My Lords, this is a very modest amendment. Its aim is to maintain after Brexit one of the main existing legal routes to safety for unaccompanied child refugees—a route that has been working fairly effectively for quite some time. Of course, we know that in the absence of legal routes to safety the people traffickers have a field day, as was mentioned in the earlier debate on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I have had a number of discussions with Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—in the last few days. We have not reached full agreement, but at least we know where we differ.
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The background is that, in addition to Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, there is the Dublin treaty, which we call for short Dublin III. Essentially, it enables unaccompanied child refugees who are in one EU country to join relatives in another. For example, a Syrian child in, say, France could join an uncle in Sweden. Strictly speaking, this does not grant automatic asylum status, merely the right to join a relative, at which point there needs to be an application for asylum. Of course, not all of these will be granted. Nevertheless, it is a method to safety and a safe route. This arrangement will stop when we leave the EU unless a new arrangement is negotiated.
I am simply saying: could we keep in being something that has worked pretty well up to now? There is nothing dramatic about that. I am not asking for
anything new, just not to stop something that is working fairly well. The amendment’s purpose is to establish that the Government will negotiate with our EU partners to maintain this legal route to safety. It is simply to say that it might stop when we leave the EU; let us not let it stop and negotiate its continuance.
I say negotiate because we cannot achieve this unilaterally. It requires the consent of and co-operation with our EU partners. Clearly, if there is, say, in France a child with a relative in Britain, the French will not automatically say, “You can transfer that child to Britain”. There has to be an arrangement for that. After all, the best interests of the child must be taken into account. They have to be paramount.
The Ministers said that they were not too unhappy with what I was trying to achieve, but they did not want it in the Bill—I am giving the Minister his argument to save him having to repeat it. I simply say this: by having it in the Bill, we will maintain something certain and specific. There is no breach of a principle to say that we should put it in the Bill, whatever the Government will say a bit later on.
As I said, the scheme has worked pretty well. I am not sure about the exact numbers, as there is some dispute about them, but I have had various figures, ranging up to 800 or even more who have been transferred to the UK up to now under Dublin III. Maybe the Minister could confirm the figures or in any way indicate whether I have them wrong.
These children have mainly come from France, but also from Greece and some other countries. The particular routes I am concerned about are those in France and in Greece. Noble Lords will be aware that the conditions are pretty desperate. In the Calais area, where the Jungle has been removed, I saw for myself that people—children and others—are sleeping under the trees, with very little support. The weather has been pretty cold. In Greece, whereas in Athens the situation might be slightly more stabilised, on the islands it is pretty desperate. Some of the children are simply sleeping rough. They have no accommodation at all. I do not need to spell out the dangers that these children face. It is a very difficult situation and they are extremely vulnerable.
Is there any alternative other than what I am suggesting? There is a limited option that United Kingdom entry clearance officers may allow applications outside the Immigration Rules. That is a possible way forward. The trouble is, it works very seldom. Between 2013 and 2015, 20,000 such applications were made to achieve family reunion. Of those, only 51 were granted. There is reluctance on the part of entry clearance officers to deal with things that are outside the rules. That is why we need them specifically in legislation.
In the general arguments on behalf of child refugees, I have never argued that Britain should take them all; I have argued that we should take our share. But in this case, our share would be those who have relatives in this country. There are other European countries where child refugees have relatives where they can and do join them, but it is particularly from France and Greece that I have my concerns.
I say this in conclusion. I believe that public opinion in Britain is essentially humanitarian and essentially says, “Yes, we accept that child refugees are vulnerable, and we should take at least some of them”. The Government would be flying not in the face of public opinion but with it. I realise that the Home Office has had a difficult patch in the last little while, which has made it a bit more difficult for some of the informal discussions I have had to take place before almost the last minute. Without wanting to sound too pompous or patronising, I think that a Home Office commitment to a humanitarian cause would not go amiss in terms of the reputation of the Home Office and of this country. I think that I have made my case. I beg to move.