London Tuesday September 8 2015 091 Parliament (8)

London Tuesday September 8 2015 091 Parliament (8)


Refugee Crisis in Europe
Emergency debate (Standing Order No. 24)

Mr Holloway:
Give me a couple of minutes. Just let me get into my stride.

Instead, those who are refugees should be offered a well-resourced place of safety—perhaps in Europe, but more probably in a safe place in the region where they live—and if it turns out that someone is an economic migrant, they should be taken home. This is not xenophobic: it is moral, practical, fair and sustainable over many years. As I see it, it is the only way to slow the number of bodies landing on the beaches and to allow Europe to re-establish control of its borders, which it has now lost. If we fail to achieve this, millions more people will make these journeys and we will be overwhelmed in the years ahead and less able to send resources to the region.

There are big disparities in security and economic opportunities between nations, and they will not be solved by short-term measures, such as giving hundreds of thousands of people asylum within Europe. It is not an idle exaggeration or scare-mongering to say that over the coming years we are looking at potentially hundreds of millions of people seeking a better life in Europe. The numbers have grown and will grow as long as we continue to reward these journeys with the opportunity to settle in Europe.

Let us be hard-headed about this: not all migrants are refugees. By way of illustration, Al Jazeera reporting from the Greek side of the border with Macedonia showed that large numbers of Syrians were trying to dissociate themselves from people from other places. It said:

"They want to separate themselves from the other nationalities; the Pakistanis, the Afghans, the Iraqis...what they say is that all these other nationalities claim to be Syrians as well, because it is the Syrians who have the most valid claim to asylum."

When populations flee war or famine, they generally flee together, as I saw as a television reporter and a soldier. They flee with the elderly, the infants and the women as well as the men. [Interruption.] Yes, I would. The current migrants are overwhelmingly working-age males who have paid a hefty price to make the trip. Most of the countries they came from are certainly poor, but they are not at war. It costs thousands to board a smuggler's boat and a lot of money in the months before to travel to it.

As a TV reporter in the 1990s, I remember doing a piece about landlords in north London ripping off the housing benefit system. I was living in a house with a lot of people, including many from Congo, many of whom had been soldiers. I remember lying on my bed in this room that I was sharing with half a dozen of these guys, and I thought to myself, "Who is more likely to get to England and to north London: is it the soldier who had an AK47 and a fistful of dollars or the widow with seven children and not a cent to her name?"

Some years ago, I lived under cover for a couple of weeks in the Sangatte camp in Calais when I was working for ITV. I think there are some parallels with the situation today. Living side by side with people in the camp, it seemed to me that the overwhelming majority of the people who got as far as Calais were economic migrants. Every night, hundreds of us, all young men, would burst out of the camp as it started to get dark. We would spend the night cutting the wire, trying to get on to freight trains; we would be picked up the next morning by the French police and what we called the police taxi service to take us back to the camp.

If I had been one of those guys—then from Iran, Kosovo, the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Turkey—I would have done exactly the same as they did. How can we possibly criticise people for wanting a better life? Most were doing just that—looking for a better life. In many cases, their families had sold land to get the money to pay the people smugglers, and they had travelled to northern France unchecked. This still seems to be the case in Calais today. Not long ago, many people got out of an unsafe country to get there and they travelled through many safe countries subsequently. What they are doing now is trying to get into their country of choice.

Neil Gray:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the information sent by the Immigration Minister to the Home Affairs Select Committee, confirming that the most common nationalities among those at Calais included Syrians, Eritreans and Afghans? Refugees can be wealthy as well. The fact is that the United Nations has been absolutely clear that this is a refugee crisis and it very likely the majority of people at Calais are refugees. Why does the hon. Gentleman persist in peddling myths?

Mr Holloway:
The hon. Gentleman did not listen to what I said. I said that those people had been through dozens of safe countries by the time they get to Calais. It is quite possible to be a refugee and an economic migrant. [Interruption.] One of the appalling truths about the Syrian bodies washed up on the beaches is that they previously got to safe countries and are now choosing to come to Europe. Again, I would do the same. Likewise, people in this country have claimed asylum in this country and then they go back on holiday to the places from where they have claimed that asylum. I could not get my hair cut the other day for that reason.

Australia used to have a severe—[Interruption.] Labour Members should rise to intervene if they want to say something.

Stephen Doughty:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way? [Interruption.]

Mr Speaker:
Order. The debate must be conducted with some decorum. It has been good-humoured, but it is getting a little out of control, and that is deprecated by the Father of the House as well as by the Chair. I call Mr Doughty.

Stephen Doughty:
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is being very unhelpful by doing what many other Conservative Members are doing in constantly blurring the lines of definition between refugee, migrant, economic migrant and asylum seeker. The reality is that he is out of step with what the British public feel about this. People of all parties in my constituency are making it clear what they feel about the issue. This is a different situation, and the constant blurring of those definitions does not help.

Mr Holloway:
We will not get anywhere unless we are clear that there is a difference between a refugee and an economic migrant. [Interruption.] I said it was possible to be both. Australia used to have a big migrant crisis, but does not have one now. Why? Because the Government took bold action. As Tony Abbott said—[Interruption.] Opposition Members should not laugh; this is true. Tony Abbott said:

"If we do the slightest thing to encourage people to get on the boats, this problem will get worse, not better."

We cannot have a rational discussion of this issue, unless we accept that not all migrants are refugees. Economic migrants should apply properly, like everyone else, before leaving home. It should not be the case that people have only to arrive in Europe to be allowed to stay in Europe.

Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con):
I thank my very hon. Friend for giving way. Both he and I know that the real sadness is that some people in Syria will be petrified and unable to move because they do not have a penny. These people are refugees without being able to be refugees because they are stuck in Syria, petrified, slowly watching their families being killed.

Mr Holloway:
Absolutely, and I think we have a deep moral obligation to people who find themselves caught up in the wreckage of warring nations, or who find themselves persecuted.

During the Balkan wars, I posed as a deaf and dumb Bosnian Muslim in Serb territory—from the Kosara valley, Banja Luka and over the bridge at Bosanska Gradiška. We travelled down in a great big convoy of escaping Bosnian Muslims and Croats on trains. I ended up living in a mosque with refugees and then in a refugee camp in northern Croatia, followed by a prison cell in Austria, having been arrested with the Macedonian people smugglers who were taking us into Europe. Most of the people with whom I travelled from Serb territory remained in local refugee camps until the war ended. The vast majority now remain in former Yugoslavia, if not in their old homes.

These terrified people were most certainly refugees, and I will never forget the behaviour of the soldiers, and border guards and police towards these families, including an incident in which a child was literally picked up by the hair and thrown out of a bus on to a concrete hard shoulder. With 4 million Syrians displaced outside their country, and many more within it, what will be the effect of an open door from the European Union? Can anyone tell me what number of people would understandably move west? Can anyone tell me at what point our nations would turn round and say, "Hang on, we cannot keep on taking people from poorer countries into our communities"?

Geraint Davies:
The hon. Gentleman said that Germany was "bonkers". Is he aware that after the second world war, Germany absorbed an extra 12 million people, mainly Germans fleeing from Czechoslovakia and elsewhere. It has an open door for another 800,000 next year—it was 300,000 last year— and it has an ageing population so it could do with the workers. It is not "bonkers". It has an open heart and an open mind—neither of which the hon. Gentleman has.

Mr Holloway:
Well, I think it is completely bonkers. In my view, it is also immoral because we will see more and more bodies washed up. We are just going to have to disagree on this.

I think we could help a lot more people if the international community behaved a bit more like my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, by trying to support as many Syrian refugees as possible through helping the many, as opposed to the few—helping all those camped out across Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere. That would be better than focusing on a lucky minority who will get to Europe.

Back in May, the European Commission made the insane proposal that member countries should take in migrants and refugees under a quota scheme. Notwithstanding other comments that he has made, Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary, noted at the time:

"The proposal on the table from the European Commission…is absurd, bordering on insanity… It is an incentive for human traffickers and will simply tell people: yes, try to cross the Mediterranean at all costs."

Our Government rightly ruled out the EU asylum policy as an open invitation to uncontrolled immigration. The Australian general Jim Molan put it like this:

"Europe needs to make a very big decision and to make it soon. If it does not want to control its borders then it should establish a sea bridge across the Mediterranean, let everyone in who wants to come, and not let these people die."

Let us not forget that there are some very wealthy Sunni states with dogs in the Syrian fight. Refugees should be looked after in the first available country that they come to, or in their regions. There are plenty of very wealthy countries with land that is closer to those regions.

Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP):
The hon. Gentleman has referred approvingly to Australia's treatment of migrants and refugees. I wonder whether he is aware of an editorial published a few days ago by The New York Times, which described Prime Minister Tony Abbott's methods and policies as

"inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country's tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war."

Mr Holloway:
I myself wonder how many people have not drowned because of those policies, but, again, we shall have to differ.

We must return those who are not entitled to claim asylum to their countries of origin, and—as we heard from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford—try to find mechanisms to help the very, very large numbers of refugees in the region. We must consider establishing migration centres in safe places outside the EU, or possibly within it, for those who are rescued or those who have arrived. I believe that, in the jargon, that is called "extraterritorial processing". In 2003, the Labour Government presented their idea for "transit processing centres". Those proposing such an offshore asylum strategy could also learn from what the Australians have done in Papua New Guinea.

There are millions of genuine refugees from Syria alone, plus millions of economic migrants from numerous countries, whom we must discourage, and those are not numbers that it will to be possible to accommodate through dispersal within Europe. Besides, Syria needs a regional solution; relocating people away from the region does not offer the long-term approach that it requires.

At some stage, we shall have to realise that big boys' toys—that drones, lean men with unseasonal suntans and Viking moustaches, and fast jets—do not end wars. What ends wars, ultimately, is working on the politics, and sometimes that means going into partnership with some pretty unpleasant people. However, that is for another debate.

Let me say this in conclusion—Members will be relieved to hear that. If we do not act to break the link between a journey and a right to remain, millions of migrants may arrive on European soil over the next couple of years alone. Today, if we keep sending people in poorer or less stable countries the message that once they are picked up by the Royal Navy, or walk into Hungary, or reach a Greek island, they will have a ticket to a whole new life in Europe there and then, ever-growing numbers will come. Wouldn't you?

Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op):
The hon. Gentleman's argument seems to be predicated on the idea that the fact that Australia has said no to boatloads of people has had the effect of stopping people going. Is he aware of the number of people who are continuing to drown while trying to get to Australia? Is there not just a vague possibility that the boats are not a pull factor, and that it is the need to flee for their lives that is making people take this risk? Operation Mare Nostrum was stopped in the Mediterranean because there was an idea that doing so would somehow stop people coming, but that simply was not true. People are dying and fighting for their lives; surely they deserve our protection.

Mr Holloway:
They absolutely deserve our protection, and that is where I am coming from in this debate. We have to be hard-nosed and realistic. It is all very well to try to make oneself feel better, but we must do what is sustainable, moral and right in the long term.

Unless the message gets through to people in these countries, we are inviting hundreds of millions to seek a better life in Europe and Britain. Either we are a nation state or we are not. Either we are able to be serious about helping the many millions who are affected, or we are not. We should decide who comes into our country, not the German Government, and not the people smugglers. The message needs to be much clearer, or the drownings and the chaos will go on.

I completely understand the sentiments of those, here and in my constituency, who are demanding that something be done. We must do the right thing for the long term, in order to prevent the tides of death many of which we will never see in a newspaper. We need to resist the temptation to do what makes us feel better, and start coming up with some proper ideas that could solve the problem.

3.25 pm

Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP):
I intend to strike a very different note from that struck by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway).

Last week, our First Minister in Scotland convened a summit to consider the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding across Europe. She said we should be in no doubt that what we were witnessing was a humanitarian crisis on a scale not seen in Europe since the second world war. As the shadow Home Secretary said, the United Nations estimates that up to a third of a million people have tried to cross the Mediterranean in the last few months, and nearly 3,000 have died in the process. Desperate people are travelling through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans into Hungary as they try to get to Austria and Germany.

The images of people suffocating in the backs of trucks, children drowning, and people on the very doorstep of the United Kingdom losing their lives as they try to cross from Calais to Britain haunt us on a daily basis. Those images will continue to haunt us, and our consciences and our reputation as a Union of nations, for many generations if we do not, together and collectively, act to help those who are in desperate need.

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab):
We have just heard that one of the reasons we should have little sympathy for many of the refugees is the fact that many of them are fit young men. Is it at all possible that the hon. and learned Lady agrees with me that perhaps many of those men are also fleeing from conscription into military forces whose values they abhor and whose future they do not want to support, and that they want a democracy that they are unable to find in their own country?

Joanna Cherry:
The hon. Lady has made a very good point, with which I agree.

I mentioned what the First Minister said last week. As has been made clear, the Scottish Government stand ready to do whatever they can to help to alleviate the crisis; but these are reserved matters, and the Scottish Government depend on the UK Government's doing the right thing so that we can do the right thing in Scotland. To date, the UK Government's response has been deeply disappointing. We recognise and support the funding that they have committed to the humanitarian initiatives to provide refuge and sanctuary in camps in the war zones of the middle east, but that significant effort must not be allowed to distract attention from the other significant efforts that are needed.

During our Opposition day debate tomorrow, the Scottish National party will elaborate on the action that we believe needs to be taken to deal with this humanitarian crisis. We will present three arguments. First, the United Kingdom should be part of the refugee solution, and we should accept our fair share of the refugees who are in and coming to Europe. We should recognise that these people have embarked on the often fatal journey towards southern Europe precisely because all other routes of refuge have been closed off, and we want the UK Government to assure the House that the UK will work with our EU neighbours in the European Commission resettlement programme to be announced tomorrow. Frankly, the UK Government's refusal to work with the Commission's current resettlement agreement to date has been an absolute disgrace.

The second point we will be making tomorrow when we elaborate our points in the Opposition day debate is that this humanitarian crisis should not be used as a cover for military intervention by the United Kingdom in Syria. The fact is that air strikes are already taking place on a daily basis by a US-led alliance, and since the advent of those air strikes the refugee crisis has not diminished; it has intensified. To bomb both Daesh and Assad-controlled areas, as the Chancellor has suggested, would not leave much of an already ravaged country unbombed, and that can only contribute further to the crisis before us.

Thirdly, the SNP will argue that the UK should sponsor a renewed UN initiative to secure and support safe corridors and camps throughout the middle east. If we base our response on humanitarian necessity as opposed to military intervention, we might help, rather than hinder, our fellow human beings. The UK must now play a proportionate role in conjunction with its European partners. It simply will not do for the Prime Minister to say that the UK will take only 20,000 refugees over the course of this Parliament, and those only from camps and elsewhere in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Germany has said that she will take up to 800,000 refugees, and in a matter of days will easily have outstripped the 20,000 the Prime Minister has said he wants to take over five years.

Who could forget the images on our television screens at the weekend of refugees walking towards the border with Germany carrying images of German Chancellor Angela Merkel torn from newspapers? How proud Germans must feel that their leader has taken such a moral lead; I wish that we, as members of this Union of nations, could have a similar pride in our United Kingdom Government.

Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP):
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the crystallisation of the embarrassment we on the SNP Benches feel about the UK Government approach is in the numbers? When the 20,000 over five years is stripped down, it is six per constituency per year across the United Kingdom. I have had hundreds of emails and crying phone calls from my constituents who are ready to take vastly more than this pitiful number of six per constituency. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it is the numbers that are embarrassing?

Joanna Cherry:
I agree with my hon. Friend, and all Members in this House will probably have shared that experience of being absolutely inundated with emails and letters over the last few days.

I was talking about German generosity in the face of this humanitarian crisis, and I pose this question: on what basis do the UK Government think it is fair for Germany and our other EU neighbours to accept so many of these refugees who have arrived in Europe when the UK turns its back completely on the refugees who have arrived in Europe? There is a depressingly large contrast between Angela Merkel's announcement yesterday of a €6 billion investment in shelters and language courses for refugees and the UK Government's rather frosty approach.

There is also a danger that the UK Government policy of only taking those refugees who have stayed behind in the camps will label them as "good" refugees and those who have come to Europe as "bad" refugees. Such an approach is not helpful and does not begin to engage with the reality of the situation.

Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con):
What does the hon. and learned Lady think about the leaders of other countries who have not given quite so much aid? We are giving 0.7% of our GDP in aid. Would she put those leaders in the same category as she is just about to put our Prime Minister in?

Joanna Cherry:
We are here today to debate the response of the UK Government. I have already said that the SNP accepts that the UK Government have been generous in aid terms, but that is only part of the picture. What we are here today to discuss is the adequacy of the UK Government's approach overall.

I found it very worrying that yesterday the Prime Minister seemed to conflate issues regarding what is a humanitarian crisis with economic migration and, even more worryingly, security and terrorist issues. This seems to me to be a cynical attempt to distract people from the moral imperative presented to us by recent events. Going on the evidence of our mailbags and emails over the last few days, I do not think that cynicism is going to succeed in the face of the fundamental decency of the people of the UK.

Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con):
Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Joanna Cherry:
I should like to make a little more progress; then I might give way.

I do not believe that people in the United Kingdom will tolerate a situation in which the Government simply wash their hands, Pontius Pilate-like, and walk by on the other side of the street in the face of the desperate plight of those people who are now in Europe. The point has already been made that the UK has a proud history of taking in refugees, from the Kindertransport of the 1930s through to the Ugandan refugees in the late '70s. Even Mrs Thatcher's Government took in 10,000 Vietnamese boat people after a bit of pressure was applied. The people of the United Kingdom will be ashamed if this Government do not relent and take a fair share of the refugees who have come to Europe.

We should not use the fact that we are not part of the EU's borderless Schengen agreement, or that we are not at present part of the relocation initiative, to distract from what is a moral imperative to reach out to those who are suffering and in need, and who are coming to our relatively wealthy continent of Europe seeking sanctuary. They are, of course, coming to the poorest part of Europe, the south, and the people in the south, particularly in Greece, need the support of the richer nations in the north if they are to cope with the crisis that is unfolding on their doorstep.

Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP):
Another thing that the UK Government could do—I think both sides of the House could unite around this—is put pressure on other states in the region such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are supposed to be Britain's allies, to take in some refugees. Some of those countries do not even recognise refugees in their constitutions. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the southern European states could be helped if the UK Government exerted their influence in that way?

Joanna Cherry:
Yes I do, but it will be difficult to have any great influence when we are not seen to be making an appropriate response to the crisis ourselves.

We are an island Union of nations, and the point has been made that we are at the northern end of Europe and therefore rather removed from the apex of the crisis. We are also Europeans, and we will continue to be Europeans even if this Government take us out of Europe following their referendum. We have been good Europeans in the past, so let us not dishonour our forebears by turning our backs on those in need who are arriving on our doorstep in numbers bigger than at any time since the second world war.

Yesterday, the House debated the European Union Referendum Bill. In the context of that debate, we should be asking what sort of Europe we want to see. The Scottish National party is in no doubt that what Scotland wants—and, I believe, what the United Kingdom wants—is a humanitarian Europe that extends compassion to our fellow human beings in their hour of need.

Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab):
Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Joanna Cherry:
I should like to make a little more progress.

At last week's emergency humanitarian summit in Edinburgh, the First Minister made it clear that Scotland was willing to take its fair share of refugees, as agreed by the UK Government, to help some of the most vulnerable people in need. We welcome the Prime Minister's shift in attitude, and his late recognition that the UK has a role to play, as an important first step. However, the 20,000 refugees over five years should not be seen as a cap or an upper limit and, crucially, we must also play our part in responding to the crisis on the southern European coastline.

We believe that the UK should opt into the EU relocation scheme. The Prime Minister has made it clear that one-year resettlement will be funded from the UK's international aid budget, but we are seeking urgent clarification on the impact that that will have on the work of existing aid projects. The refugee situation is now at crisis point, and stretching UK support and refugee intake over the next five years will mean that a number of people who could be helped immediately will be left without the vital help they need.

The Scottish Government want to work constructively with the UK Government, and the First Minister has written to the Prime Minister outlining the proceedings of Friday's summit in Scotland, which focused on some of the practical issues involved in integrating those who come here seeking protection. Today, the first meeting took place of a taskforce that will bring together stakeholders from across Scotland in the areas of local government, housing, health services, language support and social services. The taskforce will try to co-ordinate Scotland's humanitarian and practical response. These are reserved matters, however, and we cannot act until the UK Government act.

The UK is increasingly isolated in the international community over these issues, and the international community is stepping up to the job of sheltering refugees. Over the past 24 hours we have heard that the following places will increase their share of refugees: France to 24,000, Germany to more than 31,000, Quebec to 3,650, Venezuela to 2,000 and New Zealand to 600. His Holiness Pope Francis said at the weekend that every Catholic parish in Europe should take a family of refugees, as should every religious community in Europe.

Mark Field:
Does the hon. and learned Lady not recognise that deeply seared in the collective German psyche is the memory of the 9 million or so displaced German civilians as the second world war came to a close, and so to make a comparison between this country and Germany is wrong? I do not say that in an unkind way, because when my own late mother was a five-year-old girl she was one of that number. She was forced to leave a village outside Breslau, as it was at the time—it is now called Wroclaw—where my forefathers had lived since the 1720s. To make that comparison between the German psyche on these sorts of issues and the UK is very unfair.

Joanna Cherry:
I do not think it is unfair to draw an unfavourable comparison with the generous response of the Germans. I accept that they have a rather different history from us—there are many reasons for that. We have benefited in the past—

Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con):
Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Joanna Cherry:
Let me answer this point. We have benefited in the past from being an island that is separate from the rest of Europe and perhaps we have not experienced a refugee crisis, although many people were forced to leave my country of Scotland as a result of the clearances, people had to leave Ireland as a result of the potato famine, and people have had to leave England and Wales as a result of extreme poverty. We have therefore experienced some of these pressures—

Mrs Grant:
Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Joanna Cherry:
I would like to make some progress, because I am nearly finished and I am conscious that a lot of other people wish to speak.

The Prime Minister came to the Dispatch Box yesterday and presented a wholly inadequate response to a truly horrific humanitarian crisis. The point I wish to make is that the international community has not thought twice about stepping up to the table and helping share the burden of refugees. That is why I have listed so many countries other than Germany that have been stepping up to the plate in the past few hours. It is a striking fact that halfway around the world from Syria, Brazil has taken in 2,000 Syrian refugees since the start of the conflict in 2011.

Julie Cooper:
Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Joanna Cherry:
I am sorry but I will not, as I do want to finish now.

Just yesterday, speaking on Brazil's Independence day, President Dilma Rousseff said Brazil will welcome Syrian refugees with "open arms". She said that she wanted to

reiterate the Brazilian Government's

"willingness to welcome those who, driven from their homeland, want to come live, work and contribute to the prosperity and peace of Brazil."That is the sort of humanity we need, it is the international initiative that refugees need and it is the moral compass that I hope will make the UK Government wake up to their now shameful position on the international stage.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr Speaker:
Order. I am sorry, but in the light of the number of people seeking to contribute to the debate a five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches must now apply.

3.43 pm

Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con):
It is useful to reflect that we are not starting this debate from a position in which Britain has done nothing in the past. Britain has a proud tradition in providing a home for genuine asylum seekers and refugees, and international aid around the world. According to the Red Cross, last year 126,000 refugees were living in the UK and more than 30,000 people entered the asylum system, seeking asylum in this country. According to figures from the Home Office, nearly 5,000 Syrians have already been granted asylum in the UK. That is before the announcement made by the Prime Minister that we would take a further 20,000 people, through the Syrian scheme, during this Parliament.

We have had a big debate about that number, but I have heard nothing from the Labour party to say that it would take more than 20,000. Labour may take these people from different places but it has not said it will take more. All the shadow Home Secretary would say when asked about this point was that she thought we should take more than 4,000 this year. But as we have seen from what the Government have said, they are open to the fact that we may take more than 4,000 this year, because no fixed number for this year has been set.

Yvette Cooper:
Let us just clarify: I think we should take more.

Damian Collins:
More than 20,000?

Yvette Cooper
indicated assent.

Damian Collins:
Any advance on 20,000? The shadow Home Secretary did not do this in her remarks when she was asked, but will she now give a figure? I think it would be helpful for the House to have some idea of what "more than 20,000" might be.

Yvette Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman should target his remarks at the Home Secretary who has given us no figure on how many we are to take this year. I started by saying that we should take at least 10,000 right now; we could do that. Government Members are trying to spread the number to 4,000 a year. That is simply not enough. We want to go further. Will they come back and say how many they want to provide for this year, by Christmas. The crisis is now.

Damian Collins:
The problem is that the 10,000 figure for this year that the shadow Home Secretary has asked for could still be only 20,000 over the lifetime of the Parliament. The Government have not given a fixed number for this year; it could be more than 4,000. In many ways, this debate about numbers, while important, gets away from the main point, which is that the Opposition are not proposing a substantially different number of people to be granted asylum from Syria. That point has not been made during the course of this debate.

Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the question is not really about figures, but about our whole approach to the asylum crisis? The figures will make sense in the context of the correct approach, and we do not believe that the approach of Her Majesty's Government is correct.

Damian Collins:
I agree with the hon. Lady on that point, which is why I think the Prime Minister was right to focus our efforts on the region itself. We should be looking at the aid we are delivering to Syria and the support in the camps in the region where we are playing a leading role. That is where we and other countries should be making more of an effort, rather than encouraging people to make perilous journeys across Europe. I do not think that that is what any Member wants. All Opposition Members have done during this debate so far is to focus purely on the numbers and to ignore the broader contribution that this country is making. Help is needed on the ground, close to Syria. Millions of people are on the move. No one is suggesting that any one European country can accommodate millions of people. There should be a bigger international effort to provide safe havens in the region itself. The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart McDonald) asked whether the Gulf Arab states should be doing more. Providing financial support to safe havens on the ground is exactly the sort of thing they can do.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
rose—

Damian Collins:
I am afraid that I have very little time left. I just want to make a couple more remarks.

The Home Secretary was absolutely right to focus on the efforts that have been made by the Government in conjunction with the French Government in Calais. This is very important. Although the death of a three-year-old boy touched the heartstrings of everyone all around the world, it has not been the only death this summer. I represent the constituency where the channel tunnel enters this country. Migrants have died seeking to access the channel tunnel to get into this country. That cannot be allowed to continue. We have an obligation to protect our borders and to safeguard the lives of people seeking to enter this country. We need to ensure that the border and the frontier are secure. The Government have provided millions of pounds for proper security fencing, which has safeguarded the channel tunnel site and led to a massive reduction in the disruption of services, which has been a terrible blight on the people in the south-east of England and Kent throughout the summer. The fencing has also prevented people from breaking into the tunnel where they can not only lose their lives but endanger the lives of other people as well. That support, in conjunction with the extra policing effort from the British and French police forces, has been a huge step towards securing the site at Calais.

We all want to see proper humanitarian intervention in the camps as well. No one is advocating that we should let everyone who is at Calais into this country without any checks. If we did so, we would encourage greater numbers of people to make that treacherous journey to get to those camps, believing that simply arriving there is enough to provide them with instant access to the UK. That is not what should be done. There has to be proper processing of people on the sites to determine who are the genuine refugees and asylum seekers. Decisions can then be made about where they should go to seek asylum. That is the next necessary step.

Mark Field:
I regretted the rather cynical approach of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I fear that it is not entirely fanciful to suggest that some ISIS sympathisers might well be infiltrating this massive flow of refugees with a view to obtaining asylum and becoming sleepers ready to agitate and foment terrorist activities in the west in the years ahead. That is not a fanciful or cynical idea that the Prime Minister has put into our minds. It is something that we should take very seriously, especially given the large numbers that will be coming onto these shores.

Damian Collins:
I agree that we cannot ignore the security situation, which is why the Prime Minister was right yesterday to address the two things together. We cannot ignore the debate about what is causing this massive migration crisis. This refugee crisis has been caused by an out-of-control war and civil war in Syria and Iraq, which is displacing millions of people. There must be an international solution to stabilise the region and provide safe havens, but we must also consider what other tools we have at our disposal to limit the murder gangs and the genocide being committed by ISIL forces in the region.

We would be doing a massive disservice to the refugees and the people living in these countries if we refuse to consider whether using our armed forces and airstrikes in Syria as we have in Iraq is the only appropriate step to prevent likely murder, the likely displacement of even more people and even more misery. We must consider that alongside our efforts in the region, to provide safe haven in this country and to protect our borders. That is the broad strategy that the Government have set out and they are correct to have done so. I do not think that there is too much of a difference between the positions of those on both sides of the House, but we must consider seriously the efforts to provide more safe havens and ultimately, if necessary, the use of our armed forces if we are to provide a decent service and decent hope for the people living in these countries.

3.50 pm

Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op):
It is sobering to realise that one in every 122 people in the world is a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) might be surprised to learn that they are not just coming from Syria. People face political persecution in Pakistan and in Iran. Those coming to us today from Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe are not a new phenomenon—the Huguenots, the Jews, the Ugandan Asians, the Vietnamese boat people and the Kosovans came before them. Every generation faces those who meet the test of being people who are

"outside their country and cannot return owing to a well-founded fear of persecution".

Jim Shannon:
One of the greatest groups of people persecuted across the world includes those of a Christian denomination or religious view. Does the hon. Lady accept that many of those who are trying to escape Syria have been given the ultimatum of convert or die? In other words, they are being asked to give up their Christianity and their beliefs. We need to respond to that welfare need, too.

Stella Creasy:
The hon. Gentleman raises the point about the well-founded fear, but my point is that every generation faces the test that the 1951 convention sets us. When a person comes to us and says, "I am in danger, will you help me?", how we answer defines us as much as it defines their future. As the hon. Member for Gravesham said, it is a moral question. When we signed the convention in 1951, nobody could have predicted the situation that we are in now, but the fact that we could not predict it does not absolve us of the responsibility to answer the question. We are not absolved when the people fleeing the murderous intent of ISIL ask, "Will you help?" Our answer should be yes. When people are fleeing sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, will you help? Yes. When people are fleeing the repressive regime of Robert Mugabe, will you help? Yes. When people are fleeing civil war in Sudan and Eritrea, will you help? Yes. How we answer says as much about us as it does about them, so when we quibble about numbers and qualify them by saying that we will take 20,000 but over a number of years, or perhaps that we will take not 20,000 but up to 20,000—

Mr Holloway:
Will the hon. Lady give way?

Stella Creasy:
I will give way very quickly, and only once.

Mr Holloway:
So rather than quibbling, will the hon. Lady tell me how many people we should be taking in her constituency and for how long?

Stella Creasy:
I shall come on to talk about Walthamstow and am happy to invite the hon. Gentleman, who need not come under cover, to see the welcome that we give to people in Walthamstow. It is not easy, but we do it because it says something about us as a country and a community that when people are at risk we answer the call. When the people of Germany have answered the call to the tune of 800,000, when the people of Sweden have answered the call by taking eight per 1,000 of population, that challenges us all in the UK.

Let us look at the camps, because the Government are specifying that we should take people from the camps alone. When we consider the figure of 800,000 taken by Germany, it is sobering to realise that Lebanon has taken more than 1.1 million people in a country of 4.5 million.

Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con):
Will the hon. Lady give way?

Stella Creasy:
I am sorry, but I have taken a number of interventions.

Turkey has taken 1.9 million people. If we think that taking 20,000 over five years is big, we do not understand our own history or the scale of the challenge. The UK has taken just 1% of the world's refugees. What does that say about us?

I know that answering that question is not easy, because we have answered it in Walthamstow. It is not an easy challenge to accept people and be able to integrate them. I am proud of the way that people in Walthamstow have responded to the situation in Calais. Many have gone there themselves with goods to help support people and show their solidarity. I am proud that that is not a one-off—we have set up our own migrant welcoming centre. Walthamstow means welcome; it is what we do in my community.

I know that it is a hard question to answer when the voices of the persecuted are sometimes quiet and vulnerable, by comparison with the other voices we hear, such as the headlines that say, "Halt the asylum tide now", "Draw a red line under immigration or else" or "The swarm on our streets", or calls for deployment of the Army against the people that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) has accepted may well be fleeing persecution. It is hard to hear their voices. We should also understand the consequences of not hearing their voices. We cut the funding for Operation Mare Nostrum, thinking that somehow that would stop the boats. The boats came anyway, and the lorries are still running.

Let us think about the people whose lives we have not been able to save, and of the contribution that they would have made to our world. Think of the men who might fail school exams or loose jobs and who we will not give visas to—men like Einstein, or the father of Steve Jobs. The people fleeing persecution have so much to contribute to our world, so when we answer the question "Will you help?" with a yes, we do everybody a benefit. Think of the doctors, engineers, writers and lawyers currently in those camps.

It is not the thought of life in Britain that is the pull factor. It is not the £35 a week we give people. It is not the misery of dealing with UK Border Force, or the threat that even if you are a victim of sexual violence we will lock you up in Yarl's Wood. The pull factor is staying alive. The pull factor is being able to give your children the possibility of adolescence. That is why people are making that choice. There is no speech we can make here, no threat we can make to those boats and no lesson we can learn from Australia that will override the enduring wish of every parent to give their child that kind of future.

If we do not hear those voices, the question is not about them; it is about us. The problem is not refugees or migrants; the problem is politicians not doing their job. It is our job to ensure that the benefits of migration are equally distributed in this country. It is our job to ensure that we help those people who are fleeing persecution, and that is what we should do. Let us not be the problem; let us be the solution. If we can take 20,000 and there are 20,000 now, let us take the 20,000 now. Let us not quibble or qualify that; let us take them now. The Government accept that we can house these people, so let us do it now. Let us not make it an either-or with our European neighbours; let us help all those people. If we want to stop the boats and lorries, that is what we must do.

I want to make a final plea to the Home Secretary. Save the Children is putting out a charity single that has been set up by Caitlin Moran, Pete Paphides and Mat Whitecross. Will the Home Secretary please join me in calling for the VAT on that charity single to be waived so that the money can be used to help the refugees? The single is called "Help is Coming". Let that be the message that comes from the House of Commons today, not the quibbling, quantifying and denying. Let us send the message that help really is coming.

3.58

pm

Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con):
Let me first offer my apologies, Mr Speaker, for having to leave the Chamber immediately after my speech; we are interviewing the mayor of Calais about the refugee crisis. No one can have failed to be deeply moved by the picture of Aylan's lifeless body on a beach in Turkey. We can do nothing for him but mourn, while our consciences cry out to act now, and to act with compassion. It is a hard-headed duty to address the root causes and ask the difficult questions.

I welcome the Prime Minister's statement yesterday that on top of aid spending on the humanitarian crisis, which will reach £1 billion, we will be welcoming 20,000 refugees to the UK. Especially welcome is the news that they will be taken from the camps around Syria, because it is often the women and children who remain behind in the camps closest to conflict. Those are the most vulnerable, where duty and conscience collide. It is our clear duty to do all we can to deter the people traffickers peddling false hope by selling death in airless lorries and cramming families on to leaking dinghies that seal their fate.

We are seeing levels of migration not experienced since the second world war, or indeed since the partition of India and Pakistan, when over 1 million people perished and many millions more were left homeless and were settled elsewhere. Those were the harrowing stories that I grew up with, with distant relatives never getting over their journey and having lost their relatives.

A global crisis needs an international response. That is why it is right that our generous international aid budget will be reassigned to provide the funding to support 20,000 refugees. I would however urge us to assess how and where our money and humanitarian relief is allocated and to which agencies. We should consider assigning more of these funds to local authorities and British-based agencies so that they can offer a longer period of support and shelter.

Aylan's father gave a heart-rending speech at the funeral of his wife and children that revealed an important truth: the family, all Syrian Kurds, did not feel welcome in Turkey. Turkey has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis, but we must ask whether its attitude towards the Kurds—the one group proven to have taken the fight to Daesh—has not made the situation worse. Equally, Aylan's father asked what the Arab-speaking countries in the region were doing. The lack of welcome for refugees across the middle east cannot be ignored any longer. Let us ask the hard-headed question: where are the Arab countries in all of this? It is not enough for them to speak passionately about Muslim solidarity but fail to step up to the plate in the midst of this crisis. We should ask why none of the Gulf countries has signed the refugee convention, and we should make our aid to them conditional on acceptance of international norms.

We must be prepared to tackle the fundamental cause of the instability wreaking havoc in the middle east. Wahhabi extremism is the cancer that has destroyed the body politic of Syria and Iraq. Daesh needs to be destroyed. There can be no political solution until that has happened. We must hold our nerve and consider effective military intervention at the earliest opportunity.

4.1 pm

Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD):
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing the House to have this debate today. I congratulate the shadow Home Secretary on her initiative in seeking the application for it under Standing Order No. 24. We will return to this subject again tomorrow in the Scottish National party's Opposition day debate, so I think it is fair to say that it will not suffer from under-scrutiny.

I welcome and recognise the significant movement in the Government's position that we have seen in recent days and weeks. I say to the Home Secretary, who I am delighted to see remains in her place throughout the debate, that where the Government get things right they will have the support of Liberal Democrats and, I suspect, of all Opposition parties. Yesterday's announcement by the Prime Minister of humanitarian visas for five years is exactly the sort of initiative that we ought to be taking. It is welcome and we commend the Government for it. I also commend them for the work that they continue to do in-country with refugee camps, especially in Syria. That work is absolutely essential and a very good use of the money that we have in our international aid budget.

I also welcome the announcement that the number of refugees to be taken from Syria is now to go up to 20,000. However, spreading this over the five-year period of the Parliament needs to be looked at again, because the need for these people to come to this country is in the here and now. The Government's refusal to accept the urgency and immediacy of the problem requires revisiting.

The other issue that requires revisiting is the Government's insistence on raiding the international development budget to pay for this in-country work. It has been paid for from the reserves in the past, and I do not see why it should not be again now. The work of the Department for International Development is absolutely crucial in ensuring that, in the medium to long term, the need for people to leave their country as refugees is eliminated. Using this money for spending in-country is an exercise in robbing Peter to pay Paul.

As I said in my intervention on the shadow Home Secretary, I would like the Home Secretary to look again at the exclusion from assistance of those who have already made the journey and are already in Europe. The Government are right that in the medium to long term the solution will be to keep people within the country or within the region as far as possible, but does the Home Secretary really think that people are going to stop making that journey simply because we have punished those who have already made the decision to do so in the most desperate of circumstances? It brings to mind the Victorian distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor—that somehow some desperate people are worthy of support while others are not. We should help all those who need our help on the basis of their need and not on the basis of a decision they have made in desperate circumstances.

As has been said, this is a significant moment for our country. This debate is not just about refugees; it is about how we see ourselves and our place in the world. I say to the Home Secretary that it is clear that the Government have a lot of catching up to do with public opinion. The Prime Minister often speaks with dewy-eyed fondness about his support for British values. If that is true, we should consider his current position and compare it with that of the German Chancellor. When asked about the numbers arriving in Germany, she replied:

"If so many people brave such hardship to come here, this is a sign of approval for us…The world sees Germany as a country of hope and of chances. That hasn't always been the case."

That is masterful understatement, but the question it brings to my mind is how the people of Britain will be seen on the world stage. That is what is at stake here. It is not a question of numbers, but of our standing in the world. Although it is welcome that the Government have moved their position, that is why they now need to do a great deal more.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle):
Order. I want to move on quickly and make the time limit four minutes. We should get everybody in.

4.6 pm

Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con):
Syria is like nothing any of us have experienced. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway), who is not in his place, saw the Balkans. The situation is Kafkaesque. It is worse than anything we can imagine and terrifying for the people who live there. It is hardly surprising that so many people want to get out of the place and have become refugees.

There are two reasons for that: one is the Daesh thugs who are killing so many people, and the other is the Assad regime. Our old plan to try to help and at least get rid of Daesh was for the west—by which I mean the United Kingdom and the United States—and a few Arab allies to look at things from the air and possibly direct air strikes, which are much more surgical than people think, and for the Arab nations on the ground to sort themselves out and deal with Daesh and possibly Assad. That has not happened. The old plan has failed. By now, Daesh should be no more.

I do not have a problem with extending UK air strikes into Syria—it does not make military sense for it not to happen—but that would be a pin prick and it would not solve the situation, because the other part of the plan has not worked. The Arab nations were supposed to do something on the ground, but, while the Kurds are doing very well, others are not.

As for the idea of safe havens, I set up a safe haven in Srebrenica in April 1993. What a disaster. A battalion tried to stop people coming in and attacking innocents. It is not possible. It requires compliance by all the actors in the area, including the belligerents, and internationally. When that is achieved, people have then to be looked after properly and there has to be a plan of civil administration. It did not work in Srebrenica. Two and a bit years after my soldiers set up the safe haven, 8,373 men and boys had been murdered. Safe havens are a good concept, but dealing with them is almost impossible.

We need a short and a long-term plan to sort out what is happening not only in Syria, but in the whole middle east. We must destroy Daesh and change the regime in Syria. We have to get a Security Council resolution to give us legitimacy. We must have a plan, which will undoubtedly mean people going in with rifles to sort out thugs, because thugs do not actually listen to anything else. I do not want those people to be British; I would much prefer local nations to do it.

In the end, if this threat is spreading right across the world, the world has got to sort it out, and we may well have to play our part. The United Nations will have to give its sanction, and we may well have to risk our precious armed forces in defence of everything we stand for.

4.10 pm

Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op):
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary on securing this very important debate. The International Development Committee met this morning and agreed to undertake an urgent inquiry into DFID aspects of the refugee crisis. As other Members have said this afternoon, the very strong public response throughout our country surely shows our country at its very best.

Both yesterday and today, we have seen the Government's response with the new figure of 20,000. I support those who have said that there is urgency about granting access to as many of those 20,000 as possible. With the onset of winter, this is an immediate crisis. I particularly highlight the point made by Save the Children about the need to give the 3,000 unaccompanied children safe haven.

Part of the announcement concerns what the Chancellor said on Sunday about the use of the DFID budget to accept more refugees. That will require very careful scrutiny. The rules on official development assistance are clear: they allow for domestic expenditure to fund refugees for the first 12 months. However, I urge the Government to proceed with caution, for the reasons that Members have set out in this debate. Surely the focus of effective development policy must be to prevent crises from happening in the first place.

There is a balance to be struck. The Home Secretary spoke about the 0.7% commitment and about how, with the growing economy, the amount of cash available will increase. I seek a commitment from the Government that if the costs associated with refugee resettlement exceed the increase in the cash available, they will look elsewhere for the money, including to the contingency reserve.

Mark Field:
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, because his Committee should scrutinise such issues very closely. Does he accept that community cohesion should be one of the goals of DFID expenditure? It is right that a safe haven for people who will come to this country—I hope, temporarily—should be done under the DFID budget, rather than through the Department for Communities and Local Government or other Departments.

Stephen Twigg:
We will certainly examine that matter as part of our inquiry. My instinct is that the current provision for 12 months goes as far as we should. If the Government proposed going beyond that, we would want to look at it in real detail.

The hon. Gentleman brings me to my next point. I am delighted that in my own city of Liverpool, our mayor, Joe Anderson, has responded to the shadow Home Secretary's call to take 10 refugee families by saying that Liverpool City Council will take 100 refugees. As Joe Anderson put it:

"In Liverpool, a city famous for our warm welcomes and as a safe port in the storm of global conflict, we are prepared to play our part."

Like other cities, however, Liverpool faces very large cuts in its funding from central Government. It is important that central Government provide support to enable communities across the country to take the refugees.

One of the central themes of this debate is the prevention of and the response to conflict. There is no doubt that we can be proud as a country of reaching the 0.7% target, about which the Home Secretary was right to remind us. We are second only to the United States in what we have contributed in bilateral aid to Syria, and we should be very proud of that. We need to say to our European partners who are nowhere near achieving 0.7% that they should rise to the challenge and match what we have done.

However, I do not believe that this is an either/or situation in which we either fulfil our obligation to 0.7% or take more refugees. In the crisis that we face, we have to do both. We need to say to our European partners that they need to rise to the 0.7% aid challenge, but we need to rise to the challenge of accepting more refugees. The figure of 20,000 is a very important development, but as others have said, the need is immediate, the crisis is now and we should seek to accept refugees as quickly as possible both from the camps in Syria and from among those in Europe. It is only right that we share that burden with our European partners.

4.15 pm

Byron Davies (Gower) (Con):
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this issue of critical importance. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, this is the biggest challenge facing countries across Europe today.

Many people have taken the perilous journey, fleeing the ravages of the conflict that has torn Syria apart. They are fleeing the terrors of Bashar al-Assad, ISIL and other perpetrators of the terrible and unimaginable violence in Syria. The conflict has driven more than 11 million people from their homes. We have all seen and despaired at the heart-breaking photos and stories from the conflict. Therefore, it is absolutely right that the Government and Britain will fulfil their moral responsibility to help those fleeing the horrific conflict that is gripping parts of the middle east.

The United Kingdom has a long and distinguished history of helping those who are most in need, as we have heard from others this afternoon, from Jewish refugees fleeing the horrors of Nazi Germany to Hungarian refugees following the crushing of the Hungarian uprising by Soviet tanks in 1958 and those fleeing the clutches and horrors of the Idi Amin regime in Uganda. We have always, as a nation, helped those who have desperately needed to flee the persecution and terror of different conflicts and regimes.

Furthermore, we are the only major nation in the world that has kept its promise to spend 0.7% of its GDP on aid. That is a record that I am proud of and that all in this Chamber should be proud of. It is the mark of a nation that will always try to alleviate suffering, wherever it may be found.

Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab):
The hon. Gentleman is talking about vulnerable people. A Save the Children briefing issued at noon today says that of the 13,000 lone children who arrived in Italy in 2014, 4,000 have already disappeared. Who knows what life they are now living, if they are still alive. Will he join me in supporting the call of Save the Children for the UK to take 3,000 child refugees now in order to take them out of the trouble that they are facing in their lives?

Byron Davies:
Save the Children does a remarkable job and I would always be open to helping with any of its initiatives.

We are the second largest bilateral donor of aid to the Syrian conflict. We are providing more than 18 million food rations, 2.4 million medical consultations and 1.6 million people with clean water. That is the largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis.

I welcome the Government's response. It is only right that we have gone further and done more to help. I will always be a supporter of our welcoming refugees who are fleeing the horrors that have engulfed their former homes. It is only right that Britain plays its part, as it always has done, to support and take in such refugees. I have received countless letters and e-mails from constituents who are willing to help those in need, as I am sure has everybody in this Chamber. There have been offers of support from families and communities the length and breadth of Brita

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2015-09-08 15:03:35

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Orignal From: London Tuesday September 8 2015 091 Parliament (8)