MPs back refugee family reunification bill

MPs have backed a bill that would allow child refugees to sponsor close relatives to join them in the UK, though the government has said it will oppose the legislation at a later stage.

The Commons voted in favour of the Scottish National party MP Angus MacNeil’s refugee family reunification bill at its second reading and it will now move to committee stage. The immigration minister, Caroline Nokes, has said the government does not support the measures in the bill and is likely to block it.

The bill would expand the narrow definition of family used by the Home Office for reunification purposes, meaning children who have arrived in the UK unaccompanied would be allowed for the first time to sponsor their closest relatives to join them. It would also reintroduce legal aid to help refugee families with their applications.

The Tory former ministers Bob Neill and Anna Soubry have said they will support the bill along with Labour, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru, Green and DUP MPs.

Human rights and refugee charities including the British Red Cross, Amnesty International UK, UNHCR, Oxfam, Refugee Council, Help Refugees and Star network have backed the measures.

Nokes said the government was concerned that the changes would encourage people to attempt dangerous journeys from conflict zones to the UK and suggested the government would whip Tory MPs to oppose the bill.

“Those who – with all good intention – try to promote and encourage alternative pathways to the UK could be putting the people they are trying to help in danger,” she told the Times. “This is the possible outcome if Angus MacNeil’s private members bill is allowed to pass through the house at its second reading today.”

The measures would apply to family members “regardless of whether they need protection, are living in conflict zones or had even formed a family unit before they left”, said Nokes.

She said the government had finite resources, spending £1.1bn on resettlement between 2015 and 2020, it had established routes within the wider immigration rules to bring refugees’ relatives to the UK and had the discretion to do so outside the rules in exceptional circumstances.

Speaking in the Commons, MacNeil said Nokes’ Times article was “Orwellian doublespeak”, adding: “Hopefully the government will think again over the words they’ve chosen.”

He said the proposed measures were strictly limited and would help only about 800-1,000 people who are not already eligible. “You’d have to have a very hard heart or really an empathy bypass not to ensure these very limited measures I ask for today do not become law;” he added.

MacNeil said he was delighted at the cross-party support. “It’s clear that this issue isn’t about party politics, it’s about doing the right thing and it was pretty obvious to all of us that families belong together and that children belong with their parents.”

The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Maurice Wren, said the vote offered “a glimmer of hope to refugee families” and it was vital MPs supported the bill through its later stages.

Amnesty UK’s director, Kate Allen, said: “Today’s backing from MPs shows that, along with the British public, politicians across the spectrum care deeply about reuniting refugee families.”