I strongly welcome the Government’s huge change in principle and acceptance of the Dubs amendment. I pay tribute to Lord Dubs, Citizens UK, Save the Children, Help Refugees, the Association of Jewish Refugees, countless faith groups, 70,000 people who signed the petition and Members from all parts of the House who have argued strongly for the measure.
I welcome the spirit of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), and I am glad that the Government have accepted it. I was saddened by the contribution made by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), and I do not believe that his views are representative of those of most Conservative hon. Members. I think the hon. Gentleman’s point was that children in Europe are somehow not at risk and are safe, but we know that that is not the case: 10,000 child refugees have simply disappeared.
When the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) and I were in Athens last week, we went to a makeshift camp in a hockey stadium, where 1,200 people are staying in rigged-up tents and under blankets. In among them were children and teenagers with no one to look after them. The aid workers talked about the abuse, the risk of domestic violence and the cases of rape that there have been. Children need to be supported. We also met Greek Government Ministers—probably the same ones that the Minister for Immigration met last Friday—who said that they want help, particularly to resettle children quickly because they are at risk and are out of school.
By agreeing to Lords amendment 87B, we will be saying that we are prepared to do our bit. However, I urge the Minister for Immigration to move swiftly on the practicalities. I welcome the steps he has set out, but I urge him not simply to go along with the original
objective of the Dubs amendment, which was to help 3,000 children—I hope he will still aim to achieve that by providing support for 3,000 child refugees—but to set a milestone by accepting the proposal put forward by UNICEF, Citizens UK and the group of bishops to help all those currently stuck in limbo in the family reunification system. In particular, we should help the nearly 150 children in Calais and the first 300 children from Italy and Greece to do our bit to speed up the process as rapidly as possible so that we can get them in place and resettled by the beginning of the school year. Some of those children have been out of school for far too long already, and we should do our bit to help. Of course, that will mean giving support to local authorities to enable them to do so.