argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): We were led to expect that there would be at least 3,000 children. My hon. Friend will recall the statement by the then Minister for Immigration, now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on 21 April: "We will commit to resettling several hundred individuals in the first year with a view to resettling up to 3,000 individuals over the lifetime of this Parliament, the majority of whom will be children."—[Official Report, 21 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 19WS.] Is it clear to her why that clear commitment has been broken?
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend makes a very good point, and one that I will direct to the Minister. It is his responsibility to answer that question today The Government made two arguments to justify their decision. I will talk about pull factors later, but first, let me deal with local authority capacity. It is not true that there is no space left for Dubs children in local authority care. The Home Office cannot make that claim because it has not even asked about Dubs spaces in future. Let us consider Lewisham. It said that it can take 23 children, but it has received just one. How many places did local authorities offer for Dubs children? Does the Home Office know? If not, how can Ministers say that there are no places left? Will the Minister publish the figures? Will he tell us how many children each local authority has taken, so that civil society groups and Members of Parliament can work with them to try to get more spaces? The House deserves answers. There is much more to be done with local authorities to resettle children under the Dubs scheme. We cannot and should not give up.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, which, again, the Minister must answer today It is deeply depressing to start a debate that was supposed to focus on how to build on the Dubs amendment by having to fight the same fight over again. The debate is about how we can do more for the many unaccompanied child refugees stuck in Greece and Italy. The Minister will talk about the fantastic support that this country offers refugee camps in the middle east and north Africa, how much we spend and how we do not want people to attempt the perilous journey across the sea. I will wholeheartedly agree with him. I am proud of our work overseas. It is right that we do everything possible to look after people in the region and keep them out of the hands of people traffickers who exploit their desperation. Nobody wants people, least of all children, to board those boats and make that crossing. However, we must move beyond those generalities. We are talking about desperate individuals, and hundreds of children do board those boats and end up in Greece and Italy. When they arrive, they remain vulnerable to the same traffickers who put them on the boats in the first place. They are exploited physically and often sexually. They are made to see and endure things that no child should ever have to. Unaccompanied children are the most at risk, and as the conflict continues unabated in Syria and parts of Africa, more children arrive in Europe without an adult to look after them.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): As a Member of Parliament who also represents a port area of our country, I pay tribute to all those who work to keep our ports and our borders safe. I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s argument about a pull factor in a moment.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, with which many hon. Members will agree. To put it simply, the risk to children does not end when they reach dry land. The boat may be behind them, but the danger is not. The refugee camps, especially in Greece, are overflowing, with children being left outside, cold and alone. In Greece, only about half of all unaccompanied child refugees are in official shelters. The rest are stuck in squats waiting for their applications to be processed. Even if they do find shelter, they are very vulnerable indeed. This simply cannot go on. We have a duty to help these children and we must not turn them away.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend asks a crucial question. If, by the end of the debate, the Minister has not answered that question, I think many of us will be up on our feet demanding answers We made great progress, working with the French authorities, on resettling children under Dubs and, as alluded to by my hon. Friend, under the Dublin III regulation where children have family members living in this country. I welcome the progress made on that front, but we are still asking Greece and Italy, two countries that are not equipped to deal with the refugee flows by themselves, to accommodate the vast majority of them. According to UNICEF, more than 30,000 unaccompanied children arrived in those two countries last year alone. That is difficult, to say the least, for those countries, problematic for Europe and, most of all, bad for the children themselves We know that, despite our best efforts, children are still making the journey alone. We know they are arriving in Greece and Italy, which are not able to deal with them all. We know that many have family here and that it is in their best interests to be transferred to the UK under the Dublin agreement. So why are we not doing more to help? Some 30,000 children arrived in Greece and Italy last year, but just eight of them transferred to the UK. One member of Home Office staff in Greece and one in Italy are charged with assessing and processing children whose best interests lie in a transfer to the UK.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend speaks from great experience and I hope the Minister listened to what she said. If the Minister is really prepared to consider this matter, he should watch the documentary made by Liverpool footballer Dejan Lovren about his experience as a refugee and the uncertainty that he lived through. He has been brave in speaking openly about his life. I encourage the Minister to take heed of his words. It is no wonder that it has taken the best part of a year for many children’s applications to be processed, leaving them in the kind of limbo my hon. Friend mentions Let me be clear with the Minister. There are agencies working in Greece and Italy with the capacity to make referrals, but they will not raise the hopes of children when the process itself is so dire. The Government must commit today to streamlining the system, so that agencies and children have confidence in it and can start to make referrals quickly. We know that this can be done because it was done in France when hundreds of applications were processed in a matter of weeks. This situation is just not acceptable and we must do more I want to address an argument we hear constantly from the Government when we talk about resettling refugees—a line we have heard repeatedly from the Home Secretary, especially when talking about the Dubs amendment. She says it encourages people traffickers and that it acts as an incentive for perilous journeys. We have heard again today that it is a draw for migrants. The Government must drop this feeble line of argument once and for all People are not getting on those boats because of pull factors; they are doing so because they are fleeing war, poverty, famine and exploitation in their own countries. Even refugee camps in Greece or Italy, dangerous though they are, are safer than the hell they are running away from. We know this and the Government know this. If they do not, they should try to understand the reality. They should look at a picture of the ruins of Homs or Aleppo and tell me again about pull factors. They should see the desperation on the faces of starving people in Yemen or Somalia and explain to me again how Dubs was an incentive. They should speak to a child escaping forced servitude as a soldier in Eritrea, and repeat again to me that our immigration system is a draw. It is not; it was not; and we should not pretend otherwise. Have the Government any hard evidence to support that claim, and, if so, will the Minister produce it If the Government really believe the pull factors nonsense, there is just one obvious change that they could make. Under the current system, children in camps in the region can only apply to be transferred under Dublin III if they have a parent living in the United Kingdom with whom they can be reunited, but for children already in Europe, the rule can apply to extended families, grandparents, siblings or aunts and uncles. However, many of these children are orphans.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that safety is a pull factor, I agree with him. If he is suggesting that not starving is a pull factor, I agree with him. If he is suggesting that escaping the bombs dropping on a child’s head is a pull factor, I entirely agree with him This debate will continue. I think it right for us to have the debate out in the open, and Members who disagree with me will have a chance to make their case, too.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): I will not, because I need to end my speech now As I was saying, many of these children are orphans who have no parents with whom they can be reunited. However, the Government are effectively saying that a child in a refugee camp in north Africa who has a grandparent in the UK is not eligible, but if that child got on a boat and went to Italy, he or she would be. That is madness. Will the Minister agree to think again and allow children in the region to apply under Dublin III to be reunited with their extended families in the UK As the Minister has heard from Members on both sides of the House, there are many points that he must address in his speech. In respect of Dublin III, will he commit himself to improving the system in Greece and Italy? Will he send more staff, speed up the processing of applications and work with the agencies in those countries to identify eligible children? Will he commit himself to allowing Dublin transfers from the region to extended families in the UK? In respect of Dubs, will he show us the figures on local authority capacity? Will he at least agree to monitor capacity and increase the numbers where possible? Will he, once and for all, drop the pretence that the main factor that is dragging children on to those boats is our immigration system, rather than war, poverty and famine I started by saying that this was not a party-political issue, and I stand by that. This is about British values, which we all share, and our desire to honour those values. Across Europe and the world, people are questioning whether we mean what we say when we talk about Britain as a welcoming, open, tolerant and decent country. It is up to us to show that we are who we say we are, that we will live up to the legacy of our past and that we will not turn away from the suffering and desperation of children on our own doorsteps who need our help.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for holding a surgery for MPs recently to clarify points within his brief, but does he believe that his statement on 7 February was in line with the will of this House on the Dubs amendment?
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for giving way. Going back to a point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), can the Minister tell me how many children with relatives in this country have outstanding applications to come here?
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and others on securing this important and timely debate I welcome the Government’s work to support refugees by investing in camps in the region and setting up the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme. I also welcome the work with the French last autumn to clear the Calais camp and get the children to safety. There has been a lot of important work, including by the Minister and the Home Secretary, and we should welcome that. I also pay tribute to their work with the French authorities in the autumn that got a lot of kids out of deeply dangerous circumstances in Calais and Dunkirk, where they were at huge risk of smuggling and trafficking, and into centres. The work brought many vulnerable children to this country and safety. This was Britain doing our bit to help some of the most vulnerable and at-risk children We have examples of teenage girls from Eritrea who have been abused, who have been raped and who have been through terrible ordeals but are now safe in school in Britain. We have examples of 12-year-olds from Afghanistan who are now safe with foster parents, instead of living in terrible, damp, dark, cold conditions in tents in northern France. We have teenagers now reunited with family in the UK, rather than living in such unsafe conditions It is because such effort—that partnership between Britain and France—was working that many of us were so shocked by the Government’s announcement on 8 February that they were not only closing the Dubs scheme, but ending the fast-track Dublin scheme, which had made so much difference to the lives of so many children and teenagers.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution. Does she agree that when we heard that news it felt as though it was going against the will of this House and against those of us who had debated, voted and in good faith believed that the Government were going to do something under the Dubs amendment?
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right about that, because this was a cross-party debate and cross-party work, with all of us supporting the Dubs amendment, just as it was cross-party pressure that got the Government to set up the 20,000 Syrian refugee scheme in the first place. There has been strong support from people in all parts of the House, and it was not for helping for only six months. That is the real problem with what the Government have done: it took them several months to get the Dubs scheme going in the first place, it has been running for only about six months and they have decided to pull the plug. I believe that is not in the spirit of the Dubs amendment that was agreed and passed last summer.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my right hon. Friend for the speech she is making and the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate. Does she agree that the shock we feel in this House at the abandonment of the Dubs amendment is echoed in our constituencies? Many of my constituents have written to me specifically about the plight of children. In a world that is closing the doors on so many different peoples’ migration, the plight of these children has really inspired our constituents around the country.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right to say that many people across the country are deeply disappointed by this action, because the scheme was working. It was saving lives and people’s futures. Charities told the Home Affairs Committee that they estimated that there had been a drop in the number of children and teenagers trying to get here illegally during the period in the autumn when a lot of this support was put in. We were therefore reducing the number of dangerous illegal journeys by providing the safe legal routes and undertaking the managed work with other countries. That is crucial in terms of clearing the camp in Calais to prevent the trafficking, the modern slavery and the dangerous illegal journeys Ministers have given four reasons for closing the Dubs scheme. The first is that it encourages traffickers. The second is that the French want us to close it. The third is that local authorities have no more capacity. The fourth is that the Government have delivered on the Dubs amendment. Let me take each in turn First, the Home Affairs Committee heard evidence yesterday from UNICEF, Citizens UK, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and one of the Children’s Commissioners. Those agencies are all doing important work with child refugees in Greece and Italy and along the French coast. All were categoric that the ending of the Dubs scheme will increase, not reduce, the trafficking risk, and that by taking away the safe and legal routes it will increase the number of children and young people who end up in the arms of traffickers and smugglers’ gangs, not reduce it The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and I visited Dunkirk and Calais on Monday. In Dunkirk, we met 13 and 14-year-olds who had been in the Calais camps. They had gone to the French centre and into safe accommodation, but for all kinds of complicated reasons their claims had been turned down and they had lost hope and got lost in the system. They are now back in Dunkirk in a really dangerous situation. I am really at a loss to know how the camp is allowed to continue as it is, because it is clearly being run by a smuggling gang—there is no doubt about what is happening in that Dunkirk camp. Two teenage boys we met were sleeping in a hut with 80 adult men. It was deeply unsafe, and when we asked them they said that they felt unsafe. They had gone back there because they had lost hope in any chance of the legal system getting them to safety.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Of course the French should be dealing with the trafficking that is taking place in Dunkirk, and there should be enforcement. Frankly, though, other countries need to do something as well, because we can be in no doubt that the gang that is operating there, taking families across from Dunkirk to Britain, will have a lot of operations in Britain as well. There ought to be co-ordinated police action against that trafficking gang, because that is absolutely important The joint action between Britain and France to get the children into French centres was working in the autumn. Some of the children were then going into the asylum system and safety in France, and rightly so; some of the others—perhaps the most vulnerable or those with family in Britain—were getting sanctuary in Britain. The two teenagers we spoke to both said that they have family in Britain. They had been turned down, but given no reason—there was no piece of paper and nothing in the system—for why they had been turned down. As a result, they had turned up in Dunkirk and in Calais again. We will see more and more children arriving in Calais and Dunkirk and going back, at risk, pushed by the fact that the safe legal route has been taken away.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is right. We need to prevent young people from ending up in Calais and Dunkirk in the first place. That means working through the Dublin and Dubs schemes, whether in France or, better still, in Greece and Italy, to prevent them from travelling in the first place. We need all countries to work together to share responsibility for these deeply vulnerable young people.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I am going to make some progress because I am conscious of the time Secondly, the Minister said that the French have urged us to stop the Dubs scheme, but according to what President Hollande has said, the evidence is that the reverse is true. I am worried that the co-operation we had in the autumn appears to have broken down Thirdly, it has been said that local authorities do not have capacity, but that was not what the Select Committee heard in evidence yesterday. The Local Government Association said that it had not been consulted specifically on Dubs; it had been consulted on the national transfer scheme. We should have more detailed consultation on Dubs. We heard from local councils that they wanted to offer more places but those places had not been taken up, and that if local authorities all met the 0.07% target that the Government have said is appropriate, there would be 3,000 more places on top of those already taken by those children who have arrived spontaneously.
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy) — House of Commons, 2017-02-23
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I am going to make some progress, because Mr Deputy Speaker wants to move on Fourthly, the Government have said that we have met the spirit of the Dubs amendment, but that is simply not the case. Not only have we not met the spirit of Dubs, but the Government are failing again on the Dublin agreement. The expedited system that was temporarily in place in France was working. Ministers have said that they will learn lessons from that, but they do not seem to be doing so The Minister said in his answer to the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) that there were somehow 115 people in Greece, but we were told by the charities yesterday that there was only one person working on child transfers in Greece, one in Italy and one in France. That is not enough even to review the Dublin cases that were turned down and that the Home Office said it would review. I do not see how it can review those cases if none of those children has paperwork, has been given any formal response about why their case has been turned down, or has a process through which to apply to have it reviewed. The Government have done some good things. I ask them not to rip them up now This is what one of the child refugees who we helped said: "Many of us have been traded like cattle between groups of smugglers...many of us know someone who died." Another said: "Assaulting women, sexually abusing children—the smugglers are really not nice people." We created some safe legal routes that prevented the traffickers and the illegal, dangerous routes. They were working. That approach did not solve the whole problem—it addressed only a limited part of the refugee crisis—but it was about Britain doing its bit. It was about Britain being better than this. We in this House were all proud of it. I really urge the Minister to reopen the Dubs scheme, reinstate a proper, effective Dublin process and let Britain do its bit to help refugees again, just as we did for Alf Dubs, generations ago.