Child Migration Programmes (Child Abuse)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Lisa Nandy

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for attending this debate and for raising that point. One of the reasons why it was important for me to bring this issue to the House for the first time for a full debate is that many Members have a strong interest in this area and in pursuing justice for the affected families. It is important that those suggestions are heard, and I hope the Minister has heard them.

Like Marcelle O’Brien, many of those who survived that horrendous period are still living with the consequences. Four years ago, the Prime Minister—then the Home Secretary—commissioned an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. MPs from various parties, including me, welcomed that decision. The inquiry’s first full report is on this subject, and it is damning.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this issue to Westminster Hall. It is a pity that there are not more Members here to contribute, but I commend her for leading the charge. Does she agree that, given that every child migrant was exposed to an equal level of risk due to the failings in the system she has referred to, they must all be entitled to an equal level of redress?

[Lisa Nandy]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this issue. Although I agree that it would be great to see more Members of Parliament in the Chamber, one of the problems is that this issue did not get the coverage or attention it deserves until relatively recently. I hope that by bringing it to the House, I will help more Members to understand what is happening and more survivors to come forward so we can start to see action, which is long overdue. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point: the report recommends equal compensation for equal risk. I have no desire to see survivors and victims have to prove what happened to them and recount those horrific stories again. The report was absolutely right to make that recommendation, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to it.

I mentioned the first full report from the wide-ranging, comprehensive inquiry into child sexual abuse. It acknowledges the role of churches and charities in causing harm to children, but it concludes that the British Government were primarily to blame for the continued existence of child migration programmes after the second world war. They failed to act, even when warned about allegations of sexual abuse. The report is devastating in its conclusion that

“the main reason for HMG’s failure to act was the politics of the day, which were consistently prioritised over the welfare of children.”

The Government did not want to risk their relations with Australia or to offend the voluntary societies that participated in the scheme. Ministers in successive Governments were cowed by the patronage and power of those who were involved in the schemes.

Despite that, the children were stronger. The truth began to emerge more than 30 years ago, thanks to their determination and courage. Even in the face of their bravery, successive Governments failed to accept responsibility. As the current Government recently acknowledged, the UK Government continued to maintain that it was a matter for the Australian Government until well into the 2000s. It is only because of the Child Migrants Trust, led by Dr Margaret Humphreys, who has rightly been described as the “conscience of Britain” on this important human rights issue, and a number of brave and persistent survivors here and across the world, many of whom will be watching this debate with interest today—some have had to stay up quite late to do so—that this became a matter of public attention that is still being pursued now.

The report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse was published four months ago. It recognised the importance of the public apology made by Gordon Brown in one of his last acts as Prime Minister, and of the family restoration fund, for which he and Andy Burnham, the then Health Secretary, found £6 million, and which has enabled more than 1,000 people to be reunited with their families. The current Government have since announced an additional £2 million for that fund, for which I am grateful. It is very welcome. I will return to that subject in a moment.

The report made just three recommendations: that the sending institutions that have failed to apologise publicly and in person to the children abused in their care do so; that all institutions that sent children abroad put in place robust systems for retaining and preserving easily accessible records of individual child migrants; and, finally, that adequate financial redress be made to the more than 2,000 surviving former child migrants. It also made it clear that this is urgent—many have died and others are dying, and it was unequivocal that the scheme must be up and running within 12 months.

In the four months since that urgent, devastating report was published, the silence from the Government has been deafening. Confusion about which Department is responsible has reigned. The Home Office made a short statement in March, when the report was published. The Department of Health and Social Care later responded to written questions. After four weeks of back-and-forth between those two Departments, I resorted to raising a point of order in the Chamber. In response, I was told that I could seek to raise the matter with the Prime Minister, which I did. I had to resort to going to the Prime Minister a month after the report was published just to get clarity from the Government about which Department is responsible. Four months on and multiple attempts later, the Government are still no clearer about their response and have still not told us when it will be made.

I am not the only one who has hit this brick wall. The Australian law firm Hugh James, which acts for former child migrants, shared with me a letter it sent to the Health Secretary. It said:

“We hand delivered a letter concerning this matter to the FCO on 26 April 2018. We served the enclosed letter on the Prime Minister’s Office on 29 May 2018. On 5 June 2018 we were informed by the Prime Minister’s Office that both of our letters were passed to your department. We are disappointed we are yet to receive a response from you and we ask you to contact us as soon as possible.”

That was two weeks ago. I ask the Minister, when will that firm get a reply on behalf of those former child migrants?

I want to say something really serious to the Minister today. The Child Migrants Trust tells me that, in the time that the Government have sat on the report, 10 former child migrants have died. Ten people died not knowing whether the Government will now draw a line under one of the darkest periods of our history, and whether they are committed to truth, redress, justice, and learning lessons to ensure this never happens again. That is the legacy those people deserve. Still now, the state, which did so much harm to them at the beginning of their lives, continues to do harm to them all the way through until their death. That cannot go on.

Will the Minister explain the reason for the delay within Government? Will she assure us that this is now the highest priority and is being dealt with a matter of urgency? As well as being a clear question of justice, this goes to the heart of whether any of us can have confidence in the child sex abuse inquiry that the Prime Minister established. She told the House when she set up the inquiry that she believed it to be essential that the lessons that come out are not only learned but acted upon. As the Minister knows, the inquiry has been beset by problems since. It has been through four chairs and has faced serious allegations of misconduct. It has cost £64 million so far—the costs are rising—and has lost the confidence of many victims’ and survivors’ groups, which have walked away over that time. Many, however, continue to invest time and energy in the inquiry, because they hope that it will make a difference. That first report must have been a sign of encouragement to them that the inquiry would not shy away from asking the difficult questions and telling the truth.

Now the Government must show that they are serious about taking action, and get on with doing so. It has been four months, and at least 10 people have died in that time, so will the Minister tell us today, do the Government accept the report’s three clear recommendations? If she cannot tell us today, will she at least commit to a full and formal response to the report before the summer recess? That request comes directly from child migrant groups, and I would be grateful for a clear answer.

The inquiry made huge progress in ensuring that apologies were made. Many organisations, including the Children’s Society, where I once worked, took the opportunity afforded to make a welcome but long-overdue apology. Will the Minister tell us, however, what progress has been made to ensure that the records are kept and made available? I have been told that the Prince’s Trust—it took over Fairbridge, which was involved in the child migration programmes—has not yet made all its records available. Have the Government contacted the agencies listed in the report to ensure that such measures are in place? What has been the response of those agencies? If the Government have not yet done that, will she commit today to doing so?

What progress has the Minister made on the question of financial redress? Has she assessed the numbers of those who might qualify? Has she done a scoping exercise to determine potential costs? In the past four months, what discussions have the Government had with the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and the Child Migrants Trust about implementing the recommendations? Does she accept the principle, mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), of equal compensation because children were exposed to equal risk?

Let me compare the UK Government’s response and their position with Australia’s. In December 2017, a royal commission in Australia published the results of its five-year investigation into child abuse and recommended a national redress scheme. Within two months the Prime Minister had responded and set a deadline of 1 July. Legislation was fast-tracked through Parliament last month, and the scheme began accepting applications on Sunday, as promised. The scheme offers not only monetary payments but access to counselling and a direct personal response. Survivors who are elderly or ill will be fast-tracked but, in any case, the promise has been made that claims will be processed within weeks. Redress payments will not be taxed. The average payment is expected to be about 76,000 Australian dollars, which is about £42,000 in our money.

Surely it should shame us that the country the child migrants were sent to is responding, but not the country that sent them there—the country that was responsible for their care and welfare at the time. How can it be right that the Australian Prime Minister can respond to a report with 409 recommendations in only two months, but our Prime Minister cannot respond to a report with only three recommendations in more than double that time? Has the Minister made contact with Ministers and officials in Australia to understand how they established that scheme and to learn the lessons? Will she tell me today that the Government at least accept the principle of financial redress? Will she confirm that a scheme will be up and running by March next year, as per the IICSA’s recommendation?

The Minister is aware that when Gordon Brown made a formal apology in 2010, the full extent of the abuse was not known. He and many of the survivors therefore believe that a full apology is overdue. In this matter, I have to disagree with the conclusion of the independent inquiry’s report—not to recommend a further apology—because the harms caused by the migrant programmes are many and complex. That is why it matters that we recognise not simply the harm done to children by separating them from their families and countries, but the additional sexual, physical and emotional abuse laid bare so starkly by the report and the harm of our failure to confront it over successive Governments and many decades. Will the Minister commit to that today, or at the very least provide us with a date by which time the Prime Minister will respond to that specific request?

Another pressing need is a commitment to continue the family restoration fund beyond 2019. One thousand people remain to be reunited with their families, and there is a waiting list. I welcome the Government’s commitment so far, and the £2 million that they made available to the fund, but its continuation is of central importance. Many of the mums and dads of the former child migrants went to their graves not knowing what had happened to their children or even whether they were dead or alive. They never found out that they had become grandparents, and they never saw or got to hold their children ever again.

The family restoration fund has enabled some of those deep wounds at least to start to heal, and important work remains to be done before it is too late. The Minister knows, as I do—as we all do—that many of the former child migrants have died and that others are seriously ill and dying. Every day counts. The fund will enable nothing less than a restoration to families of the rights stripped away from them many decades ago. Will she give us a commitment that the fund will be continued until all the former child migrants have been able to seek to be reunited with their families?

This has been one of the most shameful episodes in British history. For 30 years we have known about the scandal but failed to act. The harm that was done then is compounded by our knowledge that it continues to cause harm to people in this country and across the world, yet still nothing is done. The secretary of the International Association of former Child Migrants and their Families, Harold Haig, put it movingly when he said on the day of the formal apology by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, that

“our thoughts are with those child migrants who have died and particularly those who ended their lives because the wounds were too deep and too painful”.

At least 10 people have died that we know of since the report was published four months ago. I hope that the Minister will tell us today that no more will die suffering harm from the British Government, and that we shall finally deal with one of the darkest periods in our history.