PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
FAMILY REUNION (18 January 1995)

That this House notes that, as the International Year of the Family draws to an end, many people who have come to the United Kingdom fleeing from persecution are enduring years of separation from their families who they may have been forced to leave in danger; calls on the Government to shorten the four-year wait before asylum seekers granted exceptional leave to remain can apply for family reunion; calls on the Government to facilitate family reunion where members of the same family have applied for asylum in different European Union countries; and believes that unaccompanied refugee children should be reunited as soon as possible with close family members and that the Government should give this issue urgent consideration on the grounds that such family separation adds to the trauma and desperation that these people have already suffered.

Sponsored by:
Baroness Hodge of Barking (Labour)