UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr António Guterres, has said:

“Syria has become the great tragedy of this century—a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.”

I want to focus on attitudes towards refugees, and to ask whether we are doing everything that we can and should be doing.

This week we marked Holocaust memorial day, and the theme this year was “journeys”. We remembered those who had sought refuge, safety and a better chance of survival. At the United Kingdom commemoration here in central London, we heard personal testimonies from holocaust survivors of the Nazi death camps, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia Herzegovina. The Leader of the Opposition spoke very movingly about how members of his family had survived the holocaust, and about those who had not. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government spoke with conviction about the contribution of holocaust survivors who were able to start new lives in Britain; we heard something about that from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman).

I was sitting next to a lady from Leipzig, who asked me “Will we ever learn the lessons of history?” She got out of Nazi Germany just in time, on the Kindertransport, finding refuge in the UK, but many did not. We rightly laud the efforts that were made and saved 10,000 children. It was the Jewish community, the Quakers and others who organised the evacuation, and many Jewish and non-Jewish families hosted the children. But why was it that only children were allowed into the UK? The parents were not given refuge. We should remember that many past, and sadly some present, attitudes to the treatment of refugees, including in the UK, are difficult to justify. We should never forget that, after the Anschluss in March 1938, rather than relaxing entry requirements for Austrian Jews, the British Government tightened them, introducing strictly controlled visas precisely to restrict their numbers. With the benefit of hindsight, we understand that more than 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered in the holocaust.

Today we are debating a cross-party motion tabled by the official Opposition which acknowledges the positive UK Government role in supporting people from Syria in their region, but are we doing enough to help refugees and are we learning the lessons from history? More than 2.1 million refugees have been registered by the UNHCR in Syria’s four neighbouring states. Hundreds of thousands more are known to be living outside Syria’s borders without access to aid. The UNHCR has expressly asked that the international community accommodate 30,000 refugees. Belatedly deciding to take a number of hundreds of refugees, the UK Government have acknowledged that we all have a responsibility to give refuge and assistance in the UK. I welcome that. However, according to the latest UNHCR figures, the following number of refugees are being accepted by other countries: Germany, 11,000; Canada, 1,300; Sweden, 1,200; Norway, 1,000; France, 500; Australia, 500; Austria, 500; and Finland, 500. The list goes on. Are we doing everything we can to help as many people as possible?

Amnesty International is right to describe the Syrian refugee crisis as an international failure. Positive political leadership from the UK and others in the international community is about financial support to assist refugees in Syria and the displaced refugees in neighbouring countries. But, after assessing needs and calculating what can be done in the region and what needs to be supported internationally, the UN is saying that the international community must accommodate 30,000 refugees.

We have also been challenged in wider areas—that we should share responsibility for refugees from Syria more equally, in particular through significantly increasing the number of resettlement and humanitarian admission places, over and above annual resettlement quotas.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

In April 1993, I took an orphan girl into my house when I was the British commander in Bosnia. My soldiers looked after her. Her parents and her brother had been shot dead in front of her. We thought that we should take her out of the country and that that was the right thing to do. In the end, we found a distant uncle and she stayed in Bosnia. The Home Secretary has said that that is the best option. We should bring people out of the region only if no other option is available to save their lives or look after them properly.

[Angus Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point. I underline my comments that, if the UN has assessed that there is a need to accommodate 30,000 people internationally, no doubt it has looked closely at all the factors to which the honourable and gallant Gentleman has referred.

EU member states and the EU have been challenged to strengthen search and rescue capacity in the Mediterranean to identify boats in distress and assist those on board; ensure that those rescued are treated with dignity and that their human rights, including the right to seek asylum, are fully respected; and ensure the end of unlawful push-back operations that deny refugees and migrants their rights, particularly on the Greek-Turkish border. All countries receiving refugees from Syria have also been challenged to automatically provide all people fleeing Syria, including Palestinian refugees—this has been mentioned several times—who were resident in Syria, with a status giving them international protection. Countries receiving refugees from Syria should also facilitate family reunification for refugees from Syria, including by applying flexible criteria to take into account the nature and needs of different families.

In these awful times for the poor people of Syria, it is right to provide aid and support in the region directly. It is also, however, a duty and humanitarian obligation to do whatever we can to help refugees closer to home. The lessons of history are plain to see. There will always be siren voices pandering to the lowest common denominator, who give a million reasons why we should not give refuge and accept people in need. The UK Government have belatedly accepted the case to accept a limited number of refugees. In times like these, we need political leadership to explain why helping refugees is the right thing to do and get on with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am proud to be a signatory of today’s motion. A few months ago, Plaid Cymru voted against military action in the wake of the suspicions over the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons. If an attack had gone ahead then, we would not have seen the relinquishing of the chemical weapons. I should also add that since that decisive debate and vote, Iran has been persuaded to enter talks on its nuclear programme. For the first time in years, there appears to be a better prospect of some agreement. I am not naive about this, but there are signs of progress. Only time will tell whether I am right, but President Rouhani shows strong signs of being willing to engage with the rest of the world. The avoidance of military intervention last year undoubtedly helped to create the space for that to happen. However, I must express disappointment that Iran is not at the table at Geneva II. None the less, there is a growing consensus that those talks are now Syria’s only hope, and we must not lose sight of their importance. Journeys to peace are seldom without their roadblocks, and there are certainly no shortcuts. To be utterly fair to the Government, they have led the way in appealing for and sending aid to Syria, as today’s motion notes.

Diplomacy is the only way to end the bloodshed in Syria. Of course we understand that there are no quick-fix solutions and that many different factions are now involved in the fighting. We wish to see a ceasefire agreed at the current talks in Geneva, and I urge the UK Government to do their utmost to convince the regime and the opposition’s main backers to bring their influence to bear.

The UK has been one of the largest financial donors of humanitarian aid, and that is most welcome. The Government should also commit to being generous in the numbers of refugees. The Prime Minister has rightly described the situation in Syria as the greatest refugee crisis of our time. We all know that a resettlement programme is the only means of offering a durable solution for the most vulnerable who struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of the region.

The UNHCR programme focuses on the most vulnerable. About 30,000 people are being helped, which is a mere fraction of the estimated 4 million refugees who have fled Syria into neighbouring countries. Vincent Cochtel, director of the UNHCR’s Europe bureau, said:

“From the perspective of the refugee it would make a hell of a difference.”

By that he means signing up to the scheme. He went on to say:

“The big picture is that there are 2.4 million Syrian refugees. When you zoom down and take a country like Turkey, it has taken 700,000 refugees, while the 47 countries that make up the rest of Europe have only taken 70,000 refugees. That gives you an idea of the scale of the problem.”

[Bob Stewart]

Talking of countries that could help, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be nice to see other countries in the middle east open their borders and take in refugees and give more money to support those poor people who have to exist on the borders of Syria?

[Mr Llwyd]

Of course in any refugee crisis, if somebody’s suffering can be alleviated nearer home, it is always better to do that than displacing them to a country further away. I fully agree with that. I urge the Government, even at this late stage, to consider the UNHCR scheme. I have heard what the Secretary of State has had to say on the matter, and there is some force in her argument, but I cannot understand why we are not part of the scheme. The all-pervading hysteria about migration of any sort seems to have clouded the issue. Surely humanity should dictate what we all do. When I questioned the Home Secretary earlier on, I made the point that the refugee status under international law is entirely different and should in no way be affected by the toxic debate about migration, to which we are all being subjected by the media. As one who does not have any nightmares about the UK Independence party or about Farage and that bunch, I add that Wales has a long and proud tradition of welcoming people from around the world. I urge the Government to involve the Welsh Government in this most important of policies. Plaid Cymru has in the past called for Wales to be taken into account by the Migration Advisory Committee, which develops policy. The committee works with Scotland and Northern Ireland but, for some reason, not Wales. I hope that there will be a change in that policy shortly.

I urge the Government to continue to pursue a diplomatic solution and I hope that they will bring further pressure to bear on Russia in the talks. I know that such things are going on and it is fairly obvious and trite for us to state that they need to, but it is right that we should detail them. We all realise, I am sure, that Russia is key to persuading Assad and his supporters to reach some form of reasonable compromise. It is possible that the current round of talks will produce consensus between Russia and the United States on what the next steps towards peace should be.

Today’s statement is very welcome as far as it goes, but despite all the speeches so far I am still unclear about why the Government cannot commit fully to the UNHCR’s resettlement programme. The Government have been sending humanitarian aid, but it is now urgent to ensure that there are safe corridors in that troubled country so that aid can be sent to where it can be effective. That question was touched on by the Home Secretary earlier, and I think it is crucial that that should happen.

In the spirit of the consensus that seems to be developing on all but one or two issues, I hope that we will not divide on the motion today but will move forward with a consensual approach. I hope that the Government will keep everybody fully informed of progress over the coming weeks and months.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

The House has heard many eloquent contributions, and many horror stories of the crisis inside Syria and the impact it has on the broader region. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) set that out. There are men and women inside Syria who are denied access to any form of humanitarian support, including access to food—the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) spoke of those who are dying from starvation through a lack of humanitarian support. In a moving speech, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke of the outbreak of polio 14 years after Syria was certified polio-free. She will be pleased to learn that the UK was part of helping the World Health Organisation to immunise about 200,000 children in Syria at the end of last year in response to that outbreak.

Since the crisis began, 14 UN staff and 32 Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers have been killed doing their jobs, going about providing humanitarian support to those who need it. As hon. Members have said, the crisis is having an exceptionally heavy toll on Syrian children. I have made several visits to the region. I have met refugees who had been in the camps for some time and those who had just arrived. Some started off with a lot and some with not very much, but in most cases they have very little, if anything, left to their names. Most have left having seen their towns and villages bombed and in fear of their lives. Many have moved on several occasions before finally taking the decision to leave Syria.

In Lebanon, 40% of the refugees arriving are children aged 17 or under, which is a shocking statistic. I met children who are being educated in the Zaatari camp in Jordan. When a convoy plane flies overhead delivering humanitarian supplies to the camp, the children automatically dive under the tables because they are so used to having to do that in Syria when bombs are dropping.

I assure the House that the UK is standing by the Syrian people in their hour of desperate need. As we have heard, our total funding for Syria and the region is now £600 million, which is three times the size of our response to any other humanitarian crisis. We have also heard that our aid contribution is second only to that of the United States. In fact, it is getting on for as much as all other EU member states put together. That figure represents the deep concern, which I think has been demonstrated across the whole House today, regarding the worsening plight of the Syrian people and the growing need inside Syria in particular and across the region.

[Bob Stewart]

May I ask the Secretary of State to assure the House that, to the best of her knowledge, refugees who get to the Syrian border and into a camp will be fed and clothed, and have their basic medical needs taken care of? We cannot do anything inside Syria, but we sure as hell can do something on the borders.

[Justine Greening]

I can reassure my hon. Friend. UK aid is being supplied to more than 300,000 people a month, many of whom are in camps. We are supplying water to nearly 1 million people a month, which is vital. We have provided more than 300,000 medical consultations for people who would otherwise be without the sort of medical support they were often used to in their previous lives. Syria was a middle-income country and people had lifestyles that we would recognise. For them, the transition into camps has been harsh.