Immigration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

rose—

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I will if I may finish this point. As I have shown so far, I plan to be generous to all Members during the course of this debate.

No one should be in any doubt about the Government’s clear, ongoing commitment to help those most affected by the migration crisis. The doubling of our aid for the Syrian crisis to £2.3 billion—the largest ever response by this country to a single humanitarian crisis—underlines not just that commitment, but our commitment to act in practical ways to improve the lives of as many people as possible. Hundreds of thousands of people in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt are receiving food, shelter, medical treatment and support as a consequence of the actions of the UK. It is also about hope and opportunity and creating a strong sense of how we can quickly rebuild the lives of those torn apart by the war in Syria. The London conference in February galvanised commitments to create an estimated 1.1 million jobs for those in the region by 2018, and quality education for 1.7 million refugee and vulnerable children by the end of the 2016-17 school year, with equal access for girls and boys.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister is being very generous. He makes the point that action to help those who are stranded in Europe would somehow act as a pull factor. With respect, I think that that view is bogus, not least when we consider that there are four times more refugees in the region. The idea that Europe is the only place to which they are heading is nonsense. Even if one were to accept that, his decision not to accept the Dubs amendment is to ignore the tens of thousands of children who are in Europe now. The reality is that 10,000 have gone missing in the past year. They are in the hands of traffickers now. What will he do to help those children who are here on this continent now?

[James Brokenshire]

I was going to come on to that very point. Let me just say that it is about supporting those front-line member states and our other European partners to stand by their responsibilities. In essence, Europe should be a safe space; it is not a conflict zone. Therefore, we judge that the best way to make a difference and to help the greatest numbers of those in need is to support the majority of refugees to enable them to stay safely in their home region, which is why I made those points about aid and assistance. Where people have made that journey to Europe, we should help our European partners to fulfil their duties to them and to provide support on this issue of family reunification.

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[James Brokenshire]

We are processing 50 cases, 24 of which we have accepted, but a number of those cases are complicated. It is a question of the safeguarding measures that need to be put in place for the children to be reunited with the families who are here. It is therefore more complex than it is sometimes presented. That is not in any way a desire on the part of the Government, or anyone else, to encourage delay. Rather, it is about the normal child safeguarding measures that I think are appropriate. I say to the right hon. Lady and to Citizens UK that if there are cases that can be linked to families here in the UK, get them into the French system. I make that point again and again, because we stand ready to act and to take charge where there are those links, and to see that if there are children in northern France who are separated from family in the UK, action is taken.

Those processes for family reunion are of course in addition to the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who make their claims in this country. With over 3,000 asylum applications from unaccompanied children last year, I pay tribute to all those local authorities that, despite the unprecedented pressure on their services, are providing support to those young people. At the same time, we need to shut down the illegal migration routes to Europe that are exploited by human traffickers, who encourage people to risk their lives to make perilous journeys. The Government remain of the view that relocation schemes within Europe risk creating unintended consequences or perverse incentives for people to put their lives into the hands of traffickers. Instead, we are committed to providing safe and legal routes for the most vulnerable refugees to resettle in the UK.

The success of the EU-Turkey migration agreement is a vital opportunity to end the misery and lethal risk that smugglers and organised criminals are causing on a daily basis. We have made an offer of UK support to help implement the EU-Turkey migration agreement. We need to close down illegal crossings from Turkey to Greece and tackle migrant flows upstream. We are offering 75 expert personnel to help with the processing and administration of migrants in Greek reception centres, to act as interpreters, to provide medical support and to bolster our existing team assisting the Commission to ensure that there is effective and efficient co-ordination.

Those teams, which are ready to be deployed, will include experts in supporting vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and those trained to tackle people trafficking. That will help to ensure that vulnerable people, including children, are identified and can access asylum and support procedures as quickly as possible. That is in addition to the work undertaken by the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, to visit hotspots and assess what more can be done to ensure that unaccompanied children are protected from traffickers.

[Tim Farron]

I want to challenge the notion that the EU-Turkey deal is a success. I was at the Idomeni camp on the Greek-Macedonian border a fortnight ago. The camp is meant to host 300 or 400 people as they pass north towards northern Europe, but there were 25,000 people—there were children there as well—crammed into that small space, and they were absolutely desperate. The reason they are not moving from that place is that they have no trust whatever in the system or in the fact that wherever they are moved to next will not mean deportation out of Europe. The EU-Turkey deal may be great in principle, but in practice it has been stitched up for the benefit and convenience of politicians, not of those desperate people rotting in the camps.

[James Brokenshire]

I attended last week’s Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg and I spoke to the Greek Minister. He has welcomed the offer of support that I have just set out, in terms of its practical operationalisation to help make things happen at the front end—in the Greek islands and in Greece. I have highlighted the financial and other support we are giving Greece and others to deal with some of these difficult and challenging issues, and we are playing our absolute part to address this issue and to see that the parts of the EU-Turkey deal happen and have the effect we would all want them to.

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[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his very powerful intervention, which puts the pull factor in its proper context. The pull factor argument that has been deployed is not attractive in a country that has been as tolerant as this country has in providing support for those fleeing persecution. In the end, the argument boils down to saying that we will leave people to their fate for fear of encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. The Minister talked about distressed people fleeing war-torn zones. That is the context in which the argument is being applied, but this case is worse because the pull factor is being applied to children. The boy I met in Glasgow was 14 when he made his journey, and he is typical of many in that respect.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. On the pull factor, I agree with him that the evidence is at best mixed. In the sense that I found any kind of pull factor in the camps I visited in northern Greece, in the islands or in Calais and in meeting refugees who have been settled in Cologne, it was that Europe is a peaceful, decent, stable place where people can raise their children without fear of their being killed. We should be proud of such a pull factor.

[Keir Starmer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful point. I know that he has been very supportive of the campaigns in that respect. Certainly, several people I talked to in Calais and Dunkirk—stuck in camps that were appalling when I saw them—spoke in glowing terms about the rule of law and human rights, and our proud tradition in relation to refugees.

I have listened to the Minister. Not only on this occasion but every time that we have debated this, I have applauded and acknowledged the steps that the Government have taken. I accept that any steps taken must be proper steps within a proper scheme so that they work properly. However, not taking the vulnerable children who are in Europe—right here, right now—is simply not good enough.

This afternoon, an email pinged into my inbox from a rabbi in Kentish Town, one of my constituents, which I want to read to the House:

“As the Jewish community celebrates the…Passover, we remember not only our own journey to freedom, but all those who are not free.”

He urged me to support Lords amendment 87 and other amendments. He certainly speaks for many of my other constituents, as I am sure he does for those of many hon. Members from across the House.

Among those on the Opposition Benches, there is strong support for Lords amendment 87. I know and acknowledge the fact that Conservative Members have real concerns, which they have raised repeatedly, about our not taking in this group of vulnerable children who need our help now.

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[Mr Burrowes]

If ever a debate showed the need not to have a time limit, this is it, especially given the complex issues we are dealing with. The issue of human dignity flows through all the amendments under consideration, whether they deal with child refugees in Syria or Europe, or those who have made their way to this country and need appropriate and fair treatment, and whom we must try to avoid detaining for so long.

There is no monopoly on compassion. The House will be dividing on this amendment, and it is not a binary issue about whether or not someone supports or cares for child refugees. I have been a long-standing campaigner for the Government to provide more refuge, and for such assistance to be based not on arbitrary numbers but on vulnerability. I welcome the Government’s move from the 20,000 places announced in September to an additional 3,000 refugees coming from Syria and the region.

As many speeches have highlighted, Europe has the role of providing safety from trafficking, exploitation and abuse—that is distinct from the issue of refuge within Europe. How can we practically deliver that? The number that horrifies me and to which I wish to respond is Europol’s estimate that 10,000 children have gone missing. How can we practically ensure that children do not go missing and that there is safety? The arbitrary figure of 3,000 that has been nobly championed by Lord Dubs—he is watching this debate—has provided a focus for the debate and moved the Government to provide details on the commitment that they made at the end of January.

We must consider the practical issues. Seventy-five experts going to Greece is not a good campaign slogan, but it is important because the practical deliverability of the figure of 3,000 in the amendment must lead to a result that sees experts going to Greece or Calais, and properly processing people and ensuring that there is a reception centre. The Government have committed to that, and it is important to recognise that that will provide safety.

History will judge our response to this crisis tomorrow, next month and next year. This is not the only time that we will call on the Government to provide a compassionate response, and I believe that they have done that today. I welcome the Government’s actions and look for them to go further. I will be supporting the Government. That is a difficult choice because of the passion and emotion around the Dubs amendment. However, I think that the Government are on the road to providing more safety for people in Europe, including with the groundbreaking decision to provide refuge for children at risk, which other countries must follow. I have run out of time so cannot to speak to the other amendments.

[Tim Farron]

Last autumn, I used my first Prime Minister’s questions as party leader to press the Prime Minister to take these 3,000 unaccompanied children—refugees from the camps—in Europe. I had seen the situation for myself in Calais, Lesbos and other places. As we have heard today, something like a third of those unaccompanied children in Europe go missing. They are now in the hands of child traffickers who exploit them and use them in child prostitution.

The Government have done some good over these past few months, much of it under pressure, but, to date, they are utterly and totally stubborn on the matter of helping even a single person, particularly vulnerable children, in Europe.

I was at the Indomeni camp in northern Greece just a couple of weeks ago. It was the saddest of all the visits that I have made, because of the desperation that I saw and because of the number of children living in squalid and unsafe circumstances. These people are at risk, they are alone, and they are scared, and we could help them.

We have had a series of announcements from the Government, but they all missed the point, which is that those children who are most at risk are the ones who are now in the camps in Europe. Making the argument in favour of doing more for refugees and of taking refugees from Europe is difficult when there is a narrative out there that says that most refugees are coming to Europe. That is not true. Perhaps one in five from the region is coming to Europe. People will say that they are not really refugees, but economic migrants. Well, 95% of them are deemed to be refugees by any objective standard. Perhaps that is where the Government’s reluctance comes from. They fear unpopularity, but is this not the time for this Government not to follow, but to lead and to do the right thing? There are always reasons not to do the right thing.

When I was in Greece and Macedonia two weeks ago, a fence had been erected by the Macedonian Government in 36 hours. If a country has the political will, they can do these things. We can take these children. The blueprint that I produced over the past three or four months in consultation with Save the Children, Home for Good and local authorities gives the Government all the ammunition they need to show how they would put such a scheme into practice, and I refer the Minister to that blueprint. We need to stop the excuses and do the right thing.

This is the biggest humanitarian disaster, or crisis, facing Europe since the second world war, and this Government choose to turn their back not just on geo-political reality and on our neighbours, but on the desperate children somehow existing in the camps and in the ditches up and down Europe. This proposal before us today, amendment 87, is not the most we can do; it is the least we can do.

[Heidi Allen]

I wish to speak on the Dubs amendment. May I start by thanking the Minister for Immigration and the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees for their genuine commitment to this cause? I know that, in this matter, they have tried to use both their head and their heart.

Having seen the desperate scenes in the refugees camps in Lesbos and Calais, I have had a very brief window on the world of families fleeing war and persecution, and it is those memories that give me a very, very heavy heart today. Many of us from all parts of the House always felt that our initial offer to resettle 20,000 refugees was not enough. Although our financial aid to the region has been nothing short of heroic, we have sensed that the British people, generous to the end, wanted to offer a home to more. The announcement last week that we would take another 3,000 filled me with renewed pride, not least because we were focusing on children at risk, but when did pride get to feel so numb? It was the dawning realisation that, by focusing on the camps in the region once again, we would be turning our backs on the thousands of unaccompanied children already in Europe. The argument for not helping them has always been the pull factor. If we take them, more will make that perilous journey. I know that the boats are overcrowded and not seaworthy because I saw them.

If the deal between the EU, Turkey and Greece is so fantastic in stopping the tide of daily arrivals, as we are told, then that means that the pull has stopped pulling. That can mean only one thing: these children are trapped. They cannot go forward, and they cannot go back. They are lost in Europe, lost in the chaos, but not, and never, lost on our conscience.

The confirmation that we will send 75 Home Office experts to the Greek islands is very welcome, but it has taken from the announcement in January to achieve that. We call the Greek islands hotspots. There are hotspots all over Europe: hotspots for trafficking, hotspots for abuse and hotspots for child prostitution on the Macedonian border, Italy and on our very own doorstep in Calais.

When part of the jungle was demolished, 120 children went missing. Right now there are 157 lone children with family in the UK, but there are no friendly faces, no child protection and no sign saying, “This way to be looked after.” Children cannot be expected to find the system without help. In one case, an 11-month-old baby separated from its mother was expected to claim asylum in France before any steps could be taken to reunite them—an 11-month-old baby. This is civilized Europe?

I will hear the whole debate. I had planned to abstain in the vote, because I must acknowledge the offer to take 3,000 more, and I would be playing fast and loose with their opportunity for sanctuary if I did not support the Government. But how can I forget the faces of the children I have seen in Europe? Abstention is a pathetic offering, really. Is it enough? Is it good enough?

If the Dubs amendment does not succeed tonight, I urge the Lords to continue fighting with us. We must seek to achieve a compromise amendment; something different, and perhaps less sweeping, but something that—