Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Dubs]

116A: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Unaccompanied refugee children: relocation and support
(1) The Secretary of State must, as soon as possible after the passing of this Act, make arrangements to relocate to the United Kingdom and support 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children from other countries in Europe.
(2) The relocation of children under subsection (1) shall be in addition to the resettlement of children under the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme.”

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, ever since I tabled this amendment, I have been surprised at the level of interest, and above all support, from the wider public over the need to do something for unaccompanied child refugees in Europe. I declare an interest at the outset, as I arrived in this country in the summer of 1939 as an unaccompanied child refugee. This country at the time offered safety to some 10,000 children. It is thanks to Sir Nicky Winton, who helped to organise Kindertransports from Czechoslovakia, that I got here at all—I almost certainly owe my life to him. In tribute, last week a postal stamp was produced in commemoration of his achievements, and I saw photographs of the stamp with the Home Secretary when it was launched.

I also happened to meet Theresa May at a birthday party at Nicky Winton’s house in Maidenhead a few years ago. She was of course his MP and paid many tributes to him. I cannot help but feeling that he would be gratified if this House were to adopt this amendment today. In May, there is to be a memorial event for Nicky, who died last year at the age of 106, and it would be fitting if this amendment were on the statute book by that commemoration. Some years ago he expressed concern to me about unaccompanied children—in this case from the Horn of Africa—and wondered at the time whether similar schemes should be put in place. Although I cannot discount my personal experiences, the case for this amendment does not depend on them. There is a much stronger case for the amendment than what happened to me all those years ago.

Once in a while, there are major challenges that test our humanitarianism, and Europe’s refugee crisis is surely one such challenge. But within that, there is a need to do something about unaccompanied child refugees in Europe. They are believed to be mainly Syrian, although I am sure among them there are also some Afghans and Eritreans. There is estimated to be some 24,000 such children in Europe at present. Save the Children, which has been particularly involved in making these estimates, has suggested that the UK’s share should be something in the region of 3,000. I stress of course that we must deal with children who have claims for asylum under the 1951 Geneva Convention—there may be others in Europe, but they are not the subject of this amendment.

These children are in a vulnerable state. Some apparently have disappeared and there are fears that they may have become the victims of child traffickers and perhaps forced into prostitution or slave labour. According to the Italian Ministry of Labour, of the 13,000-plus unaccompanied children who arrived in 2014, some 3,700 have disappeared. In 2015, nearly 6,000 are unaccounted for. Is it not a dreadful thing that children have just disappeared in modern Europe? In any case, the winter is not over. In many parts of Europe, children may be sleeping rough, without adequate food or water. Many may be in Greece or Italy, but some are elsewhere, perhaps even in the Calais and Dunkirk areas.

I think that there are clear signs that the British people want to respond, and many have offered to be foster parents. It just so happens that early this afternoon, I received an email, which I should like to quote from. It says, “Please keep fighting for the rights of the refugee children who are unaccompanied. It is very distressing how these children are having such a dreadful time to just survive. England has plenty of room for these children and, just to show our humanity, our doors should be open to them. I would be happy to offer a place of safety for one or two, as I have been a foster parent many years ago. The best of luck today.”

I believe that that is a typical response; I have certainly had such responses, and I am sure that many others have as well. I am confident that a widespread appeal by the Government and local authorities would achieve a positive response from people. Not everyone who wants to be a foster parent is qualified to do so, and we would have to set the highest possible standards, as we would for all other children in local authority care, to ensure that anyone wanting to foster is qualified to do so.

We have heard a lot about pressure in Kent, and I accept that Kent as a county has had difficulties, but I believe that there would be a response all over the country that would meet the need identified in the amendment. We do not want to put children and young people into care homes. Clearly, the aim of the amendment is that such children should be fostered and properly cared for, as were many of those on the Kindertransport, unless they already have relatives in this country, when the right course would be for them to be with them.

Local authorities have a key part to play in all this. Of course, they may need some extra help: it depends on the pressure on any individual authority. Let me stress that these children should be additional to the vulnerable persons relocation scheme. I accept that that is a good scheme—a bit small, but it does useful work. I think that 1,200 have already come in under that scheme and we are talking about 20,000 over the next four or five years.

The amendment deals with a different need. The figure of 3,000 is small, but would make an important contribution to helping a vulnerable group. It is surely right that we in this country should take a fair share of the responsibility. I hope that other countries in Europe would also share in doing that.

I have tried to understand the Government’s objection to the amendment. I thank the Minister for several conversations with him; indeed, I have had a conversation with the Home Secretary as well; and I appreciate the frank exchange of views that we were able to have. The Government believe that if some of the children currently in Europe were allowed into this country, that would exert a pull factor and many more would arrive. That seems to be the nub of their argument against the amendment.

I do not think that there is that much hard evidence to support that belief, but in any case, the consequence of doing nothing for these children who are now in Europe must be much more serious than the possibility that an amendment such as this would attract others to follow. We are dealing with a desperately important crisis at the moment; that is the key to the amendment.

I am currently a member of one of our European Union sub-committees, and we are considering naval operations in the Mediterranean, especially Operation Sophia. Those operations are certainly saving the lives of people crossing from Turkey or Libya. To the extent that they do so, they lessen the risks of the sea crossing, so one could argue that they are also a pull factor, but that is no reason not to save the lives of people at risk in the sea, and no one suggests that those naval forces should cease their life-saving operations.

We are dealing with a refugee crisis in Europe of such magnitude that, frankly, the number in the amendment is rather small, and I have had people ask me: “Why so few?”. Some people in European countries have family members in this country. The amendment is not intended to cover those children: provided that they can be identified, they already have the right to come under existing arrangements. The priority must surely be: what is in the best interests of the children? Some may already have parents or close relatives in another European country, and it would clearly be in their best interests to join them there, wherever they are.

In the House of Commons on 25 January, the Minister James Brokenshire said—and I think that the quote summarises the purpose of this amendment:

“The Government are clear that any action to help and assist unaccompanied minors must be in the best interests of the child, and it is right that that is our primary concern”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/1/16; col. 39.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord presses me to say yes or no. I am about to give him a yes-or-no answer, which is to say, no. We have a principled objection. The people most at risk are in the region. That is why we have doubled the amount of aid we are giving, which was already 227% of our fair share, from £1.1 billion to £2.3 billion. We did it because we wanted to help, as we are helping—keeping 223,000 people in schools, providing 2 million bits of medical assistance, and helping 600,000 with livelihoods and medical care there in the region, because we believe we can do that. We believe that we should not be doing anything that encourages one child to make that perilous journey, where they fall into the hands of the criminal gangs and put their lives at risk to cross those seas to get to Europe. We want the action to be taking place there. That is our principled objection to this amendment. The noble Lord may disagree on that but we are clear where we stand.

I hope the House will recognise, and that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will recognise when he responds to this debate, that the Government are not immune to the argument that has been put forward. We are not doing nothing in the crisis; we are doing a great deal more than any other country in the world to respond to the initiative that is happening. We will go on doing so, not because of the amendment but because it is the right thing to do. I will be very grateful if the noble Lord will do two things when he winds up. First, will he comment on my analysis of the numbers and the vulnerability? Secondly, will he say something about other countries in Europe which are not doing a fraction of what this country is doing?

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford talked about the generosity of British people. I work with Richard Harrington, whom we have appointed as a Minister, by the way, to look after the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme, and I know that every day he has a battle to persuade local authorities to take the children we already have coming through that scheme. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, in a previous debate, undertook to write to other dioceses to encourage them and their local authorities to come forward and offer spaces.

We currently have an 8,000 shortfall in the number of foster parents required, so all the offers to provide foster care are welcome. We desperately need those places for young people everywhere but there is no surfeit of people registered as foster parents waiting to take people in. As I say, there is a shortfall of some 8,000 that we definitely need to fill. I hope that the noble Lord will respond to the points I made about local authority capacity, and what other countries are doing, and to the questions I raised about the numbers and how they have been arrived at by Save the Children, and consider withdrawing his amendment.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to the debate. It has been an emotional debate, which is not surprising as the subject is very emotional. I shall deal with only a small number of the points that were made as most Members of the House supported the amendment.

Of course we all condemn the gangs who have caused a lot of the tragedies in the Mediterranean and other tragedies and exploit vulnerable people for financial gain. They cannot be condemned enough and I agree entirely with the Minister on that point. As regards the numbers and the point made by, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, the amendment talks about children. If, in seeking to co-operate with Save the Children and the UNHCR, the Government can identify the younger ones, there is nothing in the amendment which says that they should not concentrate on those. There is a figure in the amendment simply because we need to get the Government to respond clearly, as it were. If the amendment said simply “take some”, there would be no pressure on the Government. It is better to have a number in the Bill. If the Government chose to focus on the under-14s, that would be perfectly acceptable in terms of the amendment. After all, although the Minister talked about 60% being over 16, that means 40% are under 16, which is still a fair number, and enough for us to get on with.

Some other countries—Germany has become the conscience of Europe in the last year or so—are doing a great deal. Others are not. But surely as a country we have set our own standards on how we should adopt a humanitarian approach to this enormous crisis. It is because I want Britain to take a lead in humanitarian action that I am keen that the House should pass this amendment. I appreciate what the Minister said about foster parents. He also commented on this issue in Committee. People have said to me in other parts of the country—not just south London—“We want to respond”. Given that response, I believe sincerely that if the Government and local authorities said that they were looking for qualified foster parents who have passed the local authority vetting process—as they must—and who would play their part, the people of Britain would respond handsomely. A typical example could be a family with two children who want to take another child. I pay tribute to the Minister, who has done a lot of good work for Save the Children. Indeed, he went on a sponsored walk. I should have said at the beginning that I appreciate that, and he deserves credit for it.

The Minister said that some of these people were Albanians. I have said emphatically that we are talking about refugees—children who qualify under the 1951 Geneva Convention as having a well-founded fear of persecution, torture and death. They are surely the priority and they are the ones on whom we ought to concentrate. We are faced with an important decision. Our country will be judged on the decision we make tonight. I wish to test the opinion of the House.