The ban on asylum seekers working is just one of the government measures she says has forced many into severe poverty. The Lib Dem MP for Brent Central also described as “awful” Britain’s block on refugees from Syria being given sanctuary here. “Just 50 refugees from Syria have been resettled in Britain from Syria, and there are only 4,000 Syrian asylum seekers”, she said; “meanwhile, 2.8 million people have been accepted into countries neighbouring Syria, such as Jordan”, which she visited last November. “Fear of public opinion has prevented the British government from doing anything more” she added, pointing out that dangerous trafficking, particularly in the Mediterranean region, “is a consequence of our failure to provide a safe route for resettlement”.

Speaking of her first surgery as a new MP 11 years ago, and picking up on the theme of the conference, ‘Called to Life in All Its Fullness: accepting the responsibility of our baptism’, Sarah reflected that, “I was baptised with water but my constituents baptised me with fire”. That first surgery, she described the transformational experience of hearing stories of people who were struggling for justice. The plight of three women refugees from Bosnia, who had been raped during conflict there and were hiding in the UK, struck her particularly forcibly. “It was a conversion experience for me” she said “and I had no idea so many people lived in a kind of limbo”. She admires the “quiet dignity” of refugees and asylum seekers she has met since that time. She was very pleased that campaigning to end the detention of children in Immigration Removal Centres was eventually successful last year, and she told the conference it was “nourishing for me to meet people campaigning on these unpopular causes”. She advised J&P campaigners to take the view that politicians too can hear God’s voice, and with positive support “they are more likely to take the courage to lead”

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