Syrian Refugees

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I said earlier, this country is helping with the process of evidence collection by training Syrians to collect evidence. It is important that in bringing people to the UK, we do not lose the possibility that evidence can be collected and break that chain. I entirely accept the point that he has made.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and particularly her focus on vulnerable groups. I want to return to the question that was raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). LGBT groups have experienced particular victimisation, stigmatisation, violence and so forth. I urge her, in looking at vulnerable groups with the UN, to focus on LGBT communities. She said that it was “quite possible” that such people would qualify. That was not as reassuring as I had hoped.

[Mrs May]

I hoped in my answer to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby to make the point that the first category will be the survivors of torture and violence, and that we have a particular concern about those who have been subjected to sexual violence. I did not intend to suggest that this was only a “might possibly”. We will work with the UNHCR and it will make the initial identification of the most vulnerable cases and identify those for whom the support that is available in the UK would be most appropriate.