A Labour peer who was saved from the Nazis and brought to London in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport programme is calling on ministers to admit thousands of unaccompanied refugee children into Britain, as pressure grows for the UK to do more to help desperate and vulnerable young people who have arrived in Europe without their parents.



Alf Dubs, a former MP, who arrived from Prague at the age of six, believes he will win strong cross-party support after tabling an amendment to the immigration bill that, if accepted, would allow an extra 3,000 children to be taken in “as soon as possible”. The bill enters its committee stage in the Lords this week.

Last year Dubs paid tribute to Sir Nicholas Winton, known as the “British Schindler”, who was instrumental in rescuing him and 668 other Jewish children in the months before the outbreak of the second world war by organising eight trains to take them from Czechoslovakia to London.

Dubs was reunited with his father, who had fled to London earlier, at London’s Liverpool Street station. His mother joined them later, but other family members died in Auschwitz. Dubs says Winton almost certainly saved his life.

His amendment, tabled on Friday, makes clear that the 3,000 would be in addition to those taken in under the government’s current programme for admitting 20,000 refugees from camps on the borders of Syria over the next five years.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who is chair of the party’s refugee taskforce and is pushing efforts in parliament for more government action, said: “We must not turn our backs on refugee children who are alone and at terrible risk. I met 11- and 12-year-olds living in the ‘jungle’ in Calais. They are a similar age to my children, but they are alone and separated from their parents and are incredibly vulnerable to exploitation, sexual violence, disease and cold. Every day the prime minister sits on his hands, more children will disappear into the hands of criminal gangs.”

The plight of hundreds of unaccompanied children from countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea – many of them teenagers and some as young as eight – was highlighted by the Observer last weekend and is also the subject of a major campaign by charities.

On Monday a London court will hear how the Home Office should honour its legal obligations to hundreds of refugees trapped in Calais and seeking entry to the UK, who have close family members here. The challenge, if successful, would force the UK to assume responsibility for processing the claims of the child refugees. The government argues that the youngsters should first claim asylum in France.

Among the celebrity supporters of the legal challenge are the children’s laureate, Chris Riddell, and award-winning Welsh jazz singer Ian Shaw. “The abject refusal to prioritise and process the needs of minors in these untenable and dangerous conditions is unacceptable in an EU state, and the safe passage of the unaccompanied minors with UK family should be a given,” said Shaw.

A vigil will be held in London, organised by the grassroots campaign group Citizens UK, in remembrance of a 15-year-old Afghan refugee who recently suffocated in the back of a lorry trying to reach England, where his sister lives. Masud had been eligible to claim entry to the UK and is among the children listed in the court case.

Lawyers for the children hope to press the government to honour a clause in the EU’s asylum regulations that allows refugees with close family members in a European country to claim asylum there.

Earlier this month the Commons committee on international development, while praising much of the government’s response to the refugee crisis, recommended that it act as a matter of urgency to help child refugees. “We are very concerned about the plight of refugee children in Europe, particularly as reports suggest they are falling prey to people traffickers,” the committee said.

Dubs said his personal experience was not the main reason for his acting now. “It informs my approach, but the need to help so many children who require help is so clear anyway. This country really should do more and it is urgent.”

The 3,000 figure was calculated by Save the Children as Britain’s fair share of the estimated 26,000 children who arrived in Europe last year alone without any family.

Shadow immigration minister Keir Starmer QC has also urged home secretary Theresa May to prioritise action on the unaccompanied child refugees currently stranded in northern France. In a letter to May, Starmer wrote: “I hope this is something you will now carefully consider and also whether there are other steps the UK can take to help ensure priority for relocation is given to unaccompanied children. Surely we have a moral obligation to do what we can to help?

“This is why I hope everyone will support this amendment in the House of Lords, to agree to Save the Children’s campaign for Britain to accept 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children from across Europe. Britain helped the Kindertransport decades ago; we should help refugee children again now.”

If the Dubs amendment, which is likely to win backing from many crossbench, Liberal Democrat and Labour peers, is accepted, Cooper says the plan can be implemented by two routes: either through existing European law, if the child has family in the UK, or through bilateral agreements where they don’t.