Turkey-Greece Border: Refugees Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Alicia Kearns
Main Page: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)Department Debates - View all Alicia Kearns's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Nigel Adams
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. He will be aware that this matter has to be discussed with Home Office representatives, but I repeat the fact that our resettlement programmes have resettled more refugees than any other EU member state. Under our new scheme, at the risk of repeating myself, we aim to resettle in the region of 5,000 of the most vulnerable refugees in the first year.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I spent a few months volunteering on the island of Lesbos at the height of the crisis in 2016. We worked to pull refugees out of the ocean, and we worked with unaccompanied minors who were deeply traumatised. Will my hon. Friend please confirm that we will always be on the side of humanitarian workers who simply want to save lives? Will he raise with his Greek and EU counterparts the abuses by Greek forces and Frontex, the EU force, against refugees, which I personally saw at first hand?
Nigel Adams
Indeed. I commend my hon. Friend for her work on Lesbos, which is one of the islands that is very much under pressure. As she will know, we are one of the largest donors to the crisis in the region. We will continue to provide assistance in the affected area, as well as in Syria, and it is not just the Foreign Office. The Department for International Development, in particular, has been a significant donor and is committed to pushing projects inside Syria, as well as in the affected area.