Asylum Support (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-27
Topic: Immigration
Robert Henry Alexander Eames (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Listening to her speech a few minutes ago I was reminded of the first occasion on which I sat on a committee of this House with her. I was struck immediately not just by how she mastered facts and figures but by her compassionate heart, and tonight we have seen these two features in her presentation. For that, I thank her I come from a part of the United Kingdom which has reached out to asylum seekers to an extent out of all proportion to its size. Its record deserves scrutiny left, right and centre. Despite all our difficulties over the years—I need not reiterate them to this House—the compassion that our people have shown to asylum seekers is first class. Unfortunately, what we are debating tonight—particularly in relation to the Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—is the adequacy or otherwise of what we are left with to put that compassion into reality One of the problems that we have seen locally in Northern Ireland is that what we are allowed to spend on support for families in this terrible condition is inadequate for children, particularly younger children. If noble Lords will forgive me for being specific, I will long remember a priest telling me that he was still haunted by the words of a mother of a disabled child who had become an asylum seeker, and was accepted into our local society. She looked at what she had to spend for the upkeep of the rudiments—not luxuries—for a week and asked: "Is this really the promised land?". Where is our conscience? Where is our reality We have heard technical points in this debate and objections to the way in which Her Majesty’s Government have effected this current situation, and we could argue all night over the rights and wrongs. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has reminded us that there is a doubt in his mind about the legality, so to speak, of the words of the Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I am not concerned about that but about the common denominator of both these Motions which is that behind facts and figures are human beings: men, women and children, and the children are absolutely vulnerable. A recent medical report spoke of the value of providing reasonable nutrition for children, but what is offered to them by society and local authorities is totally inadequate to meet that basic level of nutrition I am also reminded—this is the point that I would urge the House to remember about both Motions—that one of the practical consequences of the inadequacy of what we are able to give to these families is that they will turn to other sources of support. They will turn to charities, charitable organisations and churches. I speak from more than 40 years of experience of that sector. The problem I foresee, while listening to the emotion of this debate, is that there will be a limit to how far charities can meet the demands that they are faced with. For local authorities, charities, churches and well-meaning individuals there is a limit. Society will then have to turn back and ask, "What has brought us to this point where the line has been drawn in the sand and these sources can no longer meet the demand?". When that time comes, I respectfully suggest to your Lordships’ House that it will not be parliamentary niceties that will concern us as a nation: it will be the crying need of a generation of refugees and asylum seekers—knowing the distinction between the two, of course. That generation will judge us, and it will judge that we have failed it.