Refugee Children: Family Reunion in the UK Debate
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Thelma Walker
Main Page: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)Department Debates - View all Thelma Walker's debates with the Home Office
Refugee Children: Family Reunion in the UK
Thelma Walker Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Hugh Gaffney
I agree and will ask the Minister about that at the end of my speech.
Many Members across this House will agree that improvements need to be made to the way in which we support refugees and honour our responsibilities to the most vulnerable. I pay tribute to the important speech given yesterday by the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), on how we can provide the support required by those in need. For me, as a human and an elected representative, the fact that children are still being forced to take life-threatening and dangerous journeys to their families in the United Kingdom is unforgivable and heartbreaking.
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if a child with family in the UK is fleeing war, threats of trafficking or forced marriage, those family members should be able to sponsor them and take them away from those horrors?
Hugh Gaffney
Yes. That is the reason we see these images on TV. These kids do not want to do it; they are running scared and they are walking millions of miles.
The European Union’s Dublin III regulation determines which EU state decides a person’s asylum application. Under the Dublin III regulation, an unaccompanied child who has made an asylum application has the right to have their application transferred to another EU state where they have a relative. It is a way of reuniting children with their families in the United Kingdom, and that is the right thing to do. I note the agreements signed between the French and British Governments to speed up the Dublin III transfers. That seeks to help children reach the safety of their families in the UK, which is welcome and should be a given. They should not have been forced to take those journeys in the first place.