My speech to Parliament about an amendment to the Immigration Bill which commits the Government to resettling refugee children from Europe.
Like many other Members of this House, I welcome amendment 87B, as a more thoughtful articulation of the widespread desire to help unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, one that takes into account the practical challenges of doing so and recognises that it will be on top of the enormous amount we are already doing to help refugees from Syria.
I have three brief points. First, I urge us to make sure that we take the most vulnerable young people, whether from camps in the region around Syria or from the camps in mainland Europe. Whatever we do, we must take the most vulnerable children, because our capacity to help is limited—although I believe it is greater than the numbers we have at the moment. But we should not have targets for a particular place. Let us simply make sure that we help the most vulnerable along with those who have connections to and family in the UK, and so will be more able to settle in.
My second point is that we must make absolutely sure that we avoid the pull. I know some Members are sceptical about that, but from my conversations with young men in Calais I am convinced that there is a pull factor, particularly for older teenagers—16, 17 and 18-year-olds. We must not encourage people smugglers to be paid to bring more of those people across Europe, so we must do this in a way that avoids a pull—as is, quite rightly, the plan.
My third and final point is we must make sure that we do it well. The Government are absolutely right to carry this out in consultation with local authorities. I represent a Kent constituency that is managing over 1,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers. It is a huge burden, and very few other local authorities have stepped up to help. I sincerely hope that more local authorities will now take on their fair share. As part of that, let us make sure that we make use of the upsurge in interest in fostering—many people have put forward their names to be foster carers—not only to look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and refugees but to provide more homes for British children who are in care.
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