civil justice system—they are a complement to it—but they are part of the solution. If we are going to put men in prison, which the hon. Member for Shipley has called for, we still need to know what we are going to do with them. They will still have relationships with their children whether they are inside prison or outside. Most of them will come out one day, and when they do they will have new partners. Why not work out how we can work with these men, many of whom say they would like to change—and some of whom do not—and whose partners often say that what they really want is for their partner to change? Most of the partners and ex-partners of men on the programmes in the research said that they felt or were safer after their partner or ex-partner completed the programme.
I have scrubbed out more of my speech—Members can look up the research online if they want to know the detail. I will give a couple of examples before sitting down and allowing the Minister to make his remarks, which I hope will be helpful in concluding this stage of the Bill’s passage. As a facilitator at the Domestic Violence Intervention Programme I found many ways in which women became safer. One was when their partner changed their attitude and behaviour and stopped using violence. We knew that because we had a separate but linked women’s partner support project that told us whether the women felt or were safer.
The programme helped some women to be safe because they themselves, for the first time, were able to get help, advice and a way of moving attention away from them as responsible for the violence and allowing them to end the relationship safely. I remember one women in particular. I never met her. She had a newborn baby. I was working with her partner in the men’s programme. She was living under such extreme control that the only time she was free and safe to talk to the women’s support worker was when we, the men’s facilitators, had her partner in the room with us. Over several weeks, she was able to gain confidence and develop a safe plan for leaving; meanwhile, in the room with us, her partner—an arrogant man with a huge sense of entitlement—through talking a lot about his behaviour gradually revealed more and more about it, until we had enough information to report him to the authorities. They took action.
In some cases, the women and children were safer because we were able to find out more about the perpetrator’s risk to other people through the individual assessment and group work that contributed to the co-ordinated community response. For instance, one man had to put himself in the role of his own child while other men in the room re-enacted, with the facilitators, a violent incident he had committed; after that, he completely withdrew his application for child contact and sent a message to his ex-partner via her solicitor saying that he realised how frightened she and their child must be, and that he would wait until she decided the time was right and safe.
Above all, we, the group-work facilitators, modelled how a relationship between a man and a woman based on equality actually works. For many of the men we worked with, that was the first time they had ever seen that. We modelled disagreements in which we disagreed but dealt with it respectfully. As the only woman in the room, I was often the person whom the men in the room had to use to learn to manage how to disagree with a woman without being abusive, controlling or domineering, or trying to have the last word.
I know many people, particularly from women’s groups, who were rightly concerned about or even very suspicious of perpetrator programmes when they started. Some still are. That is why a good accreditation system is so important. I declare an interest: when I worked for Respect I helped develop that accreditation system. I am very proud of it, because it differentiates between programmes doing good work to challenge men, and women, who are perpetrators of domestic violence and those programmes that are not effective.
Ratifying the Istanbul convention would place requirements on the UK Government to take the steps that the convention contains. It would be a statement of commitment. In so many ways, we as a nation are ahead of the rest of the world. We have led the way in setting up refuges, developing perpetrator programmes in Scotland—where so many of my colleagues in the Change project and the Midlothian programme, subsequently the Caledonian system, work—and in England and Wales, with the DVIP and the rest. We have set up pioneering work to challenge men whose behaviour is violent and abusive. We have set up prevention work with young people in schools, something else I was involved in before becoming an MP. We have developed risk assessment and risk management.
We have nothing to fear from adopting the Istanbul convention, and neither does the hon. Member for Shipley. It does not preclude our helping men and boys, and nor should it. It merely does what it says: it acknowledges that we live in a situation of profound gender inequality, which is both cause and consequence of violence against women and girls. It is about time we ratified the convention. The safety of women and children is too important not to.
UN International Day: Violence against Women
Baroness Debbonaire Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I first want to pay a massive tribute to Members who have told their own personal stories today. For so many people, the victims of domestic and sexual violence look like somebody else—they look like the “other” when in fact they are all of us, and it is incredibly powerful to show that. In fact, they are everybody. They are living on our streets. We are sitting next to them at work. We are talking to them on the school run. They are everywhere. I pay a huge tribute to those who have done that today. The memorable women in here will certainly resonate with people out there.
Last week, I dealt with a very upset mother on the phone. Her daughter had, while at school, had to deal with two boys in a dinner queue throwing insults at each other about how they had had sex with her. These children were nine years old. When the mother spoke to her daughter about the incident, the little girl said she felt ashamed. She thought she had done something wrong and that was why the boys were saying this about her. And so begins the life of another young girl who thinks she is to blame for the misogyny she faces, and will probably face for the rest of her life.
That is the example I heard last week. During the inquiry into sexual harassment in schools undertaken by the Women and Equalities Committee, we heard a huge amount of similar evidence. It felt like lifting up a huge rock on a problem that has existed for too long, and is holding back both young girls and young boys. In my time working with local schools in partnership with Women’s Aid, I heard hundreds of stories of girls who were harassed, assaulted, raped and sexually exploited—all before they were 16. I would hazard a guess—I think the debate has shown this—that every woman in this building has a tale to tell about being a teenager and having boys or men groping them, trying to lift up their skirts, talking about have sex with them and scaring them.
When I told my 11-year-old son, who has just started secondary school, about what had happened to the little girl, he shrugged and said, “I hear that stuff all the time, mom.” When I look at the Government’s response to the Select Committee’s report, I am left exasperated. As a parent, I am worried. Should I sit with my son and the little girl in question and say, “Don’t worry, there is cross-Government support for prioritising work to make significant progress in this area”? I am sure their shame will not be at all reduced.
Just after I was elected, I went to speak at a conference in Birmingham on tackling violence against women and girls—I am sure that’s a surprise to everyone! The room was filled with police officers, children’s social workers, housing managers, doctors, nurses, teachers and charities—all specialists in their field. I asked them to raise their hands if they thought that the single biggest change in the prevention of violence and abuse of young women was to make sex and relationship and consent education mandatory in our schools. Every single person raised their hand.
Year after year, this House has been given a chance to pass this much needed law. Obviously, the Government were a little ahead of their time in refusing to listen to the experts, because every time the proposal has been before the House, this House has failed to pass it. I want to know why. I want the Minister, who I know cares deeply about this, to put down the red folders, throw away her notes, throw caution to the wind—I’ve made a career out of it—and tell me honestly why this is. In the days of David Cameron, we were always led to believe, by whispers, that someone at No. 10 was stopping it. We in the preventing violence against women and girls sector were constantly assured by people in the Home Office that the then Home Secretary agreed with us. Well, she is in No. 10 now, and still some sort of conservatism with a small “c” stands in the way of what over 90% of parents want for their children and what 100% of experts know would make the difference.
I do not want to hear “We are looking into this”, “We support the calls” and “We are taking firm action.” I do not want to be pointed to another strategy document that proves nothing more than our ability to write strategy documents. I have been hearing it for years, and now I want a real answer as to why this law has not been passed. I know it has support across this House and in every party. We must act and start having open conversations with our children about gendered attitudes that lead to the harassment of girls and young women, and the demonisation of boys and young men.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech and of course I agree with every word. Like her, before becoming an MP I spent my life in the domestic and sexual violence world. Does she agree that we really need proper, high-quality and well integrated perpetrator programmes, as well as sex and relationships education? The one does prevention and the other tries to make things better when things do not work out, but they must be of a high standard. Will she join me in calling for the Istanbul convention to be ratified by this country, and for all Members to be in the House a week tomorrow to do that?
Jess Phillips
I thank my hon. Friend and of course I agree with every word. It is very important to stress that the Select Committee heard amazing evidence from some brilliant organisations working specifically with men and boys in this space. They showed how much could be done. If we do not focus on the attitudes of men who commit violence, and on boys who will become those men who commit violence, we will be letting the side down. I stress that I have seen bad practice in this space of work with perpetrators. Local commissioning must be done by experts in the field, and the organisation my hon. Friend worked for is exactly that.
We are here to speak about the elimination of violence, not cleaning up afterwards. Every year, I stand and read the names of women murdered at the hands of violent men. It is only through prevention and culture change that each and every year that list will grow shorter. Ministers have the power to reduce that list, and I will sing their praises if they do. Talking to our children about consent, gendered attitudes and respect is the very best place to start.
Refugee Family Reunion (Immigration Rules)
Baroness Debbonaire Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered immigration rules for refugee family reunion.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. The world is facing the greatest refugee crisis since the end of world war two. According to statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which I checked today, an unprecedented 65.3 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide for various reasons including famine, war, poverty, climate change and internal repression. That total roughly equals this country’s entire population. Of those 65.3 million people, 21.3 million are classed by the UNHCR as refugees.
An International Rescue Committee report published in March described the rapid acceleration of the problem. In 2010, 10,000 people a day were displaced from their homes, and by 2014 that number had quadrupled. Again, that comes from UNHCR statistics. It is slightly less than that now, but still very high.
The UK has legal obligations to refugees under international law. There is a rigorous process of assessment before someone is granted refugee status, and only then are they allowed to apply for work and look for somewhere to live. The refugees I have met have all been determined to do everything they can to contribute to the UK. They have also been determined to be reunited with their families.
I am the chair of the all-party group on refugees, and I have initiated a public inquiry entitled “Refugees Welcome?”, which has just completed four oral evidence sessions. We have received hundreds of pieces of written evidence and will be visiting Bristol and Nottingham later this month to see for ourselves how refugees who have been granted status in this country are treated. The refugees we heard from in person gave powerful testimony about their difficult journeys, their painful experiences in their countries of origin, and their desire to contribute to and be part of this country, which has welcomed them. They also spoke about periods of destitution and poverty after being granted status. That subject will be dealt with in our report. Pertinent to this debate, they spoke of their natural desire to be reunited with their family as soon as possible.
This is a highly gendered issue. Women and children are far more likely to have been left behind than men. Their only hope of escape is to wait for a male family member to reach a country of sanctuary and then apply for reunion. Recent research by the Red Cross shows that 95% of applicants waiting to join family members in the UK through refugee family reunion are women and children. It also found that the process was not safe.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
I understand that, under the current rules, if the child turns 18 before the refugee status of the family member in the UK is confirmed, they are no longer eligible for family reunion. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a problem, and that the Government should look at changing the rules so the age of the child is considered when the Home Office procedure begins?
Thangam Debbonaire
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will come on to that issue. I completely agree that it is unjust and leaves many vulnerable young people in danger and alone.
Fifty-one per cent. of the families Red Cross helped in 2014 were at risk of violence, torture or harassment during the process of applying for family reunion, so the process is not safe. The British Red Cross also told me that, to date in 2016, it has supported the travel of 1,551 people accepted by the Home Office under refugee family reunion, 580 of whom were from Syria. As of the beginning of September, 767 children granted family reunion visas had arrived in the UK after assistance from the British Red Cross, 280 of whom were from Syria. Those are hardly huge numbers. In its 2015 research, “Not So Straightforward”, the British Red Cross found that the current UK policy for refugee family union is not simple, not affordable and not safe.
The system is failing many women and children. Women for Refugee Women, which is represented here today, told me that it knows of many women in the UK who have had to flee from danger without their children and then struggled to bring their children to join them, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said. The problems include, first, delays from the Home Office. If a woman has waited many years in the asylum process, her children back home may be older than 18 by the time she has been granted status, so they are not allowed the automatic right to join her.
Secondly, there are the costs of accessing family reunion rights. I hope the Minister will address both those issues. For instance, a woman whom Women for Refugee Women knows well, and whom I am going to meet later today—she has given me permission to describe her story—entered the UK in 2007 after being imprisoned in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a human rights activist. She left behind her children, aged 12, 15 and 17. It was three and a half years before she was called for her first asylum interview, and she was not granted status until 2013. By then, her children, still vulnerable, were 23, 21 and 18, and were therefore refused the right to join her. She is still struggling to find a legal route to be reunited with them. She has already spent £600 per child on the first application and has been told that she needs to spend still more for the appeal. As can be imagined, those sums are an incredible burden for a refugee woman who can access only very low-paid jobs due to her interrupted employment history.
This afternoon, at a City of Sanctuary event that I hosted, I met two brothers. Both were Syrian. One was granted status quickly, but the other was still in the process after being in detention. Their parents are still in Syria. They cannot come on the resettlement scheme or on family reunion, even though the first brother now has a full-time job and has said he is willing and able to support them.
I want to talk about expanding the scope of refugee family reunion rules to protect children and bring families together. The UK, unlike most European Union states, does not allow children to bring family members to join them here. Under the Dublin regulation—EU regulation 604/2013—they can be transferred to another EU member state if they have a relative living there, but that just moves children around the EU and places more burdens on the states that receive the most refugees. It does not allow children already here and granted status to bring their parents here.
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
May I point out that the Dublin process is a two-way process, and that we are taking children who have family here from elsewhere in the European Union? We have resettled a number of children this year, and the process is gathering pace.
Thangam Debbonaire
I acknowledge that it is a two-way process. That is important, but there is a lot more we can do.
Someone fleeing war, torture or conflict may have lost relatives or been separated from parents or children. They may have been cared for by an aunt or an older sibling. They may have a wider idea of family than the nuclear family of western social policy. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West said, their children may have reached 18 by the time their status is confirmed, but they may still need protection or be dependent. If refugee family reunion rules in the UK are to ensure the security of refugees’ family members and family unity, they must address relationships of dependence beyond those currently permitted.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case. The reason why people run needs to be at the heart of how we do our refugee policy. Nobody decides to leave their family lightly. We need to counter the idea that one member of a family is at risk but another is not to understand how to have a dignified and humane approach to refugees.
Thangam Debbonaire
I agree. I find it difficult to understand why a child who has come from a place that is deemed unsafe for them to go back to cannot simply bring their parents here.
In July, the Home Office published updated guidance on refugee family reunion, which set out details of types of cases where exceptional circumstances may apply—for example, in the case of dependent children over the age of 18. It is important that there are exceptional circumstances, and it is a welcome sign that the Government recognise the importance of family reunion, but it is not enough. People are usually granted leave to remain in exceptional circumstances for only 33 months, and they may be subject to other restrictions to which those granted refugee status are not subject. Those restrictions are left to the discretion of Home Office officials, which does not give them the certainty that a change in the rules would provide.
The Home Affairs Committee, in HC 151, its sixth report of this parliamentary Session, reviewed the work of the immigration directorates:
“It seems to us perverse that children who have been granted refugee status in the UK are not then allowed to bring their close family to join them in the same way as an adult would be able to do. The right to live safely with family should apply to child refugees just as it does to adults. The Government should amend the immigration rules to allow refugee children to act as sponsors for their close family.”
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for that work.
The same Committee, in HC 24, its seventh report of this Session, on the migration crisis, stated:
“Family reunion of migrants has been shown to have benefits in terms of integration and support networks, in addition to the human rights requirements of allowing families to be together, and there is clear scope for further measures to facilitate women and children joining husbands, fathers and other male relatives who have reached the UK…We also recommend that the UK broaden the scope of family reunion rules”.
I therefore support the Home Affairs Committee, the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, Amnesty International, the British Red Cross and many others, and call on the UK Government to end the discrimination against children, allowing those recognised as refugees the right to be joined in this country by other family members. Further, the definition of “family” should be expanded to include a wider range of family members. I recognise that that is challenging, but those people have come from war zones.
Our system needs to be properly implemented to fulfil our legal and moral obligations. The effect of cuts to legal aid is that refugees and UK citizens struggle to be reunited with their family members. Legal aid for specialist legal help for family reunion was cut by the coalition Government in 2013, on the grounds that it was considered a straightforward immigration matter that did not warrant the need for specialist legal support. The evidence, however, from the British Red Cross, the Refugee Council, Women for Refugee Women and my own caseload shows that many of the cases are far from straightforward—they are complex and require specialist legal advisers. Given what is at stake for families, there should be legal aid provision to assist refugees making family reunion applications.
Furthermore, those refugees who have been granted citizenship cannot sponsor family members in the same way as those only with refugee status. That seems particularly harsh. They are subject to the same minimum income and other requirements of the spousal visa process as other UK citizens. I understand why that has happened, but it is difficult for newly arrived people to meet such conditions—for those who have arrived here from war zones, it seems unnecessarily harsh. I therefore ask the Government, after their review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, to reinstate the provision of legal aid in family reunion cases. Will the Minister comment on that?
I also ask the Government to expand the scope of family reunion so that those who have been granted UK citizenship, or who were born UK citizens, can sponsor family members in the same way as those with refugee status. I further ask that they be granted legal aid in the same way.
Rather than simply turning down an application if there is not enough information, it would be helpful if the Home Office asked for more information. The Refugee Council reported to me that applicants are not being given the opportunity to submit further evidence for their application when their supporting documentation is deemed insufficient. They are simply told that their application has been turned down, which forces them into lengthy and costly appeals processes. During that time, refugees who want to come here continue to live in precarious conditions, often in a third country—for example, if they have fled Syria, they might be in a camp in a neighbouring country such as Lebanon.
That would save the Government money on the appeals process and, most importantly, it would end the practice of leaving families stuck in vulnerable and precarious situations for months on end, waiting for an appeal to be heard. I therefore call on the Government to revise their practice guidance to officials carrying out the process and to move to asking for more information, rather than simply rejecting a family if there is insufficient information.
Demonstrating a relationship involves further complications. In applications for a sponsor’s spouse, whether through marriage or civil partnership, as well as an unmarried partner, the applicant must demonstrate a “subsisting relationship” that preceded the sponsor’s application for asylum, as well as the intention to live together permanently. Again, I understand why that has come about, but I hope that the Minister accepts that relationships and marriages happen, and children are born, while refugees remain in third countries awaiting decisions on resettlement. The rules exclude such families from reuniting, because they are deemed to be post-flight families.
For unmarried and same-sex partners, applications must also demonstrate that the couple
“have been living together in a relationship akin to marriage or civil partnership which has subsisted for two years or more.”
Again, I ask the Government to recognise that resettled refugees are likely to form family relationships during the often lengthy period between their flight from their country of origin and their resettlement in the UK. I ask the Government to revise their rules accordingly.
The process should be safe. The British Red Cross report, “Not So Straightforward”, which I mentioned earlier, described how, although the initial application for family reunion can be made online, the following process requires family members wishing to join relatives here in the UK to travel to their closest visa application centre. The report highlighted examples of families risking their lives to travel to an embassy, crossing conflict zones, or of people being turned away from the embassy when they arrived, even when they had appointments. I therefore ask the Government to change the rules so that the process is safer, by allowing refugees in the UK to submit the family reunion documents, rather than forcing their family members to make journeys that are often costly and dangerous.
In conclusion, I ask the Government to consider eight requests, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give an answer to some, or at least an indication of the direction of travel. If he cannot grant my requests, will he agree to meet me in any case to discuss them further?
First, will the Government allow children recognised as refugees the right to be joined here in the UK by family members? Secondly, will the Government expand the definition of family to include a wider range of family members? Thirdly, will the Government reinstate the provision of legal aid in family reunion cases? Fourthly, will the Government expand the scope of refugee family reunion so that those who have been granted UK citizenship can sponsor family members in the same way as those with refugee status? Fifthly, will the Government grant legal aid to refugees with UK citizenship? Sixthly, will the Government revise the guidance so that officials ask for more information, rather than simply rejecting a family’s application because of insufficient information? Seventhly, will the Government recognise that resettled refugees are likely to form family relationships during the often lengthy period between flight and resettlement, and revise the rules accordingly? Eighthly, will the Government change the rules, so that the process is safer, by allowing refugees in the UK to submit the family reunion documents?
Those people have fled from war, persecution and torture. Many of them have gone through terrible journeys to reach sanctuary in the UK. Many are children. Surely it is not too much to ask that they are allowed to be reunited quickly, safely and easily with their families. After all, is that not what we would want if it happened to us?
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing this important debate and, if I may say so, on making a powerful speech. With a big immigration and migration case load, I have seen examples of the problems she cites. It is a particular and random cruelty to meet a constituent who applied for refugee family reunion and, because it has taken so long, the children are now over 18. It is important to do something about that, among the many other things she raised.
Some Members are marvelling at why our approach to refugees is not as fair or humane as we would want. There is nothing to marvel at: we have had a debate on immigration in this country down the years that, sadly, has rendered the issue of refugees toxic. Much of the unfairness in the way that refugees are treated is to do with the fact that, in popular opinion, “immigrant” applies as much to a refugee or asylum seeker as to anybody else. I will return to that in closing my remarks.
One of my hon. Friends made the point about how desperate people are. We really must focus on desperation. I have been able to visit refugee camps, not just in Calais but in Lesbos and Lebanon. I cannot stress how desperate these people are. It is also worth reminding the House that thousands of those people have crossed the Sahara and seen their friends and comrades lose their lives; they have been at the mercy of criminal gangs in Libya; and, finally, they have crossed the Mediterranean, sometimes sat on rafts or ships and seeing family members die. Desperation is the key, and making it harder and more difficult for people to claim family reunion—the notion being that that will help to somehow choke off applications—completely understates the desperate situation those people are in.
Thangam Debbonaire
I am glad that my hon. Friend is highlighting so many things and broadening the scope of the debate a little bit, but I reiterate that if we make routes for family reunion safe and legal, we are cutting off the business model of the traffickers. That is surely something we all want to do.
Ms Abbott
I have to tell my hon. Friend that the weight of the public debate on immigration sometimes stops politicians doing the fair and rational thing on refugees. When we live in a political time in which a well-read tabloid newspaper can have on its front page a series of six pictures of lorry drivers and the headline, “Foreign lorry drivers reading their phones”, we are talking about a toxic debate, which, as she says, militates against what is fair, appropriate and reasonable in dealing with refugees.
Mr Goodwill
I would not accept that. As I will say later in my remarks, we do not want to create the pull factor that results in people drowning in the Mediterranean or the Aegean. That is one of the major reasons why we are maintaining this policy.
Thangam Debbonaire
I urge the Minister to think about the fact that the so-called pull factor does not go away. These people are living in danger. They are fleeing for their lives. When we make safe and legal family reunion routes harder, we actually make it more likely that these people will end up in the hands of people traffickers and make these dangerous journeys.
Thangam Debbonaire
Thank you, Sir Alan, for allowing me to sum up. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions and the Minister for answering. It will not surprise anyone, and surely not him, to know that I am incredibly disappointed by his response. I was not expecting promises on any of the eight points, but it is disappointing that the Minister emphasises exceptional circumstances rather than the reality of people’s lives. All of us, at our darkest times and our best of times, want our family with us.
There is no evidence of this pull factor. People come because they are desperate, not because they have read in a brochure that the UK is an easy touch. For the sake of the young men I met today who want to bring their old parents here from Syria, for the sake of the woman whose children were too old to come here by the time she was granted status, and for our conscience as public servants, I ask the Minister to reconsider and to make refugee family reunion work for refugees, to whom we owe a legal and moral obligation. I ask him if he will meet me to discuss that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered immigration rules for refugee family reunion.
Calais Children and Immigration Act
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Mr Goodwill
The national transfer scheme is working well. We have had 160 transfers. I do understand the pressure that Kent has been facing and I have met the leader of my hon. Friend’s county council to discuss that. In response to concerns from local government, we have increased the rates that we give for the children being looked after, in some cases by as much as 33%. Some councils have been very helpful in opening up their books. We believe now that the funding that we have made available is sufficient to cover their additional costs.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement that he wants to increase support for Syrian children in Syria. May I press him on that? What specifically does he intend to urge on his ministerial colleagues in other Departments? Will he be urging aid to be transported into the berm—the no man’s land between Syria and Jordan? Will he be urging the reopening of the border at Jarablus? What more will he be doing to make sure that aid gets to Syrians, who are so desperate?
Mr Goodwill
I was in Jordan last week, where I visited the Azraq refugee camp and met some of the people who had been transported from the berm. The Jordanian Government have concerns about some of the security aspects in the berm, particularly following the recent attack on their police forces. We continue to work with the Jordanians and others in the region to ensure that we can put people into a place of safety and, at the same time, maintain security. We have allocated £2.3 billion to assistance in the area, and I am proud of what we as a Government are doing as the second-biggest humanitarian donor in that region.
Police Officer Safety
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Holly Lynch
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen an increase in the complexity of the crime that needs to be addressed at the same time as staggering cuts to the number of officers available to do that work, which does impact on the safety of officers as they go about their business.
Certainly in West Yorkshire—I know this is reflected in the forces across the country—the police have had to weather staggering cuts at a time when their case load is becoming increasingly complicated. I have seen the thin blue line stretched desperately thin, as the demands on officers continue to grow. The pressures of terrorism, safeguarding and cybercrime are all serious, but tackling these problems requires the appropriate resourcing. Increased awareness of exploitation in all its ugly forms, from child sexual exploitation to human trafficking, means that, quite rightly, priorities have changed to reflect that. Any officer will tell us that one of the biggest challenges putting additional pressure on the police is the changing nature of dealing with vulnerable young people and adults, particularly those with complex mental health challenges.
In the 24 hours leading up to my time on duty, Calderdale police had safely recovered nine vulnerable missing people and were involved in looking for an additional seven the following day. The weekly average for missing people in Calderdale is 43, with 416 a week going missing across the force. Some 114 of those are deemed to be high-risk individuals.
As MPs, as we have heard, we see it all the time—people with often complex vulnerabilities struggling to get the support they need in a climate where local authority budgets have been slashed and NHS funding has been squeezed. It is becoming a massive social problem, which is increasingly falling to the police to deal with, due to the inability of other agencies to take a lead or to take responsibility.
During my time with West Yorkshire police, I was able to see the difficulties stemming from having constantly to divert police crews into locating missing people, which undermines neighbourhood policing work and eats into the number of response officers available for 999 calls. We have a responsibility to keep the most vulnerable people away from harm and exploitation. Yet the police cannot be the catch-all for all problems. With reduced numbers, it is simply not sustainable and, let us be honest, nor are the police the most appropriate agency to be doing that work. We have to look at ways of empowering other agencies to take the lead. Not having the right answers to these questions means that the police are stretched as never before. As a result, lone officers—single crews—are regularly asked to attend emergencies and potentially dangerous incidents on their own, or with fewer officers than are required to manage such situations safely.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important issue to our attention. I must declare an interest, as I am proud to say that a member of my family is a serving police officer. I worry about his safety and the safety of his colleagues, given that they are so often required to go out on their own. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as a system of monitoring assaults on police officers, there should be a system of monitoring the number of occasions on which they are required to attend incidents on their own?
Calais Jungle
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Amber Rudd
I respectfully say to the hon. Lady that we have legislation and regulations in place to help the people we can help, and they are also there to prevent people thinking that they can come here when they cannot. We must have clear signs about who this country will willingly and enthusiastically protect and look after, because we have strong, proud British values, and about who we cannot. We should not do ourselves damage or in any way downgrade our values by saying that we should do more.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
My constituents have looked on with utter dismay this year at the glacial speed of transferring children with relatives in this country. What reassurances can the Home Secretary give my constituents that that will be sped up sufficiently, and that the medical needs that will inevitably have arisen among the nearly 1,000 children unaccompanied and alone in Calais will be dealt with?
Amber Rudd
I ask the hon. Lady to reassure her constituents that during the next eight to 10 days, we expect to see a great number of the children who qualify under the Dublin agreement come to the UK. Now that the French have made this very clear decision, there is accelerated co-operation between our countries. I hope that she and her constituents will see a marked difference over the next 10 to 14 days.
Football Fan Violence: Euro 2016
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Mrs May
My right hon. Friend will be reassured to know that the Secretary of State for Wales spoke to the Football Association of Wales yesterday about those matters, and we are working with authorities from all the home nations involved in this tournament. The security and terrorist threat for France remains critical, as it has been for some time, but I assure my right hon. Friend and the House that law enforcement and security services in the UK are working closely with their French counterparts on the terrorist threat that we all face.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Does the Home Secretary share the conviction that football—the beautiful game—can often be a force for good, and that most football fans, both here and abroad, are there to enjoy the game? What will she do in the coming days and months to spread that message, and what conversations will she have with the FA, and others, to ensure that those who come in peace outnumber and out-voice those who come to do violence?
Mrs May
I share the hon. Lady’s comments about football, and as president of the Wargrave Girls football club I see the effect of football on young people, and the excitement, interest and benefits that it can give. On a more serious note, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will be in touch with football authorities in the United Kingdom, and we must make it clear that people should be enjoying this sport. People should not feel fear when they go to a game; they should know that they are going to enjoy it, and come away having done so and feeling better for it.
Immigration Bill
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Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
For me, as a parent, the decision on whether to support the amendment made to the Bill in the other place on the resettlement of unaccompanied children in Europe reduces itself to simple questions. If I were separated from my children—if they were destitute in a foreign country, cold, hungry and far away from home—what would I want for them? Would I be content for them to be at risk of violence and exploitation, often sexual in nature, or would I want them to be offered safe haven with the desire that they be looked after and reunited with family members in due course? Those questions are, to my mind, rhetorical. They admit of sure and certain answers. I greatly regret that those are not answers that—with the best of motives, I accept—the Government appear to be willing to give.
Let us, for a moment, leave out of the equation what seems to me to be the grave inconsistency between arguing, on one hand, that the country has a role at the heart of the EU, and yet refusing, on the other, to shoulder the burden of the fact that Europol estimates that 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children went missing in Europe last year after they had been registered with the authorities in the countries in which they found themselves. Let us leave out of the equation the fact that the true number of minors subjected to abuse, exploitation and violence is, self-evidently, far higher. Let us even leave out of the equation the fact that, as the former Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out in a national newspaper over the weekend, doctors report that as many as half of unaccompanied African boys in the EU require treatment for sexually transmitted diseases—diseases almost certainly acquired from sexual exploitation during their passage to Europe. Let us also forget about those children we do not know about who have died cold and lonely deaths in Europe or the Mediterranean, driven from their homes and separated from their parents and loved ones, usually through no fault of their own.
Let the House instead reflect on our history in this, the greatest migration challenge in my lifetime, and on how we have behaved in the past. In that respect, the contribution that this country has always made to doing the right thing—to providing a home for children who have been driven from theirs by war and conflict—is unmatched. Exceptional times call for exceptional measures. That was the case with the Kindertransport programme, which benefited those who would undoubtedly have lost their lives in the holocaust had this country not acted in the run-up to the second world war. It was the case with those who fled Uganda after Idi Amin decided to expel them. It was the case with those who fled Vietnam and Iran in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. But now, apparently, either we should not act or we cannot act, using our heads as well as our hearts; to do so would simply encourage more children to make the dangerous journey to Europe. So says the Minister, and I accept that he has a point. That point does not, however, answer the point that these children are already in Europe, and that they are at risk as I stand here and speak to the House.
I do not doubt for a moment the Minister’s desire, and that of the Government, to do the right thing. I do doubt, based on what I have heard in the House this evening, that that is what we are proposing to do. As I have said, these children are already in Europe. They are alone, and far from their families. They are cold, frightened, hungry and frequently without help or access to those who might help or protect them. Their lives are miserable and brutish, and at least half of them have experienced or seen violence that we can only dream of in our nightmares—or, rather, hope that we do not.
Of course, the announcement last week, welcome as it is, that we will take 3,000 children from Syria and elsewhere who have not already made the dangerous journey to Europe was a good one, in the best traditions of recognising the obligations that this country enjoys in times such as the present—obligations that were recognised in January, and to which the announcement adds. That is no comfort to the children who are already in Europe, who have fled war and conflict that have torn their lives apart, and who need our help now. Those children are in Calais; they are on the Greek-Macedonian border; they are at the Gare du Nord in Paris and Midi station in Brussels; and they are sleeping rough in Berlin, Rome, Skopje and Vienna. Tonight they will sleep in fear, and tomorrow they will wake to the hopelessness to which their position exposes them. Today, in this House, we can do something. We cannot solve all their problems, remove all their troubles, or take from their consciousness the memory of the horrors that they have witnessed and endured, but we can do something.
That something is not to disagree with their Lordships on this amendment. That is the something that I can and will do, by joining the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) in the Opposition Lobby this evening. This is not an easy decision, or one that I have taken lightly, but it is the right decision, made of a conviction that I have reached after searching my conscience, as I pray other right hon. and hon. Members will search theirs. The House should support the Lords in their amendment and vote against the motion to disagree.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank hon. Members throughout the House for their generous support as I make a phased return to parliamentary life. I rise to speak to Alf Dubs’s amendment 87 to bring to the UK just 3,000 of the 26,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe. Although I also support Lords amendments to provide other protections for asylum seekers, others will speak on those.
I speak on behalf of many hundreds of people in Bristol West who have written to me, urging me to help refugees. Many have also donated time, money and practical help in camps and in Bristol, which is a city of sanctuary. I am standing up to speak tonight because this matters more to me than I can possibly say—more than obeying the instructions of my doctor to take more rest.
I understand that there has been uproar in some quarters about a speech made in Saturday’s “Shakespeare Live!” by Sir Ian McKellen. To my mind, it was the high point of the night. Nothing else came close to the potency of the language, the power and the feeling of the delivery and the relevance today of Shakespeare’s message, written 400 or so years ago. It was given as a speech by Sir Thomas More, sheriff of London during Henry VIII’s reign, addressing rioters who protested against foreigners. He called on them to
“Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs, with their poor luggage,
Plodding to th’ ports and coasts for transportation”—
I am no Ian McKellen. That is a vivid description of the current situation for so many children, young people and adults fleeing war today. He asks them to consider what they would do if they were refugees, which country would give them harbour, whether they would go
“to France or Flanders,
To any German province, Spain or Portugal”,
and how they would feel if they were met there by
“a nation of such barbarous temper”.
If the worst happened and our children were alone, fleeing war and persecution, would not every one of us hope that they would receive safe harbour in France or Flanders, Germany, Spain or Portugal? We must support amendment 87 to protect other people’s children.
In Bristol West, my caseworkers and I are dealing with many of today’s families torn apart by war—with children who are scarred and parents who are desperate. This is one such story. Mrs Djane’s family home in Mali was attacked al-Qaeda in December 2012 because her husband was a Christian. Her husband and daughter were shot dead in front of her sons. She was beaten and left unconscious. Her sons believed that she was dead and fled the family home, taking nothing. When she recovered consciousness, her sons were gone and her husband and daughter were dead. She assumed that her sons had been killed or kidnapped by al-Qaeda, and she fled to the UK. On arrival, she was taken from the airport by a man who imprisoned and raped her repeatedly until she escaped from him approximately 20 days later. The police took her to the trafficking charity Unseen, which put her in touch with the Red Cross to see whether her sons could be traced.
Mrs Djane claimed asylum and was granted refugee status, but she spent the next two years searching for her sons. She finally found them in a border town between Mali and Guinea. They are living with strangers who have been kind enough to take them, but who do not have the means to care for them. Her youngest son tragically died last year from an infected snake bite. That death, the murder of her husband and daughter, the loss of her sons and her own imprisonment and rapes devastated Mrs Djane. She suffers from severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and panic attacks. We are supporting her with applications for her sons to join her, and I hope for a decision soon.
The amendment we can pass tonight will help other children who are separated from their parents and fleeing war and persecution. We must help them before it is too late. Vulnerable children are going missing now from camps across Europe. I dread to think what they are suffering, whether alone or in the hands of traffickers. We would be failing in our duties if we did not show our leadership, and meet our legal obligations and moral imperatives to those refugees and asylum seekers.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady accept that, although the Government’s position sounds tough, the fairest and most humanitarian thing to do is to take children from Syria, which is a thoroughly unsafe country, but not from a safe country like France, as that would simply encourage the people traffickers and smugglers, and so lead to more and more misery? The Government’s position is fair, humanitarian and right.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, but frankly the situation is just not safe. It is only fair to say that we can do both—we can take children from those countries and the children who are already on their way. They are at risk. I urge us to imagine how we would feel if they were our children.
We need to do more to prepare the welcome for refugees so that they are not put in a situation where their neighbours resent them. But the time is right for a better informed public debate about how we treat refugees and asylum seekers overall. That debate should include consideration of allowing asylum seekers to work sooner and of how we can prepare local communities and public services for new arrivals. It will be difficult, and there will be strong feelings and major challenges, but we cannot let what is difficult be the enemy of what is right. Protecting refugees, and child refugees in particular, is right. It is a human right that we would expect if we or our children were fleeing conflict or persecution. It is a human rights obligation that we should be proud to honour, and in the best ways we possibly can. It says something wonderful about our place in the world when we do that. That is why I am pleased to announce this evening, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees, that we will be holding a public inquiry into this issue later this year.
I also believe that there needs to be a wider, enlightened and respectful debate about how we manage migration in general. That debate needs to take place in our parties and in the public sphere. I will be active in my own party, and wherever else I can be, to listen to and respect people’s concerns, but also to help to develop well-informed policy and practice, so that we can give refugees, and children in particular, the welcome that they deserve.
I return to Shakespeare’s words, and the decision that hon. Members will make tonight. We can do our part for 3,000 unaccompanied children. We can help to protect those children, who are the same age as our own children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces. These are children who have struggled across the continent unprotected, and perhaps been abused along the way, who are hungry and in desperate need of our protection. Our leadership in our own constituencies can help to ensure that they are not met with the “barbarous temper” that Shakespeare describes and that I fear many of those children are already meeting along their way from people traffickers and others seeking to exploit them. We can welcome them with warmth and care. They will need more, and we must plan, but I hope and believe that we have it in us to manage that. Three thousand children is fewer than five per constituency. Surely we in this House can manage to support our local authorities to find foster carers, psychological support and education for five children in each of our constituencies.
As each hon. Member goes through the Lobby, I urge them to think of this. Today, they could be helping the child they have not met but who in 20 years’ time may be the doctor who saves their own child’s life, the midwife who helps deliver their grandchild, the teacher who fires up that grandchild’s ambition, the scientist who helps to find a cure for asthma, diabetes or even cancer, the engineer who finds better ways to make vehicles run on clean energy sources, the mechanic who keeps trains going, or the care assistant who will look after one of us when we are old. All of those people are children today. Some are our own children, or our children’s friends, but some are waiting in a refugee camp or the back of a lorry, or living in a ditch or worse. They are waiting for us to help them with our vote tonight.
When we are first elected, every one of us hopes that we will make a difference—that our presence here will mean something and be a force for good. Tonight we get to do all that by showing our support for Lords amendment 87, the Alf Dubs amendment to protect unaccompanied child refugees.
Several hon. Members rose—
Refugee Situation in the Mediterranean
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I commend my right hon. Friend on bringing the matter to the attention of the House. I point out, and ask the Minister to comment on, the fact that in the UK only 187 people have been resettled under the Syrian resettlement programme, compared with 30,000 in Germany and 8,000 in Norway. Whether or not there are mandatory quotas, we should be ashamed, as a country, of the fact that we have accepted only 187 people. There must, surely, be grounds for a full debate on this in the House so that we can settle, or at least make progress on, the question of whether quotas are a pull factor or whether they provide badly needed safety.
Keith Vaz
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her election. I believe that she has just started the debate that she recommended, and I am sure that you have heard what she had to say, Mr Speaker. It is important that we debate what has happened in Syria and the number of people that we have taken, and it is important that we get a proper update from the Government on that point.
There is one final point for the House to consider. We must review the implications of our foreign policy far more carefully. We cannot intervene in third-world countries with no post-conflict development strategy, because we will only create more chaos, as we have done in Libya. We can tinker with where and how asylum and immigration cases are processed, but stabilising the political and security situation in north Africa and the conflict zones is the only long-term solution.
We also need to contribute to the economic development of north African and sub-Saharan African countries. When people are prepared to risk their lives—literally to die—for a better life, we cannot sit by and hope that the processes of the European Union will solve the problem. They will not. This Mediterranean madness has only one winner: the criminal gangs that make money. Everyone else loses: the desperate migrants in Lampedusa, Kos, Greece and Spain; the overstretched authorities and residents on the EU southern border; and the thousands of victims who have died in the Mediterranean, which has now become the graveyard of Europe. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and the EU has held summits while people are drowning and the countries of the Maghreb and southern Europe are being overwhelmed. To fail to act now could result in one of the great betrayals of history.