Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Ben Lake Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Since my election to this place in June, the issue of unaccompanied child refugees has been a major topic in my postbag and inbox, so I am glad we are having this debate. I commend the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who has already set the bleak scene in Calais, for securing it.

Before saying a little about the Dublin regulations, I want to touch briefly on the Dubs amendment.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Dubs amendment, far from being a pull factor, disrupts the traffickers who seek to profit from smuggling and the exploitation of vulnerable children by establishing a safe and legal route for those seeking asylum?

[David Linden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great misfortunes of this debate is that the Government talk a lot about a pull factor but have published absolutely no evidence; it is a case of putting up or shutting up.

I want to touch on the British Government’s woefully inadequate response to what is the worst humanitarian crisis since world war two. To be clear, we on the nationalist Benches would like to see the Dubs scheme continued to enable the UK to receive at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe. Moreover, we want the British Government to increase the total number of refugees they intend to settle under the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement programme.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Kirby, from the International Rescue Committee, who shared with me some very harrowing statistics and data about the number of unaccompanied and separated children in Europe. Europol reports that there are almost 90,000 lone refugee children in Europe. Indeed, the UNHCR estimates that in 2016 about 33,800 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Spain. The majority of those—some 26,000 children—arrived in Italy.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the UK Government had axed the Dubs amendment on refugee children and capped it at 480. The refugee crisis has not gone away and people are still fleeing the continuing violence in Syria and other countries, which creates a very serious risk that the numbers of unaccompanied children becoming prey to human traffickers will increase. Her Majesty’s Government need to do their part by continuing to provide places under the Dubs scheme when local authority capacity is available, as we know it is.

I commend many of the local authorities in Scotland that have embraced, with typically warm hospitality, many refugees from Syria. My own city of Glasgow has been outstanding when it comes to welcoming what are now affectionately known as “refuweegees”. In fact, Scotland has welcomed over a quarter of the total number of Syrian refugees in the UK.

I have some questions for the Minister. Will Her Majesty’s Government consider moving the date of entry to Europe to after 20 March 2016, if indeed there are still spaces available under the Dubs amendment? Given that there are currently 2,590 unaccompanied children in Greece and more than 13,000 in Italy, what assessment has been made of the UK’s ability to accept more than the already agreed 480 children? Sadly, it took a dead toddler to wash up on a beach and photos appearing on the front pages of our newspapers to make most of us sit up and take note of the stark horror of this humanitarian disaster.