Immigration Bill

Jo Cox Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I speak for Members from across the whole House when I say that history will judge how we respond to this historic crisis, which is of proportions that have not been seen since the second world war. This is the challenge of our time, and whether we rise to it or not will be the measure of us. We have the clear evidence of thousands of vulnerable children, and we now need to act to take 3,000, as proposed in the amendment. I say to Conservative Members who have campaigned and spoken out on this that now is the moment to do something about it to make a real difference by voting with us on amendment 87. I urge all Members to do so.

[Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

We have talked a lot about pull factors, but it is worth remembering for a moment the push factors: the children as young as seven who are being forced on to the frontline in Syria, or the children raped in conflicts that are so horrific that aid workers I have worked with over 10 years are telling me that the situation is the most horrendous they have ever witnessed. These are children in Europe right now. I applaud the Government’s record on the humanitarian support they have given to Syrian civilians in the region—in Syria—and some of the efforts we have made in Europe, but tonight is surely the moment that we have to go just that little bit further. I hope my hon. and learned Friend agrees with that point.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. It reminds us that applying the “pull factor” argument in relation to refugees is inappropriate because they are, by definition, people who are fleeing persecution across borders and taking journeys that are treacherous and dangerous. When we see families or children making those journeys, we all think of our own families, and think of the circumstances and the desperation that lie behind those desperate acts. In those circumstances, it is of course very important to take into account the push factors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Cox]

We all know that the vast majority of the terrified, friendless and profoundly vulnerable child refugees scattered across Europe tonight came from Syria. We also know that, as that conflict enters its sixth barbaric year, desperate Syrian families are being forced to make an impossible decision: stay and face starvation, rape, persecution and death, or make a perilous journey to find sanctuary elsewhere. Who can blame desperate parents for wanting to escape the horror that their families are experiencing? Children are being killed on their way to school, children as young as seven are being forcibly recruited to the frontline and one in three children have grown up knowing nothing but fear and war. Those children have been exposed to things no child should ever witness, and I know I would risk life and limb to get my two precious babies out of that hellhole.

I am deeply proud of the Government for leading the way internationally on providing humanitarian support to Syrian civilians. Their commitment in terms of finances and policy to help people in the region, and across the middle east and north Africa, will save lives. However, in the chaos caused by the Syrian conflict and many other conflicts, many thousands of already deeply scarred children have become separated from their parents and carers, and they are already in Europe. The Government’s generosity to date has not extended to those vulnerable children.

We know that identifying the exact number of unaccompanied minors is difficult, but the latest estimates suggest that there could be up to 95,000 such children in Europe tonight—four times the number we thought. That means that, if we decide tonight to take 3,000 of them, that will be just 3% of the total. That is our continent’s challenge, and we must rise to it.

I recognise that this is not easy, but tonight we are being asked to make a decision that transcends party politics. Any Member who has seen the desperation and fear on the faces of children trapped in inhospitable camps across Europe must surely feel compelled to act. I urge them tonight to be brave and bold, and I applaud the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) for an incredibly principled, personal speech.

In the shanty towns of Calais and Dunkirk, the aid workers I spent a decade with on the frontline as an aid worker myself tell me that the children there face some of the most horrific circumstances in the world. Surely we have to do the right thing tonight and support the Dubs amendment.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

We are approaching the last moments of the debate, so I will confine my remarks to one amendment and to one argument within it—the pull factor some have expressed concerned about.

Let me share just something of my experience when I went to Lesbos with Save the Children. I was struck by many things, but one was the extraordinary contrast between the almost biblical scene of men, women and children travelling on foot and in numbers across the country, and the fact that they were carrying mobile phones. All over the camps, people were huddled not around fires, but around charging stations, desperate to keep connected. One worker described to me how any change in border access or the availability of places in the camps would be communicated by mobile to friends and families following on, and shared over and over, inspiring immediate and dramatic change on the ground.

This 21st century migration through Europe is like nothing that has come before. In the light of that, how can we say with confidence that announcing 3,000 open places for minors in the UK would not affect the decisions desperate people would make and would not create risk? I share the hopes and the fears for the vulnerable children who have been mentioned in this debate, but we must look to the long term. It has previously been said that this will not solve the problem, so we must be very clear that we are not exacerbating the situation. There is a body of anecdotal evidence that families separate when they can find only enough money to pay traffickers for one place in a boat. Knowing, as we do, that children’s best chances for the long term are with their parents, every effort must be made to keep families together, and where they have been separated, to reunite them.

To finish, it was said during my time in Lesbos that the time it took to work with lone young people to establish their identity and ask all the right questions when they presented at the camps was one of the main reasons that many left to risk the perilous journey that so many Members have described this evening. We must therefore build the infrastructure, the systems and the confidence of young people that reception centres across the continent, not the open road, are their best route. This is vital work and it will, in the coming weeks and months, see increasing numbers of the children and young people already in Europe resettled with us in the UK.