Iraq: Refugees

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:56 pm on 20 March 2008.

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Photo of Lord Fowler Lord Fowler Conservative 3:56, 20 March 2008

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this short debate. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Howell, the deputy leader on the Conservative side, for his very powerful speech. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who raised the position of the Christian community in Iraq, and he was absolutely right to do so. He also raised the question of the 1,400 Iraqis who are being asked to leave. I am not sure that we had an answer to that, but I have the letter here which is the authentic policy of Her Majesty's Government. I assure him that what the Guardian said is absolutely accurate.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who raised among other things the position of women in Syria, which is critical. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who raised the question of refugees in general and of the interpreters in particular. I also thank the Minister. It is no criticism of him personally, but it would be better if in a debate of this kind we could have one of the relevant Ministers who are directly responsible answering the debate, particularly as we have no fewer than three relevant Ministers in the Lords—a Home Office Minister, a Foreign Office Minister and a DfID Minister—who could do so. I am grateful to the Minister, and it is no criticism of him, as I say, but the House might prefer it if it had a Minister who is directly responsible replying to the debate.

I realise the time; I will go on for two minutes, as it is so serious. The Minister in his reply made a number of points about direct finance going to the European fund and the amount being done for staff. All those contributions seem to me extremely modest. He talked about my example of the tailor who, although he was helping the British forces was unfortunately not directly employed, so we would not help him; that more or less encapsulates what we have been talking about.

Again, I thank everyone for taking part in the debate. I do not think that the Government's reply matches up to the challenge. I warn Ministers that this issue will be raised again. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.