At this time of year, many of us will be enjoying spending precious time with our families. For that reason, it can be a particularly hard time for those who are missing their loved ones.

My mind turns to refugees who have been separated from their families by war and conflict, and I think in particular about the pain of refugee children who arrive in the UK traumatised and alone. Children need their parents.

It is the clear consensus of child development experts, but it is also something that we know intrinsically: there is no substitute for a parent’s love and care. Yet, we have an asylum system which restricts refugee children from reuniting with their parents.

On Friday 9th December, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby led a debate on the principles that should underpin asylum and refugee policy in this country.

Echoing the Archbishop’s call to expand pathways to reunite refugee families, I expressed my view that we must seek to maintain and restore family unity wherever possible. But under our current system, refugee children who arrive in the UK alone are prevented from bringing their parents to join them in safety.

A story that stays with me is one that was covered in the Sunday Times on 7th August 2022. Caught in the chaos at Kabul airport as people rushed to escape the Taliban was an 8-year-old girl clutching her mother’s hand.

Amidst the tear gas and the shooting, the little girl’s hand slipped from her mother’s grasp. That little girl made it onto the plane with her two teenage siblings and was evacuated to the UK, but her parents were left behind. More than a year since arriving in the UK, those children remain separated from their parents, while the state remains responsible for their care.

Research from the Refugee Council and others has consistently shown that family separation harms refugee children’s mental and physical health and decreases their chances of building a successful future in the UK.

But rather than opening up safe routes to bring families together, family reunion pathways have been further restricted since the introduction of the Nationality and Borders Act.

The Government argue that allowing people to sponsor their family members may act as a ‘pull factor’, encouraging refugees to take unsafe journeys to reach the UK. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. A recent report on pull factors published by the Home Office confirmed that "restrictive migration policies may increase the number of applicants that fall into irregularity, displacing them into more dangerous and exploitative routes".

In the absence of safe routes, desperate people are at the mercy of smugglers taking criminal advantage and are left with the impossible choice to travel irregularly to reunite with their families.

When Australia restricted family reunion, they saw a corresponding rise in small boat crossings. If we want to prevent people risking their lives, we must provide a safe way for them to reunite with their loved ones.

This is not so hard for us to understand. It is about love. Is there any parent among us who would not take extreme risks to be reunited with their child? The problem with the government’s policy is that it does not account for human nature: families belong together.

The way forward is clear and I, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, would encourage the Government to explore expanding family reunion pathways. I recognise that family does need clear framing in law but we cannot remove parents from our definition.

This is also a pathway that is easier to facilitate and manage, given familial links can be confirmed. The parents would also then go on to care for their children in the UK, removing the responsibility from authorities.

This step would be a very small and simple change to our immigration rules. But for the children who would be able live in safety with their mums and dads, it would be transformational.