Refugee Crisis: European Anti-migrant Parties

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

The noble Lord, Lord West, as ever, draws attention to some of the saddest aspects of this immigration crisis. The whole point of the summit last week was to break the business model of the people traffickers—the smugglers—and to end the link between getting in a boat and getting settlement in Europe.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend and the Government look at the situation in Greece and the number of refugees who are using that route into the rest of the European Union? The Greek bailout is up for review in June and the refugees will have an enormous impact on the Greek economy. What assessment have the Government made of that situation and that route into the rest of Europe through Greece?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, we will hear more about the final agreement from last week’s EU-Turkey summit during the European Council at the end of this week. I will write to the noble Baroness with any more details that I can give her.