EU Action Plan Against Migrant Smuggling (EUC Report)

Lord Horam Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I think that all of us in the Chamber agree that international migration, wherever in the world it is, on the present scale is a huge problem. It is bad for the countries that originate it. For example, I learned recently that Jamaica loses over 80% of its graduates every year. Imagine trying to substantiate sensible systems of government if you are losing four-fifths of your graduates every year. How can you possibly do that? No wonder Jamaica has huge drug and crime problems.

A few years ago I was in Botswana, which has a severe AIDS problem. It has a drug programme to try to control it, but I found that the problem was getting worse because the drugs were not available. That was because they were not being administered as there were not enough nurses. I asked why there were not enough nurses and the answer was that they were all in Britain helping the NHS. I was made to feel very guilty, understandably. That is the sort of detailed problem that we somehow forget when we talk about international migration. En passant, that makes me suspicious of the rather glib solution of the Australian points system that the Brexit people have come out with recently. How is it right for us to take the people we need and totally ignore the requirements of the originating country? That cannot be morally correct.

Apart from the problems in the originating countries, there are problems in the transit countries. The strain on facilities in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Greece, Libya and so forth at the moment is huge—it is far greater than we are experiencing in this country. There are also problems for the receiving countries, and I very much echo what my noble friend Lord Tugendhat said in his opening remarks: we must consider those extremely carefully. People are understandably alarmed at the thought of more than 300,000 people a year coming to the UK. How will they fit into this small island? They are also concerned that we have no control over the EU portion of immigration. People expect their Governments to have control over these issues—and so they should.

I was delighted to serve on the committee under the chairmanship of my colleague and noble friend Lord Tugendhat. In looking at Operation Sophia, we discovered that this early stab at trying to control immigration through Libya, across the Mediterranean to Sicily and Italy was not working at all well and that a much broader approach was required, as the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said in her remarks.

We need a two-pronged approach. We need development aid to tackle the originating problems in the countries of north Africa. As the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said, 50 million people may emigrate from those countries over the next five or six years if we do not tackle these problems. That needs to be coupled with a proper programme of deterrence.

I will deal with the deterrence issue first. As has been said, the problem with Libya is that there is no coherent Government at the moment. However, a unity Government is being established—an embryonic Government. They will need our help, and they are getting our help in some respects. As I understand, we are giving some military, financial and logistical help. I am also delighted that the Foreign Secretary was out there to co-ordinate that and give some diplomatic support. They need, for example, help with their coastguard service. The coastguards are patrolling a huge area of coastline and, inevitably, cannot deal with all the smugglers who are trying to get their poor immigrants across to Italy. We need permission to go inside the territorial waters to help their coastguards be more effective, to give them more resources and to stop it being simply a save and rescue operation, as it is at the moment, and to deal with the problem in a systematic way. The deterrence, as we all agreed, is well short of what is required.

We also need help for the countries of origin. I am delighted, therefore, that on 7 June the European Commission issued a communication talking about a new external investment fund totalling, I hope, €62 billion, which will be invested over a period of years into the countries of north Africa.

Again, quite clearly there are huge problems. As my noble friend Lord Tugendhat said, there are problems in Nigeria, where very rich people are making quite a lot of money. There are problems in Niger, where already the politicians have demanded £1 billion, almost in blackmail. There is corruption, there are dictatorships and there are human rights abuses. These are all problems in that part of the world and they mean that we have to conduct our affairs in helping them in a far more businesslike and efficient way than perhaps we have done hitherto.

Development aid and deterrence are required, working together. In that way, we may be able to manage down to a level that people can accept the migrant flows that are appearing. It is a huge challenge for the European Union, but it must be met with competence and realism, as well as humanity.