European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

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

In this crisis, there are many temptations to find someone other than ourselves to blame, to say “I told you so”, to exploit the situation for personal ambition, or to cry betrayal. We need to resist those temptations. Indeed, we need to act in the national interest. We are on a short 100-day journey to no deal, but there are turnings that we could take off this dangerous road, which would otherwise lead us to doing a Thelma and Louise on 29 March.

I admire the Prime Minister for many things. She and I coped well together as we toured the working men’s clubs of North West Durham in 1992, on our way to being crushed by Baroness Hilary Armstrong. Then, as now, I was impressed by the Prime Minister’s fortitude in the face of certain defeat. The one thing that I do not really admire her for is her attempt to hoodwink the British people into thinking that the only choice that we have in this vote is between a bad deal and no deal. She knows that that is not true, and to keep repeating it is beneath her.

We have six options. None of them is great, but some are better than others. First, we can accept the PM’s deal, which kicks the can down the road and keeps us thinking and talking about Brexit for many years to come.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that no deal is absolutely off the table? It must be off the table.

[Tim Farron]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The damage that it would do to our economy would be utterly immense.

If the Prime Minister’s deal is passed, it kicks the can down the road for a number of years, and we carry on talking about Brexit into the foreseeable future. It traps the UK into EU rules, but with no say over what those rules are. It is the absolute opposite, then, of taking back control. Millions of those who voted leave would feel that they had been betrayed. Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland backstop seriously threatens the future of the Union, and every family and every business in this country will be hit by our exit from the single market. If Members think that we should honour the wishes of the British people, they cannot vote for this deal. If they think that we should protect the interests of the British people, they cannot vote for this deal.

Option two, which we have already covered, is that we leave with no deal. The upside of that is that we would—to use the vernacular—take back control. We would not be bound by EU rules or judgments, but the hit to our economy would mean that what sovereignty we would regain from the EU, we would lose immediately to the international financial markets, with all the impact that that would have on my constituents and the constituents of every other Member. There are already 2,200 children living below the poverty line in my community. I will not vote for any course of action that puts even one more child or one more family, let alone thousands more, in poverty. That is why I will vote against no deal.

A third option is that the Prime Minister has the courage of her convictions and puts the deal to the country in a referendum. Let us not kid ourselves: like most referendums, a referendum on the deal—a people’s vote—has the capacity to be divisive. However, I disagree with the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), as I believe that it would be decisive. Whichever option was chosen by the people would come into effect without further debate or delay.

Option four might be an early general election. There are 2,700 hours until Brexit. The country will not forgive us if we waste 1,000 of those hours on a self-indulgent general election. The same applies to option five, which is that the Prime Minister is sacked as the leader of her party. Again, that would be seen as the actions of the self-indulgent, the vain and the personally ambitious—the very antithesis of the national interest.

A sixth option is to withdraw article 50 and to renegotiate. As the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) said earlier, we leapt from the aircraft when we triggered article 50 without checking whether we had a parachute, and we are now within a few metres of hitting the ground with a great big splat. There is now a miraculous option to get back in the plane. We could withdraw article 50 and allow the Prime Minister to renegotiate a better deal, which she certainly could do if she changed her red lines. She could, for instance, seek membership of the single market, which is not dissimilar to the arrangement that Norway enjoys. The Prime Minister’s decision to rule out the single market was an entirely arbitrary and self-imposed choice made not to reflect the will of the people, but to placate the European Research Group in her own party. It should now be crystal clear to her that those folks are unplacatable, so she should instead seek to find a consensus with people who might be a little more reasonable.

I am a reasonable man. I am no EU flag-waving federalist, no apologist for all that emanates from Brussels, I do not have “Ode to Joy” as my ringtone, I do not know a single word of Esperanto, and, in 2008, I resigned from the Front Bench over the Lisbon treaty, but I have never been more convinced that Britain’s future must lie in Europe and that to leave would be a tragic, tragic mistake. I do not have time to go into all the reasons, but given that the focus of today’s debate is security, let us remember that 11 of the countries in the European Union today were once behind the iron curtain. Six of those countries had nuclear weapons on their soil pointed right at this city. Just as the nations that fought two bloody wars in the 20th century sit together, so do those from either side of the cold war divide. If that was the only reason for staying in the European Union, that would do for me. How short must memory be to cast that away?

I spend a lot more time in Westmorland than I do in Westminster, so last night I listened to my constituents and did my sums to find out how people in my communities think we should vote in this debate. Here are the votes of the Westmorland jury: 3.5% want us to leave with no deal; 10% want us to leave with the Prime Minister’s deal; 17% want us to remain in the EU without a people’s vote; and 68% want a people’s vote.

After taking the time to listen to people’s motives, it is clear to me that many of those who want a people’s vote hold a similar view to me—that referendums are poisonous and dangerous. If we did not see another referendum for the rest of our lives, it would be far too soon. Nevertheless, we cannot let what began with democracy end with a Whitehall-Westminster-Brussels stich-up. If the people voted for our departure, they must also have the right to vote for our destination, and to choose a better destination than the one that the Prime Minister presents to them, if they consider it not to be good enough.

This deal fails all its own internal tests. It would mean that we were run by European rules but without any ability to have a say over them, which would make us poorer, weaker and less safe. It would divide our Union, so it would make us less British. I love my country, so I will reject any deal that harms it. I reject no deal and this bad deal. There are better options; the Prime Minister should take them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

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

2. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of fees his Department charges for registering children as British citizens.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

The Home Office sets fees for border, immigration and nationality services at a level that ensures that they make a substantial contribution to the cost of running the immigration system, thereby reducing the burden on the UK taxpayer. Although the economic impact assessments that are published alongside immigration fees legislation do not separately consider child-registration fees, they show the impact of fee increases on the volume of applications to be minimal.

[Tim Farron]

The Home Office charges more than £1,000 for children—including children who were born here and those who moved in infancy—to register as British citizens. Is this not profiteering at the expense of young people who seek to pledge their future to Britain? Is this not another Windrush scandal in the making, with people not getting the documents now that officials will rely on in future? The Home Secretary knows that he faces a legal challenge on this issue, so will he do the right thing and end these excessive charges now?

[Sajid Javid]

I will not speak about the legal case, for obvious reasons, but I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is right that there is a balance between the costs faced by the individuals who make applications and those faced by the taxpayer. It is sensible to keep those costs under review, and it is right that Parliament makes the decision on whether costs are changed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. All passengers arriving in the UK at passport control are checked against watch lists on arrival at the border. The majority of those people are checked against our systems before they even travel, through the collection of advance passenger information. Between April 2010 and March 2018, we refused entry to 138,992 people, including more than 18,000 in the year to March 2018.

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

Those seeking asylum in the UK are currently banned from working and, as a result, they are forced to live in penury and are denied the right to contribute their skills to our society. Does the Minister agree that this system is lacking in both compassion and common sense? Will she reform it?

[Caroline Nokes]

Our asylum system provides accommodation and funding for those who are here during the process of their asylum claim. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: we must continue to make sure that the UK has one of the most humane asylum systems in the world. We are working very hard to make sure we do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

An important component of the recent treaty looks at the whole route of migration. It is critical that we understand we cannot solve this solely by working with France. There is a real commitment with both Italy and Greece to make sure that, particularly with reference to our Dubs commitment, we resettle the children we are determined to bring to the UK.

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

Thousands of unaccompanied children at risk of trafficking and exploitation still sit in camps in Europe and further afield. Many of them have family members in the UK, so will the Minister amend the immigration regulations so that these desperate children can join their relatives here in the UK to be granted safety and sanctuary?

[Caroline Nokes]

We have a number of schemes that already allow children to come to the UK, including Dublin and the Dubs commitment that I have outlined. We are determined to make sure that we meet our international commitments and our humanitarian commitments, to make sure that, where we can help children in desperate need across the continent and, indeed, in the wider middle east and north Africa region, we do so.

Community Policing

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for community policing.

Policing in our communities and neighbourhoods is

“the cornerstone of the policing model in England and Wales”—

not my words, but the judgment of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary in March this year.

Good community policing responds to the needs of local people with a consistent, visible police presence; it involves working in partnership to gain trust, gather intelligence and get to the heart of a community’s concerns, in order to prevent and fight crime. Yet cuts to community policing across our country have stretched most local police forces to their limit at a time when crime is rising significantly. My constituency has lost more than 40 police officers since May 2015, so it should not surprise us that last year, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary found that

“local policing is the area of operational policing that shows the greatest decline in performance”;

that is linked to the budget cuts. For those reasons, I feel that Ministers need to be held to account for the growing crisis in community policing.

I have three arguments to make, which I hope the Minister will address in turn. First, it is clear that crime is rising. We need to recognise that fact and act. Secondly, the falling police budgets were set before the emerging trend of rising crime took hold; the facts have changed, however, and so must police budgets. Thirdly, a good part of any significant increase in police funding must go to community policing, given its vital role as the cornerstone of policing.

First, I want to persuade the Minister to accept in this Chamber that crime is rising, and alarmingly so. There can be no dispute about recorded crime, which is up 13% in the year to June. What should worry us in particular, however, are the categories of crimes with the largest recorded rises: the rise of 19% in violent crime, of 8% in murder and manslaughter, of 26% in knife crime, of 27% in gun crime and of 19% in sexual offences. Recorded crime is what the police have to deal with, and what they have to investigate and clear up, and it drives their activity, so when Ministers counter accusations of rising crime by pointing to the crime survey, which is the other main way that we assess the level of crime, they should be careful.

While it is true that the crime survey suggests that crime last year fell, Britain’s top statisticians at the Office for National Statistics make interesting comments about how we should interpret the mixed signals from recorded crime and the crime survey. John Flatley, who heads on crime statistics and analysis for the ONS, said on the release of crime stats last month:

“Today’s figures suggest that the police are dealing with a growing volume of crime. While improvements made by police forces in recording crime are still a factor in the increase, we judge that there have been genuine increases in crime—particularly in some of the low incidence but more harmful categories.”

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

My right hon. Friend is making some excellent points. Will he acknowledge that the police themselves are often victims of crime? Recently I was in my local police station in Kendal; three officers were on long-term sickness because they had been sent single-handed to dangerous incidents, when normally they would have been sent as a pair. The cuts in police numbers meant that those officers could be sent only one at a time, and they are off sick as a consequence. Last year alone, 5,000 hours were lost to police sickness in Cumbria. Does he agree that that paints a picture of the police bearing the brunt of the rise in crime and the reduction in resource?

[Sir Edward Davey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As the number of police officers declines, they have to work overtime and, as he described, put themselves in greater danger, which is not acceptable.

When Mr Flatley, the ONS’s leading crime statistician, says

“low incidence but more harmful categories”,

he means murder. He means rape. He means knife crime. He means gun crime. Those relatively low-volume crimes—relative to, say, burglary—are poorly reported in the crime survey but reasonably well recorded by the police. In other words, it is a fact that the most serious crimes have risen steeply in incidence in the past two or three years; Ministers cannot hide from that.

The ONS makes another key policy and evidence point about the comparison between the crime survey and recorded crime: recorded crime is much better at spotting emerging trends—short-term fluctuations in crime that can easily become long-term trends if action is not taken. Police-reported crime rose by 13% in one year alone, and I hope that Ministers will not dismiss that. They need to ask themselves and their officials some deep questions about that trend, because if it continues and they wrongly dismiss it, people will pay a heavy price.

Another reason why the recent upturn in crime demands urgent action is the complexity of the rising crime we are seeing. Complexity can demand significant police resource for just one difficult crime. Counter-terrorism is the obvious example. The record spate of terrorist attacks and plots this year clearly marks a shift in terrorist activity, and the intensity of the demand that that makes on the police requires a response from Government. It is no good Ministers saying that police reserves can sort that out, as the Home Secretary claimed recently. First, some police forces have very small reserves; secondly, those with large reserves have them because they have so many unfunded and unpredictable cost pressures, from unfunded pay decisions to terrorist attacks.

The police also face other examples of similarly resource-intensive complex crimes: cyber-crime, child sexual abuse, fraud, modern slavery and human trafficking. The UK has among the highest proportions of complex reported crime in the world, demanding ever more resource, yet police resources have been cut.

I fully admit that those cuts are not new. The Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary during the coalition, presided over cuts, which she continued after the 2015 general election. As a result, today we have nearly 17,000 fewer police officers and more than 4,500 fewer police community support officers.

Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Images of families and children in makeshift refugee camps around Calais have disappeared from the front pages and from our Facebook timelines, but the refugee crisis has not abated across Europe, and we continue to face the biggest humanitarian crisis since the 1940s.

Last week marked one year since the demolition of the Jungle camp. I went to visit it for myself in 2015, as others have done. The experience was both eye-opening and heart-breaking. Conditions were awful, but it was amazing to see the strength and grit of the people living there, despite the unimaginable situation in which they found themselves. They had built themselves a mosque and a church, and set up libraries, language schools and a barber’s shop. It was utterly striking that these people, who had been treated in the most uncivilised way, were now responding with dignity and civilisation.

From spending time with the families and the charity workers who were working tirelessly to provide support and advice to them, it was clear that they felt that the camp was their only option. I met lots of children who were there without adult guardians. For some, their parents had paid traffickers to get them to safety in Europe. Others had lost their parents to conflict or had become separated from them while fleeing.

I was particularly frustrated on behalf of those who were stuck there with family who were already in the United Kingdom. Under EU and UK law, they have a legal right to be here, but complicated bureaucracy and systemic failures mean that it can take up to six months even to register for reunification. The argument goes that they have reached European shores and they are safe, so why do they seem so intent on coming to Britain? Well, those who wish to come to the United Kingdom are a small minority of refugees who are currently in France, but nearly every one of them I spoke to on my visits had this grand view of Britain as a place of decency, safety, freedom and civilisation. If someone has made that kind of journey, crossed seas and taken those risks—let us be blunt—they are not one of life’s spongers. People who have met those refugees know that it is not the pull factor that has brought them here, but the push factor of war and persecution back at home.

[Adam Holloway]

This is absolutely preposterous. The fact is that these very long journeys, which sometimes last many months, cost a great deal of money and most are organised by people smugglers. These are the relatively privileged few; we should be concentrating on the many.

[Tim Farron]

We should concentrate on those who are most in need. I ask the hon. Gentleman to think again about the image of Britain in the mind of the people who seek to come here.

[Heidi Allen]

It occurs to me that a modern, compassionate and wealthy country like ours should be able to do both.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Lady, to whom I would have paid tribute if I had had the time, now allows me to pay tribute to her; she has hit the nail bang on the head. It should be a source of immense pride that this is how Britain is seen by many. A real patriot wants other people to think well of their country, in spite of the ugly face that we so often seem to wish to present to the rest of the world.

On 24 October 2016, the French authorities began their full-scale demolition of the camp. The demolition was backed, by the way, by around £36 million of UK money. One reason that the French authorities chose that date was that French law makes it an offence to make anyone homeless after 1 November. It was a clear attempt to clear the decks and to do something that many of us would consider as morally reprehensible in the narrow window of time in which it was legally permissible. That is a reminder that our Government do not have a monopoly on heartlessness.

As compensation, or to deflect criticism, the Home Office transferred 750 children to Britain to begin to rebuild their lives. About 550 were reunited with family under Dublin III and 200 were brought in through the Dubs scheme. To put this into context, 1,900 children were registered as living in the camps, and many more would have been there but not registered. Rough estimates today suggest that about 1,000 people remain scattered in and around Calais, including an estimated 200 unaccompanied children. These people are vulnerable not only to the coming winter weather, but to heavy-handed law enforcement, as we have heard. Most appallingly, they are vulnerable to traffickers and others who would do them harm. For children, no place could be more dangerous. I want this debate to be a call to arms to redouble our efforts to ensure that this crisis is not simply brushed under the carpet.

I want the Government to agree to do three things. First, I want them to reopen the Dubs scheme today. We who fought to secure this commitment expected the Government to offer sanctuary to thousands, not just a couple of hundred. There is no shame in reversing a bad decision, so let us fill those remaining 240 places, scrap the deadline and open up more places for children who arrived in Europe after March 2016. Secondly, I want a guarantee that family reunification provisions for unaccompanied children are not restricted in the event that the UK ceases to be bound by Dublin III. Thirdly, I call on the Government to support Baroness Hamwee’s Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill in the other place. The Bill would amend our existing immigration rules to allow adult siblings, grandparents, aunt and uncles who have refugee status to sponsor unaccompanied children from outside Europe to join them in the UK.

I cannot overstate the horrific truth that the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that more children will go missing and fall into the evil hands of traffickers. While Brexit dominates the agenda in this place, there are children in desperate need. It is an accident of history that it is those families—those children—facing the cold in Calais. Let us imagine that they were our children and our families. Would not we want a foreign country to help? When we answer that question honestly, we know exactly what we need to do now.

Immigration Act 2016: Section 67

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will update the House on the implementation of section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

The Government are fully committed to helping and supporting the most vulnerable children, and we are contributing significantly to hosting, supporting and protecting vulnerable children affected by the migration crisis. This is part of our wider response of taking 23,000 people from the region. We have already granted asylum or another form of leave to more than 8,000 children and local authorities across the country are supporting more than 4,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Children transferred under section 67 are being cared for by local authorities across the country and we and they take our responsibility to those children very seriously. Safeguarding those children is paramount. Following consultation with local authorities, the Government have set the number of children who will be transferred under the scheme at 480. We have invited referrals of eligible children from France, Greece and Italy and our officials at the Home Office have visited those countries in recent months to put in place processes further to identify and transfer eligible children. In the past week I have spoken to my counterparts in Greece and Italy specifically on this issue, and I shall follow that up with face-to-face meetings in both countries next week.

It is important to remember that the processes for transferring children must be implemented in line with each member state’s national laws and all transfers of children to the UK must be carried out safely and with the best interests of the children at the centre of all decisions. The ongoing work to transfer children under section 67 is in addition to our other commitments and we continue to work closely with member states and relevant partners to ensure that children with family in the UK can be transferred quickly and safely.

Our approach continues to be to take refugees directly from conflict regions, providing refugees with a more direct and safe route to our country rather than risking hazardous journeys to Europe. We are committed to resettling 23,000 people from the region and our resettlement schemes are some of the largest and longest-running in the EU. So far, we have resettled more than 7,000 people under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme and the vulnerable children resettlement scheme. Our schemes allow children to be resettled with their family members, thereby discouraging them from making perilous journeys to Europe alone.

It is worth noting that families continue to arrive from the region. Just yesterday, 199 individuals arrived and another 80 are due to arrive next week. That is all part of the Government’s approach to helping the most vulnerable.

[Tim Farron]

I thank the Minister for his response, but it seems in the light of fact that those are somewhat hollow words. Before the election, the Government promised they would transfer 480 refugee children from Europe to the UK, but in the other place the Government recently admitted that so far only 200 unaccompanied children have been given sanctuary here. When do the Government expect to fulfil this measly commitment, and will the Minister give us a date today?

I say that it is a measly commitment because the UK should do so much more. Freedom of Information Act requests show that local councils have voluntarily offered to accept 1,572 more children in addition to those they already support. Does the Minister know this? In light of this information, will the Government reopen Dubs and take their fair share?

As summer approaches, more are taking the dangerous crossings across the Mediterranean to reach the safety of European shores. More desperate, refugee children—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Stop the clock. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman but we cannot have two sets of exchanges taking place. There is a rather unseemly exchange between the hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who are gesticulating at each other and in obvious dispute. They must calm themselves and listen to the Demosthenian eloquence of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), whose question this is.

[Tim Farron]

That is understandable, Mr Speaker; this subject raises passions, and rightly so.

Summer approaches and more are taking the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to reach European shores. More desperate refugee children without anyone looking after them will arrive in Europe, yet the Government have said that they will not consider taking any child under Dubs who arrived after their arbitrary cut-off date of 20 March 2016. In the light of the delays, which are the Government’s fault, will they extend that cut-off date, which is as heartless as it is pointless?

Finally, I have visited the camps in Greece and elsewhere, which neither the Home Secretary nor the Prime Minister, who is, of course, the previous Home Secretary, have. I cannot forget what I have seen. I have met those children who, through no fault of their own, find their lives on pause as Ministers here choose to ignore them. How many children have been taken from Greece under the Dubs amendment to date? Have the UK Government even signed a memorandum of understanding with Greece to get these transfers under way? I know of two young people who signed a consent form to be transferred under Dubs more than a year ago. They are still stuck in Greece.

The horrific truth is that the longer this goes on the more likely it is that these children will go missing and fall into the evil hands of traffickers. According to Oxfam, 28 children every single day are going missing in Italy alone. Will the Government step up, or continue to ignore the plight of these desperate children?

[Brandon Lewis]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s comments are based on pretty much a series of false premises. I remind him that, as I have said, we have a range of schemes out there and are working to bring 23,000 people over. While he bandies around numbers I politely ask him to bear in mind that behind every number he talks about—some of which were wrong—there is a child. It is important for us to ensure that those children get the care and support they need in the right time and the right place.

The hon. Gentleman talks about timelines, and he seems to forget that Italy and Greece are nation states, as is France. We must work around the timelines for them, too. He mentioned the FOI request concerning local authorities, which I am afraid is simply wrong. We consulted local authorities, which is what we said we would do when the legislation was in front of the House. That is what has led to the figure of 480, and the FOI request he is talking about does not consider what local authorities can provide. It is about the 0.7%[Official Report, 5 September 2017, Vol. 628, c. 1MC.] threshold, which is an entirely different calculation, so perhaps he should go away and look further at that.

We are very clear that we must ensure that we do not create a pull factor while at the same time doing the right thing, as we have done with the £2.46 billion of support that makes us one of the biggest contributors and covers the biggest humanitarian aid project this country has ever conducted, to look after the people who need our care the most. Instead of playing politics with children’s lives, we should get on with looking after them and I wish the hon. Gentleman would join us in that.

Calais

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend raises such an important point. I know he has done a lot of work in this area. He is absolutely right that there is always a risk to accepting these young women, but it is because they are at risk that we have been so keen to prioritise them. That is why, to protect them from the sort of dangers he sets out, of the nearly 200 people we have taken over the past weekend, nearly a third have been young women. I can reassure him that we will be making constant safeguarding checks. I will write to him more fully to set out exactly what we are doing.

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

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and advance sight of it, and for her work in recent days in trying to expedite the response to this crisis. However, we should step up to the mark and challenge the suggestion that human trafficking is the cause and the source of the crisis. Human traffickers are wicked people who exploit a crisis that is global and European.

Specific to Calais, many of the vulnerable children being brought to the UK will have family somewhere, even if they are currently separated. I understand that the United Kingdom is the only European Union country that does not allow unaccompanied children with refugee status the right to sponsor immediate family, including parents, to join them. Given the importance of keeping families together, will the Home Secretary ensure that unaccompanied refugee children are able to sponsor their parents, for the purpose of refugee family reunion, if and when they are found?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman is right that traffickers are a part of the problem, not the whole problem. He and I know, as the whole House does, that there are many reasons why this takes place. It starts with the upstream problem that we are trying to address, supporting African countries where a lot of these refugees are coming from, with other countries internationally. On our immigration policy on asylum, there are no plans to change it.

Calais Jungle

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

We have certainly noticed a significant uplift in the effort, people, time and professional commitment that the French are willing to put in. Because they are moving closer to clearing the camps, they are now very keen to work with us and help us to identify the children whom we can legally take over, and my hon. Friend should be in no doubt that we are working closely with them to ensure that we can do that with all possible speed.

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

The Home Secretary has estimated that there are between 600 and 900 unaccompanied children in the camp, and has said that if the United Kingdom were to take 300, that would be “a really good result”. May I just suggest that for the 600 who are left alone and cold in Calais, it will not be “a really good result”? The children who have come here so far have done so mainly as a result of Citizens UK’s safe passage programme, in the absence of any system to implement Dublin in Calais. Will the Home Secretary promise the House that she will step up the efforts? Will she give a number that is credible and also massively ambitious, given the changing circumstances? Will she ensure that, through bloody-minded determination, compassion and urgency, the Government act in line with this country’s values, and give those children sanctuary and refuge?

[Amber Rudd]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s views about the values of this country and the need to look after those children, but I hesitate to give a number, although I am often pressed to do so by various organisations and, indeed, by our French counterparts.

I think that the right way to deal with this is to identify the regulations under which we, as a Government and as a country, have said that the children should come here, and that means Dublin and Dubs. On Dublin, we are making good, fast progress. We expect to receive a list this week, and we will move with all due haste after that. As for Dubs, we hope to ensure that children are held safely—that is exactly what I have been discussing with the French today—so that we can assist with the process. We have not reached a final deal, or arrangement, with the French to process the children and establish the swiftest way for us to assist, but I hope that we shall do so within the next few days.

Immigration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The whole point is that they are in safe countries. The criticism should be levelled not at the British Government, but at other Governments. If the Scottish nationalists wish to take the children in and they have the capacity in Scotland, they should pay for it themselves and not ask the Minister to go to the British Treasury to fund it. Put your money where your mouth is.

I fear that the Lords amendment will send out a very dangerous message. It is also an insulting message to our continental partners, whom we all know, because we see it night after night on our television screens, are wrestling with the consequences of this tragic migration flow into Europe. The Lords amendment sends out a damning message to them that they cannot cope and that their conditions are inadequate to look after vulnerable people.

That is my first point. My second point is this: my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly asked the sanctimonious hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who is parading his compassion—[Interruption.] We have free speech in this country. My hon. Friend made the point that there is a shortage of 10,000 foster carers in our country to look after our own children in need of foster care.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman does not spend enough time in this Chamber for me to give way to him.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is right that there is already a demand to look after our own children. As I have told the Prime Minister, in my constituency we do not have the capacity to take any more people and I will not give priority to those from overseas, however tragic, when my own constituents are suffering homelessness and vulnerable children cannot be catered for.

I quite understand the difficult position that my right hon. Friend the Minister has been put in, I suspect by some of my hon. Friends who have felt it necessary to parade their compassion. I do not believe the amendment to be a compassionate move. It sends out a very dangerous signal, encouraging parents to dispose of their children and put them at risk on the high seas, which is deeply dangerous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I am going to be very brief, because others want to speak.

My second point is that we must make absolutely sure that we avoid the pull. I know some Members are sceptical about that, but from my conversations with young men in Calais I am convinced that there is a pull factor, particularly for older teenagers—16, 17 and 18-year-olds. We must not encourage people smugglers to be paid to bring more of those people across Europe, so we must do this in a way that avoids a pull—as is, quite rightly, the plan.

My third and final point is we must make sure that we do it well. The Government are absolutely right to carry this out in consultation with local authorities. I represent a Kent constituency that is managing over 1,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers. It is a huge burden, and very few other local authorities have stepped up to help. I sincerely hope that more local authorities will now take on their fair share. As part of that, let us make sure that we make use of the upsurge in interest in fostering—many people have put forward their names to be foster carers—not only to look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and refugees but to provide more homes for British children who are in care.

[Tim Farron]

Seven months ago I used my first Prime Minister’s question as party leader to call on the Prime Minister to give sanctuary to 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children. The campaign has been cross-party and cross-community. Today we celebrate in particular the work of Lord Alf Dubs in pushing his amendment and being so utterly dogged with it. I also pay tribute to the Government’s own Back Benchers, whose compassion and equal doggedness have brought the Government to the brink of this change.

We should understand, however, that although we are finally able to give hope to some of these children and although this is a victory, it is certainly not the end of the story. Even tonight we are hearing from No. 10 that the Government will not take a single one of the refugees for another seven months, will not help children who arrive after the arbitrary date and will not commit to a fixed number.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Farron]

I do not have time, sorry.

In January, the Government claimed to be supporting child refugees, and we became optimistic, but then it turned out that that was just a repackaging of existing funds to the region. Last month, the Government said that they would take 3,000 children, and we were ready to cheer, but it turned out that none would be the desperate children alone in the camps in Europe. Last week, on the eve of elections, the Government gave way and said that they would accept the Dubs amendment, but now we discover that although they may have accepted the letter of the amendment they continue to flout its spirit.

With depressing predictability, we again see that the Government view desperate refugees as a media and political management issue, and not as the greatest, cruellest humanitarian disaster to face our continent in 71 years. Better late than never comes to mind, but remember this: in the seven months since we first raised this matter, it is likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of vulnerable children will have joined the 10,000 who have gone missing, into the hands of people traffickers, into forced labour and into child sexual exploitation. It keeps me awake at night that some of the children I met in Lesbos, in northern Greece and in Calais will now, I know, have shared that desperate fate, because of the Government’s prevarication. Now, the clock is ticking. Every week that we delay taking these children, more will disappear into the hands of those who wish to exploit them. The Minister has the blueprint that we produced, together with the help of local authorities of all parties, Save the Children, fostering agencies, and Home for Good. He will see that with sufficient leadership and Government resources, we could take these children pretty much straightaway.

Throughout this ongoing debate, all that has hindered us from doing the right thing as a country is the lack of political will from this Government. Last month, I saw in northern Greece a razor-wire fence on the Macedonian side of the border. It was backed up with tanks every 50 yards, and it was built in 36 hours because when politicians want to do something quickly, they can. This Government could act quickly if only they had the political will.

I do not care whether this counts as a U-turn. As a result of this campaign, many of us know that hundreds, hopefully thousands of children will be granted sanctuary. That is a welcome change of position, but it is clearly not a change of heart. Taking these children is not the best that we can do as a country; it is the least that we can do as a country.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I am actually quite sad tonight given what I have heard, because there is a clear sense and determination among Labour Members to suggest that the Government have not been doing enough. I spoke to the amendment two weeks ago, and the county of Kent has been rehoming unaccompanied minors and refugees for decades. Kent has been a gateway for people making their way to safety into this country, and this Government, and previous Governments, have been doing their bit.

As I have outlined previously, it is all very well making a simplistic argument—“We’ll just put these young people with foster carers”—but the reality is, as my hon. Friends have said, that we have a shortage of foster carers in this country. What I have found saddest about this whole debate in the weeks leading up to it has been that, week after week, Opposition Members have stood up and spoken about unaccompanied minors. I do not know about them, but I do a hell of a lot of work with looked-after children, and since I have been elected to this House I have not heard Opposition Members stand up and champion the outcomes of young looked-after children in this country. Labour Members have stood up and talked about unaccompanied minors, but they have not made that point.

I have spoken to friends on the continent over this past week, and as has been said, they feel quite depressed about the debates that we have had in this House, the accusations that have been levelled at some countries on the continent, and the fear that this is unsafe. This Government and country are doing enough.