Sheffield taking the lead in welcoming refugees
Leading academic says history a key factor
The amount of refugees we ought to take in across the UK has been a subject widely debated, but Sheffield city council seems to have taken the lead on the issue of relocating these displaced people.
The council announced earlier this month they would be doubling the number of refugees they welcome to Sheffield from 75 to 150 each year.
Professor Angie Hobbs, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Sheffield, has spoken regularly on TV and Radio and in 2016 took part at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She has also spoken forcefully on the moral imperative for helping refugees.
Professor Hobbs said she was not surprised by the recent developments, with Sheffield having always been a welcoming place for refugees: “In 2004 Sheffield City Council was the first local authority to take in resettled refugees as part of the Gateway Protection Program (GPP).”
GPP is the UK’s contribution to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugees are selected on whether they have a pressing humanitarian need, or whether there is concern for their safety if they returned to their country of origin.
Sheffield continued with its welcoming of refugees, as Professor Hobbs said: “In 2016 the council again signed up to the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme (SVPS), so even in the last 20 years we have been continuing our long history of being a city of sanctuary.”
"People need ethical agency. They need the dignity of being able to run their own lives, have their own homes; work for a living."
The SVPS was set up in the wake of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, after David Cameron announced in 2015 20,000 Syrian refugees would be resettled in Britain over the next five years. As with GPP, Sheffield was again one of the first cities to volunteer for the scheme.
Within four months of Cameron’s announcement the council had agreed to re-settle Syrian refugees. By the 31 March 2016, 50 Syrian refugees had been resettled in Sheffield. Professor Hobbs says this policy of accepting refugees may be ingrained with Sheffield’s industrial history.
“As a City with a long history on manufacturing and commerce and as the home of one of the world’s leading universities we also know the economic and cultural benefits of immigration.”
As Professor Hobbs alludes to, Sheffield is a city which has been influenced by decades of immigration. The 2011 consensus saw the number of Asian or British Asian people rise to over 44,000, 8% of the city’s population.
Research suggests as early as the First World War south Asian immigrants lived and worked in Sheffield, working either as lascar seamen or in steel mills. These were economic migrants, who, like those who immigrate now, wanted to create a better life for themselves in Sheffield.
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Professor Hobbs is keen to stress however immigration and the assimilation of refugees must be done with due care and attention: “People are quite right to say that immigration needs to be managed carefully. We need to think about the cohesion of communities and we need to think about what local infrastructures can support”.
“We need to take care of our local homeless, of the disabled, of the elderly. So the project of welcoming refugees must go hand in hand with looking after existing local needs”.
Sheffield council seem to be acutely aware of this, and in the meeting where the plans to welcome more refugees were made, they discussed Sheffield’s previous success in integrating those from other cultures.
They noted many refugees welcomed to Sheffield have made the most of their new lives, with many joining or creating community groups. Children who have fled to the steel city have also gone to university, with others going on to receive paid work or volunteer and help other gateway refugees.
Many local residents may also be happy to know the cost of rehousing these refugees will be funded for entirely by the Home Office.
As for the future, it seems Professor Hobbs sees Sheffield as an example of how an effective and sensible refugee policy can work.
“I certainly think Sheffield can serve as an inspiration to other local authorities around the country in terms of increased refugee numbers in the future.”
“Let’s take it sensibly and gradually. It’s not just the numbers of refugees that need to be considered but the speed at which it’s done so existing communities don’t feel threatened or alienated.”
From the council meeting which took place in March this emphasis on making sure refugees are settled in to their new surroundings appears to be a high priority. Under GPP a refugee is supported for a whole year from their arrival into the UK.
This includes finding and setting up housing for refugees to live in, with the council also saying they would be willing to bring in family members of refugees provided adequate funding and support is offered.
Sheffield’s pragmatic approach, acknowledging the moral obligation the UK has to those less fortunate whilst also being aware of the effect on Sheffield’s communities, seems to be an approach which could work across the county.
