Hansard

We welcome the opportunity to debate the Government’s motion, which quite rightly commends the efforts of everyone who has welcomed the first thousand Syrian refugees to Scotland. We have taken a leading role within these islands in responding to the humanitarian catastrophe that has resulted from the Syrian conflict. The conflict’s primary causes are known to all of us, but the United Kingdom’s history in the region cannot be ignored. It played a role and therefore we must accept a level of responsibility above and beyond the duty that the world has to the victims of any conflict.

So far, and in so many ways, Scotland’s actions have been exemplary. Many of our local authorities are at the top of the rankings across the UK for the number of Syrians seeking refuge that they have taken in. As has already been mentioned, Renfrewshire Council, in my region, has taken in the third highest number of refugees of any local authority through the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement scheme. However, aside from considering the matter as a numbers game, the problem is that, to come third, Renfrewshire took in just 68 people. As the Government’s motion highlights, overall Scotland has welcomed just 1,000 refugees through the resettlement programme from a total of less than 3,000 across the UK. That is a drop in the ocean of misery and desperation that has come from the Syrian conflict and the wider refugee crisis. Scotland can and would take in many thousands more if only we had the ability to do so.

The barrier, of course, is a Westminster Government that would struggle to have taken a more hostile response both to this specific refugee crisis and to the rights and needs of all refugees, regardless of where they are or what they are fleeing. I am sure that many members of this Parliament will recognise not just the frustration but the heartbreak when we are contacted by refugees who have made it here but who find their claims rejected and are faced with the threat of deportation—heartbreak from hearing their individual stories of horror, and frustration with how little we can do to help them. That is why the Green amendment calls for the devolution of asylum support, accommodation and advice services to this Parliament—a proposal that received cross-party agreement during the Smith commission process but which seems to have been cast aside since then.

Given the horror stories that we hear all too regularly about the current providers, such as Serco, it is clear that a new approach is needed—one that treats those who need the most with basic respect and dignity.

It is a moral failure of immense proportions that the few refugees accepted by the Home Office are often forced to live in shocking conditions across the UK. I am sick of hearing the same stories: a mother and baby forced to live in a cockroach-infested flat in Glasgow; staff from the service provider humiliating asylum seekers, spraying them with air freshener and laughing at them; doors painted a certain colour resulting in everyone in the area knowing which houses the asylum seekers are staying in; and refugees forced to wear coloured wristbands to collect food. Those are not isolated incidents; they are a direct result of UK Government policies—policies that cast aside our common humanity and give in to the worst voices among us.

With a new leader in Downing Street, there is nothing to be positive about. It is the former Home Secretary who sent the infamous, shameful “Go home” vans into our communities who is now Prime Minister. Her words of support for our minority communities, whether refugee or not, matter little when her actions are so much to blame for the culture of fear, hatred and division.

There is one form of solidarity that the Prime Minister seems to have no issue with. After more than a year of the clown-car fascism of Donald Trump’s campaign in the US, the Westminster Government has been inspired. As has been mentioned, it is going to build a wall—the great wall of Calais. It is going to keep out those who are most desperate—those whom we can afford to help. Not once does an ounce of humanity seem to come into the equation with the Westminster Government.

We all hear the same stories. There is that of Beverley, the mother from Namibia, and her 13-year-old son. Abused and in danger due to her sexuality, they fled to the UK in 2013. Just a few months ago, they were the victims of a dawn raid, with Beverley injured. They were both imprisoned to await deportation back to the dangers that they had fled. It was only following immense pressure that was brought by the Unity centre in Glasgow, which included the blockading of the Home Office facility where they were held, that they were allowed to stay. However, there are far too many stories where that has not been the case. For every member of our communities we can save from deportation, many more will find themselves back on the plane to whatever terrible situation they were forced to flee.

Therefore, it was with some disgust that I read the Conservative amendment. The Tories opposite have done much to detoxify their party in Scotland, but to come to the Parliament today with an amendment so fundamentally at odds with the ethos that their own party takes in government at Westminster requires more than a brass neck. Every Tory MSP is a card-carrying member of a party whose policies in government have resulted in suffering and death for far too many of the world’s most vulnerable people. We will not let them forget it. We will vote against the Tory amendment.

The crisis in the Mediterranean has made the situation impossible to ignore in Europe—although, by God, have some people tried to ignore it. Last year, more than 3,700 people died making the crossing. This year, the number has already reached 3,200. The numbers do not tell the story or do it justice; it is the individual stories that bring home the horror that too many people on this continent seem content to allow to unfold. The story of Alan Kurdi has been mentioned. There is also the story of the 10-year-old about whom I read in the diary of a volunteer on the Greek islands. We will never know the child’s name. He died, along with most of his family, not long after being pulled from the freezing water. The volunteer was unable to let him go, even as she accepted that she could not save him.

This is not someone else’s crisis; it is our crisis, yet few European leaders have shown any leadership at all. Recently there has been profuse praise for the European Union in this Parliament, including from me, but the EU’s refugee deal with Turkey is nothing short of a shameful reminder of how far we have to go before the idea of a people’s Europe comes close to being the truth. The European Union that many of us talk about and campaign for is one that builds homes for refugees, not walls to keep them out.

Scotland’s role in Europe’s response to the crisis is critical, regardless of the fallout from the Brexit vote. The minister rightly praised all that we have done so far with the powers available to us, but there is so much more that we can do. The scale of the crisis is immense, and history will judge us on how we responded to it. I hope that it will judge that we faced up to the challenge to our common humanity and that, in the proudest traditions of solidarity and compassion, we did not just say but showed that refugees are welcome here.

I move amendment S5M-01322.3, to insert at end:

“supports the ‘New Scots’ approach of providing access to public services for all people seeking or granted refugee protection regardless of status; believes that the delivery and management of asylum support, accommodation and advice should be devolved to Scotland, and calls on the UK Government to support the creation of safe and legal routes for refugees to reach the EU and seek asylum without embarking on a dangerous and costly journey.”