Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-11-04
Topic: Immigration
David Timothy Simmonds (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much welcome the Minister’s restating of the commitment to safe and legal routes, which we all recognise are critical to tackling the risks of trafficking. I also very much welcome the commitment to existing family reunion routes One issue that has not received enough attention in the debate around child refugees is the humanitarian issue of what happens to them after they arrive in this country. It is important that I ask the Minister to consider some of those wider implications, because they are enormously significant in making a decision about the UK’s attitude to so many of these questions. They are vital to our care system, to local authorities and, of course, to local communities, because the children and young people we are talking about in the context of this specific amendment and debate are a very small proportion of the number the UK is involved in supporting. Indeed, from 2015, we saw around a doubling of the annual number of unaccompanied children and young people coming into the care of local authorities in the United Kingdom under the terms of the Children Act 1989, partly as a result of the Government’s commitments, but also in recognition of the fact that determining the narrow legal status of a child refugee before they arrive here and ensuring that is sustained after their arrival is something with which this debate and the legislation struggle One of the big challenges I have always found, having worked with the noble Lord Dubs on these issues for some time, is that the idea that Dubs created a very specific route that opens up an opportunity often turns into an illusion for these children once they arrive,. I have personally come across many examples of young people who have been lined up to come here to be reunited with a family member only for it to transpire that the family member is in no position to care for them, and that young person is, in fact, simply being lined up to be taken into the United Kingdom care system. That, of course, is the ultimate destination for many unaccompanied child refugees, because that is what our legislation requires Although I very much agree with the points raised by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), we need to consider not that Dubs is unique in and of itself but that, actually, it concerns a very small, flexible and variable number within a much larger number of child refugees who are coming into the care of the United Kingdom When the Minister looks at the wider capacity picture, he should speak to the 30 councils that have come forward and said they would like to take Dubs children. He should ask them why they are not willing to make those places available to the large numbers of existing asylum-seeking children who are in the care of local authorities while looking for openings under the national transfer scheme. That would enable many of these children, many of whom may turn out to be Dubs eligible anyway, to move into the care of a local authority in a different part of the country. That is a critical question In conclusion, I welcome much of what the Minister said. I simply ask him to provide in his response a commitment on the future of global resettlement. We all recognise that this is a very small part of that much bigger picture. A clear commitment from the Government about when the scheme will commence and what its resourcing will look like would provide assurance of what the future framework is for so many vulnerable people around the world and maintain the UK’s reputation as providing a safe and honourable route to a safe haven for those who genuinely need it.