UN: Individuals Displaced by Conflict

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, there can be no doubt that there is an urgent humanitarian need to stop the small boat crossings. The UK Government have introduced legislation to prevent further loss of life by disrupting the business model of people-smuggling networks. Clearly, a system that enriches those smugglers and people traffickers is one that needs improvement. That is what we are trying to do. New approaches to these kinds of issues will raise new questions for the interpretation of international law. The UK will work openly and constructively to ensure that its new approach is fully compliant with international human rights, refugee and human trafficking protections. The legislation is about ending dangerous and unnecessary routes to the UK; it is not about denying protections to those in immediate, genuine need. We will continue to work with the UNHCR, not least through the financial contribution that I mentioned earlier, to ensure that those most in need can find sanctuary in the UK.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

Do the Government believe that sufficient has been done to support those who were displaced in Afghanistan when we left so ignominiously in August 2021?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the manner in which the situation in Afghanistan was allowed to change caused appalling humanitarian problems on a scope and scale that has rightly taken the attention of this House on many occasions. I make the broader point that, as we restrict illegal migration through the legislative pathway that I was just describing, we will do more to help people at risk of war and persecution by setting up safe and legal routes, as we have done in the cases of Syria, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine. Since 2015, the UK has offered places and safety to nearly 480,000 people. The Government will commit to resettle a specific number of the most vulnerable refugees from around the world every year, working with local councils to understand their capacity for accommodation and support first and providing for the annual number to be agreed by both Houses.