Brexit: Child Refugees

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly agree that the situation of children in camps is most undesirable. Children should be placed in a safe location where their welfare is met. We work with the French Government and other Governments to ensure that we meet any obligations that we have. During the Calais clearance we worked very closely with the authorities there to ensure children’s requests were processed.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government aware that it is not only the brightest and best who manage to survive the experience of migration? Also, for many of us the moral economy of kin demands that we not only look after our immediate family, but have a moral duty to look after our extended family. Therefore, many of these children rely on aunts, cousins and people who are not their immediate family. Perhaps the Government should consider and celebrate differences and allow them to join their extended family.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there are provisions within the Immigration Rules for people to join their extended family. I totally agree with the noble Baroness that we have an obligation not just to our immediate children, but to other countries’ as well. This country has a very long and proud history of that.

Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, I had the great privilege and good fortune that, when I decided to return to the UK to marry my husband, who was of New Zealand extraction of British parents, I did not have to prove that I had an income. I was allowed to come here because I had spent the largest part of my life as a student in this country, and it was accepted that I could come back and live here. Therefore, when I married my husband, he knew that I did not do it for a passport.

The assumption that the dependants and families of immigrants are in need of resources is perhaps worth considering in some detail. First and foremost, I contend that it is only the brightest, the best and the most enterprising who ever decide to move, because the logistics of getting oneself from A to B, particularly if it involves a family, require good tactics, good knowledge, good diplomacy and savoir faire in dealing with all kinds of officialdom across the board.

I also suggest that, once such refugees arrive here, they have much to give. Both my brother and I decided to stay in the countries where we had studied—he in the US and I in England—so after the Iranian revolution we were both in a position to ask our families to join us. I do not remember there being any problem at the time with our requiring our families to come and join us. As I said, one of my brothers went to the US. My father decided to go to France, where he was instrumental in setting up the Faculté Internationale de Droit Comparé in Strasbourg. It made very good money for the French Government because a lot of students wanted to live there. My brother heads a research institute in the US, and my youngest brother, who also went there, heads a hedge fund. The youngest, who stayed in France, also owns his own research unit. So there is a wealth of good information that immigrants bring, even if they arrive as dependants or otherwise.

In addition, the moral economy of kin dictates to all of us that we should protect our own. Therefore, when immigrants arrive, whether they be children, close relatives or distant relatives, we see it as our duty to care for them as our own. If you go to somewhere like Bradford, you see how rewarding that is.

Not only do I think that immigrants have contributed considerably to the food industry in Britain and to the palate of the British but I suggest that they bring a whole variety of different perspectives and outlooks. In this world we need to celebrate differences. They are enriching. Different ways of doing things help us to see better and they add wider dimensions to our lives. It is beneficial to us all to celebrate differences, and I think that we can rely on the moral economy of kin to be sure that those who arrive to join their families will not be a burden on the economy for long.

Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill [HL]

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. Some 10 years ago, I asked her to become my mentor. She agreed and has remained my hero for all my working life. I was astounded to read that it was possible for someone who has committed acts of corruption that would have been regarded as unacceptable even in my days in Iran to come to this country. Minutes ago, we were fighting for the right of immigrants who have committed no crime to come to this country. This is an extraordinary contradiction. How is it possible to have laws that allow criminals to come to this country, and bring their money here to launder it? All my life, I thought that by coming to Britain I would have left behind corruption and gross financial indecency of that kind.

I came to this country because I thought that its laws were straight; we knew what was happening; we could trust the banks. We knew that this country would protect those who are needy and would certainly not offer a haven for those who would abuse their positions. It is unacceptable and I beg that we change this attitude. It is dishonourable for me to think that it is acceptable for this country to allow the kind of corruption that has been rife in many countries which we have considered undesirable. Please, my Lords, change your minds.

Domestic Violence: Police Resources

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I can give the noble Baroness further updates on that matter. Yes, she raised it in the Bill, and the Home Secretary is chairing an oversight board to ensure that the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and national police leads are doing all that is required of them in dealing appropriately with victims of domestic violence.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing to provide safe places outside the community where the violence occurs? Many community minorities have always, as a matter of course, closed ranks to defend whatever their position is, and many women need somewhere that is safe for them which is not in the same city but somewhere else.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness raises the reason why we set out the national statement of expectations rather than a nationally led programme of delivery for domestic violence. In terms of safe places outside the community, that means that a lady or a man who needs to flee their community to go to somewhere else will be sure of a safe place. I would like to move to a position where a lady did not need to flee her community in order to be safe but where the perpetrator was dealt with effectively.

Terrorism: Perpetrator Creed

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Afshar]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of official announcements relating to terrorism focussing on the perpetrator's creed rather than the crime committed; and whether any such assessment has informed their practice in such cases.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have not made assessments of the impact of official announcements after attacks.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

I thank the Minister for her helpful reply. Given that at the moment terrorists are defined by their religion, does that not create an atmosphere in which the label “Muslim” becomes a badge of honour for criminals such as Khalid Masood, who attacked Parliament? He converted to Islam a few months before his attack. He already had a long track record of misdeeds—in fact he converted in prison—and knew nothing about Islam. However, attacking Parliament in the name of Islam made him a hero and made him feel like a martyr, rather than the criminal that he really was.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we do not have a policy on announcing the creed of attackers instead of the actual attack details. In fact, to this end OSCT has gone through all statements made by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Security Minister where we have found reference to attacks and not one mentions the attackers’ backgrounds, except possibly by inference when they are named.

Prevent Strategy

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we are absolutely clear that Prevent is working. Since 2010, 280,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material have been removed from the internet. A thousand people have received support through the Channel programme. In addition, we have absolute evidence of delivery of Prevent working across sectors. We have 850,000 frontline staff, including NHS staff and teachers, trained in spotting signs of radicalisation, so we are happy that Prevent is actually working.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government aware that, by defining Muslims as the real focus of Prevent, Prevent has an incentive to be an agent provocateur—to actually find Muslims who are defined as other and as potential terrorists? This in itself creates a sense of otherisation which alienates many law-abiding Muslims and makes them feel as if they are defined as the enemy within.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we need to be absolutely clear that Prevent is in no way targeting Muslims. Prevent is aiming to safeguard people who are actually vulnerable to radicalisation, so it is a mechanism to protect people and not to target them. I think it is incumbent upon all of us to try not to make that connection.