Refugee Crisis in Europe

Debate between Lord Davies of Gower and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Many Members wish to speak and, in fairness, the hon. Gentleman has had a good chance to speak. I want to get everybody in, if possible.

[Byron Davies]

We must try to provide refugees with a more direct and safe route to the UK, avoiding the clutches of people traffickers. This point brings into sharp focus the current crisis in Europe. Tragically, the hazardous journey has cost many lives. When the shadow Home Secretary winds up the debate, perhaps she will say whether she agrees that resettling refugees directly from the camps in the middle east, which is the approach of the UK but not of all other EU nations, is the best way to discourage vulnerable people from making the dangerous journey to Europe.

I should add that the current situation has shown the complete failure of the EU’s borderless Schengen area agreement. I witnessed that first hand when working in eastern Europe. I have long said that that was a major problem waiting to collapse in Europe. It has exacerbated an extremely complex and difficult situation. The writing was on the wall long ago.

Simply taking refugees will not alone solve the crisis. We should make no mistake: we need a comprehensive solution that deals with those responsible for the terrible scenes we see—President Assad, ISIL and criminal gangs. We need to be tough on all those who are guilty of perpetrating the terrible crimes that we see daily. I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to invest more to tackle the causes of the crises in the middle east and north Africa. As one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and one of the most important nations in the world on matters of foreign affairs, we must seek to bring all our influence to bear to provide a solution at the source of the problem.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary shares my pride that Britain is the only country in the world that can say that we stand up to the world’s poorest by meeting our commitment on development spending while defending our own citizens and working for peace by meeting our NATO defence spending obligation of 2%. The Government must use every tool at their disposal to achieve that.