Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This country has an unparalleled record—[Interruption.] Just since—[Interruption.] Since I have been Prime Minister, look at the numbers we have taken from Afghanistan and Hong Kong. The right hon. Gentleman lectures the Home Secretary, but this is a Government unlike any other: the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are directly descended from refugees. We understand how much refugees have to give to this country and we understand how much this country has to gain from welcoming refugees. We will be generous and we are being generous.

What we are doing is making sure that, in those neighbouring countries, the UK is out in front giving humanitarian assistance and we are in every capital. [Interruption.] SNP Members laugh, they mock, they scoff, but this country is leading in every respect. We are also the single biggest donor of humanitarian aid to the Ukraine warzone—the single biggest donor—and the right hon. Gentleman should be proud of that.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Q6. I commend the Prime Minister’s response to the Ukrainian crisis, but people across the country are genuinely concerned by our response on refugees—by the bureaucracy and the tone of our response. He has shown with vaccines that Government change comes from the very top. I urge him to look again at resetting our policy and taking control of a more humane approach to those women and men fleeing from Ukraine.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much, and I thank him for all the work that he does in this area, but I hope he will have heard what I just said in my answer to the leader of the SNP, which is that this Government are I think unlike any other in our understanding of what refugees can give and the benefits to this country. We have done more than any other to resettle vulnerable people since 2015. There is a huge opportunity now for us to do even more. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up will be setting out a route by which the British people—not just the family reunion route, which can run into the hundreds of thousands, but a route by which everybody in this country—can offer a home to people fleeing Ukraine. My right hon. Friend will be setting that out in the course of the next few days.