My Lords, I will make a few comments to amplify the remarks of my noble friend Lady Meacher. I have just been reading a most remarkable book by a doctor, who as an eight or nine year-old child escaped from Afghanistan to try to realise his vision of becoming a doctor and thus being able to support his family back in Afghanistan. In trying to secure a voyage here, the bureaucracy of our immigration system, which I am afraid is outrageously being demonstrated in Calais, meant that this child fell into the hands of traffickers. He arrived here with a forged passport, so was sent to Feltham young offender institution. My point is that unless we improve our ability to admit refugees—particularly at a time like
this, as we have heard today—we will play into the hands of these people. Like that child, so many of these refugees are just desperate for a better life; he wanted to support his family.
That child had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder of the most awful sort, having seen friends and relatives bombed and shelled and having walked among mutilated bodies. He had nightmares and flashbacks, but he did not know that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and could not understand why he was finding it so difficult to explain to the authorities that he had come from this troubled background. It was only years later, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, mentioned, that he realised that it must be because of post-traumatic stress disorder.
This extraordinary person started the most wonderful foundation, Arian Teleheal, saluted by the Government, which does telemed work with children and victims all over the world. He is a wonderful example of everything which is great in this country and everything that we need to make better. He knew that if he could get here and get training as a doctor, he could change the circumstances of those he had left behind in Afghanistan —and my goodness, he did. However, we must make it easier for people such as him to come here and benefit from our education, and then do wonderful work, such as what he wanted to do, as a doctor.