Humanitarian Aid: Refugees in Greece and the Balkans

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The support we provide is very much driven by the needs set out to us by the agencies and non-governmental organisations with which we work. I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that we have provided tents—for example, in Croatia—and we are playing our role in helping to make sure that when people arrive at reception centres, they are dealt with and processed properly.

As the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) set out, there is a real issue of scale, and Britain cannot solve that on its own. It is worth emphasising to the House that each of the countries where refugees are arriving is leading the response in that country, so it is up to UN agencies and NGOs to work as part of a national response by each country. As I have set out, Britain is also supporting those countries in order to have an adequate response. As the House has heard, there are real challenges, given the scale of the numbers and the flow of refugees who are arriving on European shores.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the UK taking its fair proportion. The reality is that we can be proud of the work the UK is doing to support refugees affected by the Syrian crisis—whether it is the work we are doing in the Mediterranean to save lives, the thousands of people who have been given asylum already, the approach we now have of relocating people from the camps safely and securely, or the kind of support closer to home that I have set out today. No country in Europe is doing more than the UK, and the House should be proud of that.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

May I thank the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for asking this urgent question? I entirely agree with the points she made. May I also thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for all the work that she and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees are doing? May I, however, urge the Government to engage directly with the Governments of countries which now have refugees? As winter comes, we cannot allow bureaucracy or any other impediment to get in the way of making direct contact to offer our support to the Governments of Greece and the other Balkan countries to ensure that no lives are lost needlessly.

[Justine Greening]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are doing just that. The problem he sets out is one we commonly face when we are trying to help any refugees, wherever they are. We only have to look at some of the challenges in Lebanon, where many of the refugees are in so-called informal tented settlements. That means that it has been far harder for us to put in place water and sanitation and to get education to the children in some of those camps than it otherwise would have been compared with the work in Jordan, which, broadly speaking, has been more Government-driven from the word go. We are now facing the issue closer to home on our own shores in Europe. I assure my hon. Friend that we are working with those Governments, while also urging our other European partners to step up to the plate, too.