Asked by: Lord Mawhinney (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of how diplomatic and political relations with France would be affected if they continue with their policy of admitting to the United Kingdom for resettlement only those refugees from Syria who are presently in camps near that country.
Answered by Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Relations with France on migration issues continue to be strong. At the end of July, we hosted a joint inter-ministerial conference in London to discuss how we can tackle migration pressures upstream (including from Syria) together. The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), have been in close touch with their French counterparts in recent weeks. We share a moral responsibility to help refugees and Britain is playing its part. UK ships remain in the Mediterranean and have rescued 6,700 people. The UK is contributing more than £1billion to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Syria and we will resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years.