Migrant Crossings

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Also, the safe and legal route to refuge is to seek asylum in the first country in which you arrive in Europe. That is the safest route. We do not want to encourage people to resort to what is, as he says, the most dangerous routes. It is right that we protect our borders but it is also right that people seeking asylum do so in the first safe country in which they arrive.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I am a little concerned about some of the phrases used in the Statement. “People who choose to make the crossing” are words that appear more than once. I get the impression that the Government still believe that pull factors are the reason why people risk their lives to come to Britain. Am I right? If so, what evidence exists to substantiate this viewpoint? From where I sit, it seems to me that people would not choose to leave France in a rubber dinghy with their loved ones to cross the channel and pay smugglers for the privilege unless they felt that they had no choice.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think it is important to pause for a moment to think about who benefits from smugglers taking people across the channel from a safe country. Those who benefit are organised criminals. If people choose to cross, they have chosen to cross from one safe country to another. The noble Baroness shakes her head, but she makes the point that people choose to travel from France to the UK.