Turkey-Greece Border: Refugees Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Andrew Mitchell
Main Page: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)Department Debates - View all Andrew Mitchell's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
The right hon. Lady is right to raise those points. We are absolutely focused on supporting the response of the Governments in that region. We continue to provide support to Greece in the migrant camps, with half a million pounds of funding for humanitarian supplies for those hotspot islands that have been affected, as well as crucial search and rescue operations in the Aegean sea. Key to this is the EU-Turkey deal of 2016, which has reduced the pull factors and led to a significant reduction in the number of people attempting that dangerous crossing. We are very keen, and will support all efforts, to ensure that those talks land in a satisfactory conclusion.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The whole House will be grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) for raising this matter and to the Minister for his measured statement and for pointing out that Britain has been by far the largest contributor of humanitarian relief. Will he bear in mind two specific points? The first is that Turkey has been fantastically generous in its support for refugees and migrants. Indeed, there are many who have faced the dreadful misery of all this who owe their lives to the Turkish support. Secondly, Europe—and that must inevitably mean the European Union above all—has failed to come up with the right solutions and, in particular, to forge a comprehensive approach to tackling the migratory crisis and misery.
Nigel Adams
There is not a lot to disagree with in what my right hon. Friend says. The European Union has very much pledged all the support that is needed, and that includes the rapid border intervention team. We are committed to providing at the root source of the problem, and let us not forget what the root cause of the problem is: the Syrian regime and the Russian forces, in particular their actions in Idlib. Last week, we announced a new package—a further £89 million in humanitarian aid—to help save lives and protect those Syrians who are at an increasing risk of violence in Idlib.