European Council

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me try to help the hon. Gentleman. Of course, there is an issue—a relatively small issue—of people coming to different European countries and claiming benefits to which they are not entitled. That should be, and is being, stopped: it is now not possible to come here and immediately claim unemployment benefit. The bigger problem, which my renegotiation is examining, is that someone who comes from another European country to Britain is able, in the first year, to access in-work benefits of perhaps as much as €10,000 or €12,000. This is about being able to control our own welfare system to reduce the pressures of migration. European leaders and the British people understand that, even if it has not got through to the SNP yet.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I welcome what the Prime Minister has said about the migrant crisis. He will know, of course, that some of the transit countries are bearing the brunt of it. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has today said that more than 10,000 migrants are currently stranded in Serbia because of limits imposed further west in Europe, and he has complained about aid shortages. Could the Prime Minister say more about what he and other EU leaders are doing to help Syria deal with this crisis?

[The Prime Minister]

We certainly stand ready to help any country. One point that needs to be made is that all of the countries that migrants are crossing are, of course, safe countries for the purpose of claiming asylum. I think that one of the longer-term answers to the crisis is to make sure that we have a system whereby people claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.