Refugee Week: Lord Alfred Dubs gave Immigration Summit candour, brilliance and a little rage

Today marks the start of Refugee Week set up to celebrate the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking protection.

Leigh Day’s Immigration Summit was pleased to host Lord Alfred Dubs, Alf as he likes to be called, whose personal story and lifelong work is synonymous with the experiences and rights of refugees.  Fittingly, we will open our series of blogs to mark Refugee Week with Alf’s personal testimony, as told to the audience at April’s event. 

Alf was born on the 5 December 1932 in Prague in the former Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family of North Bohemia and Austrian descent.  Just aged six, he was one of 669 Czech children who were saved from the Nazis on the Kindertransport organised by British businessperson Nicholas Winton.  Alf’s father was already in the UK, but his mother had been refused a visa. He recalls her having prepared a packed lunch for his journey which he did not touch for two days. It’s hard to imagine that journey; the unknown, the fear, the isolation. In London he was met by his father.  His mother joined a year later, and the family settled in Northern Ireland, initially. 

Alf’s career has been one of service.  After graduating from the London School of Economics, he worked first for local government and then in consulting, before entering Parliament as the Labour MP for Battersea South in 1979.  After losing his seat to the Conservatives in 1987, Alf became the Director for the Refugee Council until 1995.  He became a Labour Life Peer in September 1994. 

In 2016, Alf tabled what became section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, by which local authorities in the UK had to admit unaccompanied child asylum seekers, from refugee camps in Europe.  However, in 2017, the Home Office removed this provision after accepting just 350 people.  A further amendment proposed in January 2020, to the Brexit Bill, to ensure that unaccompanied and separated children in Europe could continue to come to the UK to join a close relative as a clause of the Withdrawal Agreement, was taken out by the then Conservative government.  

At the Leigh Day Immigration Summit on 29 April 2025, Alf Dubbs was in conversation with TV news producer, currently freelancing at Channel 4, Marcia Mascoll in what proved to be a delightful glimpse into his dedication to a cause interspersed with some concern, ascending to rage and with a hint of honour. It was clear that his own story had caused this indomitable champion to devote his life to the plight of refugees and he was acutely aware that with a platform, he was going to make change.  And he’s far from done.  At the age of 92 he warned that we should watch this space. 

During the lecture, Alf reminded the audience that a country should be judged by the way it treats its children.  This was no doubt a reference to the way his amendments for the admission of unaccompanied minors had been regarded.   

Marcia asked if he thought that political discourse across the divide was difficult to distinguish and therefore hindering the debate on asylum seekers, refugee and migrants.  He was in no doubt that there is a terrible debate about refugees and immigration over many years, including coming from senior ministers as seen during the last government.  Referring to people seeking safety as invaders is appalling he said with a hint of shock in his voice. But Alf was hopeful. British public opinion had not been swayed that badly and that there are still good local communities who offer support to people seeking protection, but there is a battle for public opinion going on. 

Asked about the effect of Brexit on immigration policies across Europe, Alf, who admitted to obtaining a Czech passport in 2021 to facilitate ease of travel, explained that sadly, right wing parties are exploiting the issue of immigration and asylum seekers for their own political aims and cited Hungary, Germany, Italy, France, Slovakia and Austria as key proponents, but warned that this was manifested by the UK’s Reform,  

Alf went further than many in the immigration and asylum space go.  He remarked that there was nothing unworthy of being an economic migrant.  Though they may have less human rights protection and rights as enshrined in the Refugee Convention for refugees, they are worthy he said. The media tries to muddy the issue and would have you believe that 600,000 people cross the channel seeking asylum in the UK, in a reference to how the numbers of asylum seekers are conflated within hoe the media interprets migration statistics. He warned that we need a balanced discourse, not the one of media such as the Mail and the Sun. 

Alf is hopeful for the future. He’s at it again.  He’s moving yet another Amendment, this time to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to provide for more child refugees to come to the UK. In explaining the importance of this work, he expressed a hope that this government would be better than the last but said that that they had not passed the test yet 

In response to a question about differential treatment afforded to Ukrainian refugees, Alf thought that though they have had an easier time, there were still terrible experiences.  He spoke of a 15-year-old girl whose father was on the frontline and who lived alone, despite a family in the UK having been vetted and ready to host her.  She had been denied a visa and Alf was astonished that the then Home Secretary Priti Patel had disregarded what he called the gold plated safeguarding system in the UK, and thought this 15-year-old would be safer in Ukraine. But he accepted that whilst the UK could not take everyone it was more difficult for say Afghans, Sudanese and Syrians. 

In looking to the future, Alf thought that there must be a better way than having people living and sleeping in muddy fields and being harassed by police in Calais.  Marcia had visited refugee camps in Calais and Lampedusa and was familiar with the horrors.  There was a moving exchange on their experiences before Alf exclaimed that if we understood the backgrounds to people fleeing for safety, we’d be more sympathetic - the story is much more poignant and heartbreaking he said, as he described meeting a young boy from Syria who had seen his father blown up in Aleppo. 

There was some humour. He described that during his attempt to move the 2016 amendment, Theresa May, then Home Secretary, had cornered him and asked him to withdraw it because too many would come to the UK. When he refused and said he could not turn his back on child refugees, she offered 3,000 more places on the Syrian scheme in exchange for him withdrawing the amendment.  He argued they could do both. The amendment passed and government tried to roll back on the Syrian scheme saying they could not find sufficient foster carers to house children when he and his team had found 1,600.  Alf is always ahead of the game. 

Alf is undeterred.  He wants to see free movement and hopes the current government will take us back into the EU.  He’s worried about Trump.  He regards our membership of the ECHR, the Refugee Convention, and other international agreements as important.  It imperative he says that we demonstrate in the way we behave that these agreements are important, and not get blown away by the other side. 

Alf can unwind.  Apart from his love for Man United he told Marcia, a staunch Man City fan, that he loves hill walking in the Lake district.  At 1,000 ft up he regards the problems of the world as not too bad, at 2,000 ft as quite small, and at 3,000 ft, he asks, “what problems?” 

But he wasn’t being reticent.  He is not the consummate politician.  He was sharp and bold and candid.  And he’s not stopping yet!  As he said, “watch this space.”