Unaccompanied Children

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

I propose to start the winding-up speeches at about 10.30 or 10.35. A number of Members have indicated that they want to speak, so if Members can restrict their speeches to four to five minutes, everyone should be able to speak.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Order. If Members can aim to speak for about four minutes, everyone should be able to get in.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

If Members take about five minutes, not everyone will get in.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) because her points about emotion and about our fostering and adoptive care provision are crucial to the debate. Those points need to be focused on, not just by us in the debate but by the Minister, and I hope that he will use the debate and the contributions offered to formulate his policies and plans—I say this with the greatest respect—before Monday. If we are removing emotion from the debate, Parliament should not cajole the Government. If on Monday a vote went against the Government, and Parliament cajoled them into a position that they were either unprepared for or unwilling to engage in, it would be a disaster for unaccompanied children.

I will focus a tad on emotion. I recall that back in the summer I felt that the Government’s position was callous and heartless, and that it lacked the compassion of which we, as a country, should be proud. That was my emotional position at that time and I now accept that it was wrong. It was misplaced. It would have been wrong to resettle vulnerable people in this country without provisions such as homes, schools and GPs. Those things give them the best chance to assimilate, and so too with young unaccompanied children. It would be no justice to those who need the support, help and friendship of this country to bring them here without adequate support mechanisms in place. I hope, therefore, that the Government will take the opportunity not only to formulate their plans but to seek and receive the endorsement of Save the Children and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, so that we know that what we do has both the helping hand and the endorsement of organisations and NGOs that respect what this country is doing and recognise the contribution that we can make.

We have a proud history in this country, and the important point that the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent made is that when we consider today those many thousands of young people elsewhere who need our help it would be remiss of us if we did not also consider those in this country. If we could encourage more families to come forward as prospective adopters or foster carers, that would be a wonderful achievement for us, as a nation. If you take the Scotland and England figures together, there are more than 7,000 children in care homes so the idea that we would bring others to add to their number—and in many cases, their plight—is not something I can support. In building that support and that help, and in opening up the opportunity, I hope that this discussion can be of benefit not only for those seeking to come to a country of safety and sanctuary but for those who currently live without the true love and support of a family in this country.

I will conclude now, Ms Vaz, to give you some extra time for others. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, not just in his response to the debate but over the coming days and, with any luck, in advance of Monday, about just how best we can get a scheme that we can be proud of and that does justice to those who so much need it.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Thank you, Mr Robinson. That was excellent, and perhaps other Members could follow the example.

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[Jo Churchill]

I could not agree more. We have to ensure that we are not a magnet. The trade is absolutely immoral. We need to ensure that handling procedures for all vulnerable people are speedy and timely. We need biometric machinery so that people are registered where they arrive. Vulnerable children have no one to ensure that they are looked after on this journey. An increasing concern is that money given to Frontex is not being spent correctly. Improved monitoring is a must.

Young single people are at particular risk on all parts of their journey. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) said, they continue to be vulnerable once they are here, and we have a duty from the time they set sail. Taking people from camps in north Africa and Syria helps to show that assistance is there. A friend whose family comes from Lesbos said:

“It is not like an earthquake over in minutes. This is never-ending, like living on a motorway with daily car crashes. Some of the islanders can’t sleep and see boats when they are not there.”

The Greek people are tired, but I worry about having debates on numbers when we do not know the extent of the issue, when processing is not being done properly and when facts are scarce. Those things are critical. The amendment this week talks of 3,000 children, but as a mother, I have to ask: what about the 3,001st? Understanding situations properly is the key to sorting them, and we must ensure that councils are helped to provide the right support. Processing people quickly and decently is imperative, which brings me to the “jungle”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) said, we need to do the same here. Keeping people in squalor is no deterrent; it merely dehumanises. The French authorities need to speed up decision making, ensuring that reunification of family members happens swiftly, if appropriate. To do the right thing should be possible in Europe.

It is being recognised that we in this country are making decisions more swiftly. That is to be welcomed, but I, like many other Members here, want to see more. In the coming days, I look forward to the Minister, who has met with us on many occasions, meeting Save the Children. It can provide up-to-date local information, but I want to know what more we can do in practice to assist the processing, both in technical and influential terms. I want to make sure that vulnerable people get the help they acutely require. We have heard fine words today; please let us see some action.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

We have five minutes left for the last two speakers.

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[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I will be as fast as I can, Madam Chair.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

You have one minute.

[Heidi Allen]

Our ability to save the lives of children is immediate, doable and incumbent on us as members of the human race. In the past two months, I have visited Lesbos and Calais. Given the world’s attention on these unprecedented levels of migration, I was astounded to find a lack of coherent asylum processing and support for the most vulnerable refugees—children. In Lesbos, aid workers told of the promise of hotspots and resources to identify and process migrants, but we saw little more than organised chaos. Children identified as unaccompanied were held for their safety in a disused jail—welcome to Europe. So it was not altogether surprising that many sought to avoid that fate by ducking through the net of the authorities, but at least there was some kind of system. If I thought that was bad, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw—or did not see—in Calais. There was no asylum processing and no sign saying, “This way to safety.” Neither were there signs saying, “This way to avoid prostitution, trafficking and abuse.” The camp is eerily quiet until late morning because during the night, everyone, children included, is trying to board anything with wheels.

We met a young boy from Syria called Karim. He was desperate for human contact and hugged us and smiled sheepishly. He disappeared days after our visit. After the jungle was semi-demolished, a census carried out by self-appointed good British people, Help Refugees and Citizens UK, discovered that 129 children had gone missing. Karim did turn up a week or so later in Kent, thank God. However, he should not have had to make such a journey of danger and desperation.

In January, the Government said that they would work with the UNHCR to resettle unaccompanied children and with charities to assist and protect the children in transit across Europe. I do not doubt the herculean efforts of the Government in the region, but in Europe we must do more.

I have one final thought. I travelled home from Calais on a train with three young boys from Syria, the first to be resettled in the new reunification process. There should have been four, but there was no room in the car to the station for four children, so one was sent back to the “jungle” for one more month until the next car came along.

When the great British public are feeding and safeguarding the refugee children of Calais, I am filled with immense pride, but also embarrassment that they are having to do that work. If the British people are there, so should the Government be there. It is not France’s problem. Our compassion, Dunkirk spirit and geographical proximity have made it our problem, too, so I urge the Minister to do everything in his power to find those children before it is too late and bring them home for good.