Refugee Communities: Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2020-11-12
Topic: Immigration
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Madam Deputy Speaker, "With the clothes on their backs, they came through a storm, And those that didn’t die want a better life. And they want it here." That quote is from the pilot episode of "The West Wing", which I have been re-watching for inspiration and, in these strange and difficult times, comfort. They are the words of the poetic and prophetic writer Aaron Sorkin, as said by President Josiah Bartlet in the series. They sum up so well the plight and experience of so many refugees, which we have heard about in spades today Before covid-19, the plight of refugees across the world was of epic and catastrophic proportions. What they are now experiencing has, as we have heard, only exacerbated that horrific situation. So I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on securing this debate and pay tribute to her for such a fantastic and passionate speech, because it is vital that we shine a light on the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, now and always. I have a fear that the media saturation about what is happening domestically with covid-19 means we will lose sight of their plight I think often of the book "In Extremis" by Lindsey Hilsum, which was about the life of Marie Colvin, who was killed in Homs, in Syria. The hon. Lady talked about bearing witness, and how she has gone to Burma and to Syria, as Members of this place and journalists should, to bear witness to the experiences, report back and come home to do what is possible to make their lives better. We can all imagine that the restrictions on journalists travelling mean that we are not hearing the stories and experiences of those at the forefront of the refugee crisis and the covid-19 crisis, as we would like to I pay tribute to all the Members who have spoken today. I wish to share some reflections from my childhood. I grew up in Livingston, in West Lothian, and my mother had a friend who was Chilean. He had escaped the Pinochet regime in Chile on the underside of a lorry, with literally the clothes on his back, because his name had been added to a list of those targeted to disappear. My early experience as a child was of hearing those stories and experiences, but I would imagine that they are very different from the level of the experiences we have heard today of asylum seekers and refugees, who are having to fight for not only their lives, but their health. As the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow said, we are an interconnected and global village. She spoke of the history of refugees coming to the UK, what they have brought and how they have enriched our society. She spoke of the Rohingya refugees and the way that the Myanmar Government and military have treated them, and I absolutely echo the concerns that she raises in that regard I may not have agreed with the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) on everything that he spoke about, but he did say that we are all global citizens. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) said that we know that covid does not respect borders, but urgent supplies are needed and the FCDO response is not enough. He also referenced the merging of DFID and the FCO, which is a major error. Many of us have raised concerns and would agree with that The hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) spoke of the responsibility that local authorities feel and the resource that is needed. Again, I may not have agreed with everything he said, but he made a fair point We have heard about the £1 billion that the UK pledged to respond to covid-19. It includes support specifically targeted at forcibly displaced populations. Donating money to the situation is of course admirable, but as we have heard time and again, the UK is not taking its fair number and doing its bit in that regard. The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) summed that up when she said that the UK does not even come in the top 10 countries that accept refugees. She also spoke about the insidious and discriminatory immigration policies, Ascension Island and the concerns about the language being used by those in the UK Government around "activist lawyers". We are in a very dangerous place as a family of nations in the UK when the Government of the day in the UK talk about those who uphold the rule of law and fight for people who are marginalised as "activist lawyers", rather than as people who are trained and trying to do their best to hold the Government to account and make sure that the rule of law is adhered to. I would caution the Government and I ask the Minister to set the record straight on that The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the vaccine and his concerns about that, which I share. I have a company in my constituency, Valneva, that has received UK Government funding, which I advocated for strongly. I was very pleased to hear that the UK Government were not going to put all their eggs in one basket. This is something that I discussed with the company when it was awarded that funding. It is making huge progress, but refugees are some of the most vulnerable, if not the most vulnerable, people in the world and we have to make sure that they are at the forefront of getting those vaccinations. Of course, everybody will need to get one and they will be prioritised appropriately, but it concerns me and the hon. Member that the people who are most hard to reach and most vulnerable will potentially be at the end of the queue I was shocked by what the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) said. I had a line in my speech about the experience of refugees and of asylum seekers—that we in this country have a host of programmes where very privileged folk are put through their paces in survival skills, such as "I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!" I mean no ill will to the programme or those endeavours, but there is something—I do not know what the words are—that does not sit well with me that we make those kinds of programmes when refugees are literally fighting for their lives to get across the world. It was Gandhi, was it not, who said that the measure of a civilisation is how it treats its weakest members, but refugees and asylum seekers are not weak. Arguably, they are some of the most tenacious, resilient, stoic folk on the planet, and I think there is an irony in the fact that these TV programmes are made It would not be a surprise to Scots that our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said that the UK Government "can rest assured that any proposal to treat human beings like cattle in a holding pen will be met with the strongest possible opposition from me." That was in reference to the Home Secretary admitting to exploring plans to incarcerate refugees on an island off the west coast of Scotland while they were being "processed". The inhumane language used by this Government is an absolute international disgrace. I do not know about anybody else, but when this Government’s policies start looking and sounding like a dystopian TV series that I think many of us have watched, then we have huge problems In Scotland, we have pursued a programme called the guardianship scheme, which one of my MSP colleagues, Angela Constance, has spoken about passionately and had a debate on just last week. For the past 10 years, Scotland has proudly run the guardianship service in conjunction with the Scottish Refugee Council and the Aberlour Child Care Trust. In those 10 years, 700 children from 38 countries, speaking 40 different languages, have been supported to rebuild their lives in Scotland across 29 local authority areas the length and breadth of Scotland The hon. Member for Bradford West talked, as did others, about the contribution that refugees make. In closing, I want to highlight the scheme that we have developed in Scotland that means refugees can come to work in our NHS and are literally at the forefront. We must remember, as another Member said, that we are all human beings, and refugees and asylum seekers have faced some of the worst conditions, but many have skills and want to come here and contribute. That this Government stop them doing that is a shambles and shames us all. So I call on this UK Government to put fairness, decency and humanity at the heart of their immigration policy, because at present it stands as an international disgrace.