THE UK needs to think less about preventing refugees’ entering the country and more about what causes them to flee their homes, the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, has told the House of Lords.
Speaking during a debate last month on a motion calling for an urgent international response to address the causes of mass displacement, Bishop Baines said: “All the deterrence policies in the world are unlikely to stop an ever greater flow of displaced peoples. What happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object?”
The House heard that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had estimated that 82.4 million people were displaced worldwide, of whom 32 per cent were refugees, and 42 per cent were children.
One of the causes was climate change, the Bishop said. About a quarter of the UNHCR’s total had been forcibly displaced by sudden-onset weather-related hazards, and thousands more by slow-onset hazards linked to climate change.
“Our approach to refugees and asylum is doomed to failure unless we acknowledge, understand, and confront the push factors that are driving displacement,” the Bishop said. “This cannot be accomplished simply by deterrence and enforcement, no matter how draconian the regime we install.”
The Rt Revd Lord Harries, a former Bishop of Oxford, said that good statecraft and serious diplomacy should be made a priority to prevent conflict, another cause of displacement; also, greater support was needed for the middle- to low-income countries that bordered countries experiencing violence.
The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, called for the urgent restoration of the UK’s foreign-aid budget, which was cut last year from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent. “It is shameful that, at a time when the world faces such incredible problems, we have pulled back from what was actually a very modest contribution,” he said.
Dr Smith also backed sporting boycotts of countries whose policies created population displacement. “I know that some people say these are just small symbols, but they are powerful symbols to a world where such dreadful suffering is going on,” he said.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey asked why, in spite of “warm noises” from the Government, no practical targeted assistance was ever offered to persecuted Christians. He also talked about the “unspoken fear” of the consequences of allowing large numbers from other ethnic communities to settle in the UK. “Those who join us must recognise that they have to embrace the values, traditions, and history of the host nation, just as the host nation will allow the customs of the migrants a place among us.”
Responding for the Government, Lord Goldsmith said that the foreign-aid cut should be reversed by 2024-25. The UK had a strong track record of helping people who needed protection and assistance, and the host communities that gave them sanctuary. Since 2015, Britain had resettled more than 25,000 people seeking refuge from persecution, and had issued more than 39,000 visas under the refugee family-reunion rules. In the same period, Britain had assisted more people through resettlement schemes than any other country in Europe.
Addressing the root causes of displacement was “central” to the Government’s approach he said. “It is directly in our own interest, as well as being the right thing to do.”