Damian Green
Main Page: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)Department Debates - View all Damian Green's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
Obviously the hon. Lady and I are not going to agree about this. I think we have taken the right approach—taking people from the refugee camps and not taking people under the EU relocation programme. We have been clear about that right from the start, which I think is why other European countries have not taken exception to what Britain is doing. We have said that we aim to resettle 1,000 people by Christmas and we will report back on how we have done after Christmas. I think that that is the right way to do it. I make the point that we have already resettled some 5,000 Syrians through other processes.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
The Prime Minister started his statement by talking about migration. Does he agree that having Britain’s border controls in France not only is a good example of European co-operation, but serves to make our border controls much more effective? Does he therefore agree that anything putting those arrangements at risk would be a very foolish step for this country to take?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. Obviously, the situation we face at Calais is difficult and there are still several thousand people who would like to, as I put it, break into Britain, but we see that that is a very small share of the overall scale of migration when we look at the bigger picture. We are very fortunate to have this excellent agreement with the French. It works well for both countries and clearly we should not do anything to put that at risk.