UPDATE 4/5/16 - I fully understand constituents' strength of feeling on child refugees in Europe - I will write to Home Office to ask for more to be done. I am also happy to meet with Merton Welcomes Refugees to discuss what more the Government can do.
Many constituents have contacted me about the amendment proposed by Lord Dubs calling for the Government to relocate 3000 children from Europe. There is no doubt that the Syrian crisis has had devastating consequences for the children of the region. I worry about them, as you do.
Instead of taking children from mainland Europe, the Government has decided to take 3000 children as part of a resettlement scheme focused on the children at risk in the Middle East and North Africa, which is supported by the UNHCR. I think this is the right decision. The Government's focus has been on how it can play the most effective role in an extremely difficult situation and not make matters worse. The children in Europe are in safe countries, and we can help them to be cared for in these countries. I believe it is insulting to suggest modern European countries are analogous for Nazi Germany or similar regimes.
The children in the region are sometimes in extreme danger. It is also critical that any action we take does not lead to inadvertent consequences where people traffickers encourage more children to put their lives at risk by making the dangerous sea crossing to Europe.
No other country in Europe is doing more than us to help solve this crisis. Unaccompanied children in Calais with relatives in the UK are quite rightly being reunited with their families. The Department for International Development (DFID) has now committed £46 million to help support refugees. This will include a fund of £10 million which has been created to focus specifically on the needs of children in Europe. The fund will support reunification with family who are already in other EU countries, including the UK. It will also identify children in need, provide safe places for at-risk children, set up a database to help trace children to their families, and offer services such as counselling and legal advice. Separately, I understand that seventy-five UK experts are being deployed to Greece to facilitate more effective reception screening and processing of newly arrived migrants. This approach will also help identify children and see that they are given appropriate support and care at the earliest opportunity. The UK Government will provide help to our European neighbours wherever we can, but I do not see value in moving children from safe countries. It is more important that we help those in the zone of conflict.
I believe all Members of Parliament are committed to doing the right thing for children affected by this conflict. I am proud of the contribution the UK is making and the good we have already done.
Finally, please find below some comments from the Prime Minister regarding the refugee situation.
I do not think anyone can accuse this country of walking on by in this refugee crisis. Let us be very clear about what we have done: first, we are taking the 20,000 refugees from outside Europe, which I think has all-party support; secondly, last week we announced the further 3,000—principally unaccompanied children and children at risk from outside Europe—whom we will be taking; and, thirdly, under our normal refugee procedures, last year we took more than 3,000 unaccompanied children. But where I disagree, respectfully, with their lordships’ House is that those people who are in European countries are in safe European countries. To compare—somehow—children or adults who are in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal or Greece with children stuck in Nazi Germany is deeply wrong, and we will continue our approach, which includes being the second largest donor country anywhere in the world in those refugee camps.
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First, any unaccompanied child who has direct family in Britain, on claiming asylum under the Dublin regulations, can come to Britain—and quite right too. But the right hon. Gentleman asked who was responsible for refugees. The answer to that question is the country the refugees are in. I want Britain to play our part, but we have to ask ourselves whether we do better by taking a child from a refugee camp, or taking a child from Lebanon, or taking a child from Jordan, than by taking a child from France, Italy or Germany. As I have said, to compare this with the 1930s is, frankly, to insult those countries, which are our neighbours and partners.
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We are [helping other European Countries], not least with the £10 million we recently announced. The crucial point is this: how do we in Britain best help child refugees? We think that we help them by taking them from the refugee camps, taking them from Lebanon, taking them from Jordan and taking them when they come to this country. That is what we are doing. We have a proud record and nothing to be ashamed of.