Global Migration Challenge

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I am incredibly proud of this country and this Government’s track record in providing a safe welcome to more than 185,000 asylum seekers and refugees since 2015, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will be ramping up the welcome for Ukrainian refugees—I know she will be working flat out at it. What I find abhorrent and inexplicable is the way in which many Opposition Members, and even those in the top echelons in the Church of England and in other faiths, seem to have completely forgotten the images of children lying drowned on our beaches. How can they not seek to try to remedy that appalling situation? These people are not refugees and asylum seekers—they are coming from France.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments and observations. She will be well aware of the work that our noble Friend Lord Harrington is currently doing in the other place on the Ukrainian scheme in terms of resettling people and bringing people over for the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

The left in particular like to preach compassion, but there is little compassion when they do not have the backbone to make difficult decisions when it comes to the protection of human life. For months and months, they have talked about saving lives and lost lives, and now that there is the prospect of action to save lives and to go after the evil people smugglers, they wring their hands and choose to play party political games.