Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The Bill is not about improving legislation, but about hate. It is little more than political gesturing of the worst kind. Worse, it panders to far-right politics, stirring up resentment, fear and division because the system is not working for them. It is the nastiest, most vicious politics.
We live in an increasingly hostile world, where conflict, climate change and covid are making life impossible for many. Innocent families with children flee for their lives, driven from their homes and communities and joining the 30 million refugees worldwide with little more than the clothes on their backs and their hopes and dreams. They flee to protect themselves and their loved ones, but tragically that hope is usually never fulfilled. I recently spoke to a mother who fled drought in South Sudan. She lost her children to thirst and starvation. I have felt the pain of victims of conflict—the many who have fled Syria, who suffered immeasurable brutality and war crimes at the hands of the Assad regime and are heartbroken that they cannot return. I have spoken to women and girls forced into arranged marriages as young children who have fled a life of violence and abuse. They faced sexual assaults, gang rapes, exploitation on the road between camps and homelessness before finding refuge. To those who make that perilous journey, the Government are saying, “We don’t care,” and attempt to build a wall around our shores.
Taking a deliberately and unnecessarily hostile attitude does not tackle the drivers of displacement, which will continue to force the vulnerable to flee and aggravate the very threats that make our lives here at home less secure. It will make the United Kingdom even more isolated, not just from our partners but from the values that made us a welcoming nation.
So many look towards us with hope. As the pandemic has shown, our planet is shared and so are our successes and failures. We must not forget that the United Kingdom was a co-signatory and the first to ratify, with the support of the whole House, the 1951 refugee convention. Rather than be open and inclusive, the Government seek to remove us from those shared challenges, wash our hands of the crises and injustices fuelled by many decisions made at home, and weaken communities’ resilience overseas.
The Bill seeks to criminalise refugees. They are not criminals and seeking safe haven is not a crime. The true crimes are the provisions and the intention at the heart of this heartless Bill. It puts the UK at odds with decades of consensus on the need to offer safety to the persecuted and stateless, and it would breach international law. It picks on the poor and the desperate and the children put in boats by their parents who are desperate because they see that the sea is safer than the land.
When we strip away the means to safe passage, cut international aid, which helps people remain in place, and penalise anyone for facilitating arrivals, how does
the Home Secretary intend desperate people to arrive? In stark terms, what would the Bill have meant for the Kindertransport? Would it mean turning our backs on the children fleeing the brutality of Tigray and Yemen today?
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