I am getting very close, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for your intervention.
I need to make that quotation clear—they are not my words but the words of the article:
“the lesson from the Continent is clear: to let in more immigrants than you can handle leads to trouble, but to admit more children than you can care for leads to tragedy.”
Before I wind up I should refer to Germany as well, where a similar situation arose when up to 1 million refugees and migrants entered in 2015. The Telegraph reported a terrible incident that occurred on 19 December, when a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia ploughed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, leaving 12 dead.
Perhaps no event was more disgusting and disgraceful than the events of new year’s eve 2015 in Cologne, when the BBC reported that more than 1,000 criminal complaints were filed, hundreds of them alleging sexual assault. An officer with the federal police stated in his report about that night:
“Women, accompanied or not, had to run a literal ‘gauntlet’ of heavily intoxicated masses of men of a kind that is impossible to describe…the situation we were confronted with (chaos) could have led to serious injuries or even to deaths.”
As a consequence, by April 2017, although a majority of Germans still said that refugees were “very welcome” or “quite welcome”, a majority were also saying for the first time that their country simply could not take in any more.
The UK has the potential to face similar issues. As I begin to close my remarks—I suspect that will delight Opposition Members—I wish to talk about how learning English is central for integration into British society.
It gives refugees opportunities, and in the case of 28,000 children who have been resettled since 2010, an education. However, the Bill does not deal with that; it does not help to provide refugees with English language training, integration or opportunities. It does not think through the implications of that, or consider the hard-working people up and down our land who have aspirations for themselves and their families—hard-working people who should not suffer because of the strain on public services that could be created by the policy in the Bill.
In conclusion, the current family reunion policy is designed to provide a safe and legal route with no application fee to be paid, so that close, dependent family members can join their refugee family in the UK. That avoids the need for family members to make dangerous journeys to seek protection. I have highlighted the UK’s many other excellent refugee resettlement schemes, and it is crucial that our efforts are concentrated on ensuring that the existing schemes are used to full effect, and that the current rules work properly and effectively, without the need for family members to make dangerous journeys to seek protection. That way we can help those who need it most.
Anyone can provide examples of individual, heart-wrenching cases where our current system has not worked for an individual. However, let us be judged by what we do, not just by what we say. It is easy to vote for something in this place without thinking through the consequences. It is easy to get caught up in virtue signalling, without a second thought for the men, women and children who we are here to represent. It is easy, as some Opposition Members have done, to cast aside the views of the British people. The British people are a kind, generous people who are happy to provide a beacon of hope to so many around the world, but they want to see their money well spent, and they naturally want to look after their own families too. To cast aside those views would be wrong, for the British people are right.
We must do what is best for those at risk of being trafficked or of making life threatening journeys by reducing that risk. We must do what is best for the millions of refugees overseas, and we can help more of them, and to greater effect, by providing billions in aid so that they can stay in or near the lands they call their own. We must do what is best to keep control of our system and protect the hard-working, law-abiding, decent, charitable but silent majority across our United Kingdom.
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