Refugee Family Reunion (Immigration Rules)

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[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 Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Does it not come to the fact that, for most people, actually getting refugee status and getting here is only part of the beginning of the story, not the end? The hon. Lady is talking about people who need to rebuild their lives from the ground up, and there is no better context in which to do that than the family environment.

[Ms Abbott]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. If we regard these people as people, then gaining refugee status is only the beginning, as has been said. What they need around them, if at all possible, is their family. That is what the unfair and inappropriate state of family reunion rules militates against.

I remind the House of the final act of the United Nations conference of plenipotentiaries on the status of refugees and stateless persons, which provided that signatories—we are one—take

“the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family”,

with particular reference to

“Ensuring that the unity of the refugee’s family is maintained”

and

“The protection of refugees who are minors”.

I think the summation of this debate so far is that we are not taking the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family.

Article 3 of the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child states that the interests of the child must always be the primary consideration in all actions relating to them. The Home Office guidance from 2009, “Every Child Matters”, says that there is a statutory duty to promote the welfare of children, which must also apply to children overseas. I have dealt with so many cases down the years in which it was quite clear that the welfare of the children overseas was the last thing on the Home Office’s mind. As we have heard, many campaigners, non-governmental organisations and immigration lawyers argue that the current UK legislation and practice may meet the letter of the UN convention but not the spirit. As I think most of us know, there is scope to allow an application outside of the immigration rules, but in my experience that is an extremely rare occurrence.

The then Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), argued in the House in 2015 both that the UK rules were more fairly drawn than other countries and—this is the essence of the problem in fairly treating refugees—that to widen them would act as a pull factor for more refugees. That is what is behind the Home Office’s thinking. The Dublin III regulations are designed to allow greater access for child refugees, but they are widely regarded as bureaucratic and unwieldy, and the same verdict is widely shared of the application form itself. The Dubs amendment, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) referred, was designed to provide access in the interests of the child. However, it now seems very unlikely to meet its designated target of 3,000 child refugees from the encampment in Calais. We have let those children down, and we have let those Members of the Lords and the Commons who supported the Dubs amendment down.

As the Minister will no doubt tell us, there is a series of long-established refugee resettlement schemes, such as the mandate and gateway schemes, and the Syrian vulnerable persons scheme. The Government have also recently announced a vulnerable child resettlement scheme—I dare say we will hear about too. However, the effect of those various ad hoc schemes is to add to the complexity and bureaucracy, as any of us who have dealt with refugees will know, and to exacerbate inconsistencies—Syrian children, but not Yemeni or Afghan children.

I am quite clear that the reason why the existing regime for refugee family reunion seems unfair and incoherent and not in the spirit of the UN conventions that we have signed has to do with the toxic debate on immigration that we are having. In the post-Brexit era, and in the era of Trump, I cannot let the issue of the general debate on migration go past.

[Stella Creasy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not a debate that makes sense in Britain? Actually, we have had a proud tradition of taking and supporting refugees in this country. I am mindful that Creasy, like Farage, is a Huguenot surname, and that all of us come from communities that have benefited from the input of refugees. That is the true British, patriotic tradition that we should be supporting.

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is completely correct: this is a not a debate that makes sense in the UK any more than it makes sense in the US—a country that was built on immigration, more than any other society that can be named. However, because migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and so on are conflated in the popular narrative, we are where we are.

With Brexit, Trump and the debate about the conditions under which we leave or do not leave the European Union, there is no doubt that the issue of migration is going to come up over and over again. I urge Members who have shown such sympathy and compassion to refugees, and on family reunions specifically, to hold their nerve on the question of immigration. It is so important that as politicians we have a debate on immigration that is based on the facts, not on urban myth. It is so important that we do not propagate notions that immigrants in some general sense drive down wages, when it is in fact predatory employers who drive down wages. It is so important that we do not join UKIP in the gutter when talking about migrants and refugees.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West made eight very important points. I want to leave the Minister plenty of time to respond to each of them—not with waffle, not by trying to change the subject and not by referring to general things the Government may have done in the past. I say to the House that these are difficult times to argue for fair treatment for asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants, but precisely because it is a difficult time, it is so important that those of us who feel able to should stand up and be counted. After all, the point about refugees is that they are not just figures on a Home Office briefing; they are not just images on a television screen; they are not just the subject of Nigel Farage’s speeches—they are people, and they deserve to be treated as people in a fair and humane fashion.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I am happy to do so, Sir Alan. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing this debate on an important subject and pay tribute to the work of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees.

I want to make it clear that there is no need for a question mark when I say that refugees are welcome here. I was recently in Jordan and met a number of refugees, some of whom had just arrived from the berm. I had very helpful meetings with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which was selecting the most vulnerable families and children to come as part of the schemes we have in place. I am proud that we are the second biggest donor of humanitarian aid. That shows that we are determined to help those most in need in the most vulnerable locations, which in many cases is in the refugee camps, not, for example, in European Union countries.

I am aware of calls in favour of widening the family reunion immigration rules. That issue has been debated at length, including in both Houses during the passage of the Immigration Act 2016. The recent campaigns by the British Red Cross and the Refugee Council demonstrate the interest in this subject. This has been a good debate, and I welcome the thoughtful and passionate contributions from right hon. and hon. Members.

We recognise that families may be fragmented due to conflict and persecution and the speed and manner in which asylum seekers often flee their country of origin. That is why the Government have dedicated family reunion immigration rules and have granted more than 22,000 family reunion visas in the past five years. Our policy meets our international obligations and allows immediate family members who formed part of the family unit before the refugee sponsor fled their country to reunite with them in the UK. British citizens are able to sponsor their spouse or partner and children under the age of 18 to join them under the family immigration rules, providing they make the appropriate entry clearance application and meet the relevant criteria.

[Ms Abbott]

The Minister talks about how the system works. What does he have to say to the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) that we should have a broader definition of family that is not just immediate family?

[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.