Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. It is a simple statement of fact: crime is lower in areas that have Conservative police and crime commissioners. I am delighted that Dorset has been selected as one of the areas to pilot our new immediate justice scheme, which will deliver swift and visible punishment, so that victims of antisocial behaviour know it will be treated seriously and with all urgency.

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

This Government’s vile and immoral refugee ban Bill and the toxic language coming from the Home Office are not even dog-whistle politics; they are a giant hard-right foghorn, blasting out a poisonous “them and us” narrative. The Government plumbed new depths last week when the Minister for Immigration claimed that people trying to come to the UK

“tend to have completely different…values to those in the UK”.

Can the Prime Minister explain what he thinks is so different about the values held by the people of war-torn Sudan, and what values are preventing him from creating a Sudanese family visa scheme, like he did for the people of Ukraine?

[The Prime Minister]

This country has a proud history of welcoming almost half a million refugees over the past several years, and we will always continue to do so, but our ability to do that is absolutely hampered when we have tens of thousands of people illegally crossing the channel every year. It is precisely because we want to help the most vulnerable people, whether they be in Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan or elsewhere, that we must get a grip of the problem, break the cycle of the criminal gangs, and target our resources and compassion on those who most need them.