(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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The hon. Lady is right that this is not just about giving people the bare essentials to be able to survive day to day. We are providing support for the kind of registration facilities that she has talked about. It is right to mention the broader issue of so-called host communities and their generosity. I have met communities in Lebanon and Jordan that have seen their local populations literally double in a matter of 12 or 24 months. That puts huge strain on the existing populations. That is why, as well as working directly with refugees, we are working with the communities that they suddenly arrive in. You may not be aware, Mr Speaker, that the refugees outside Syria are overwhelmingly living not in camps like Zaatari in Jordan, but in host communities. That accounts for 80% of them or more. That is why so much of the work that we have done has been to help local government and municipalities cope with those pressures.
I was on Lesbos three weeks ago volunteering at Moria camp and on the shore at Sikaminia, where the boats from Turkey come in. The conditions are appalling and the scale of the human suffering and tragedy is soul destroying. Every time we saw a boat, all we could do was hope and pray for a safe landing. There was a shocking lack of presence on the ground of official authorities and the larger international charities that one would expect to see when faced with such a crisis. Instead, the work was left to smaller organisations and volunteer groups, which are utterly overwhelmed. Will the Secretary of State consider visiting Lesbos and working with the Greek authorities directly to provide British co-ordination assistance and infrastructure, particularly at Moria camp and Sikaminia, because if the rest of Europe will not step up to the plate, she should bypass it and go to Greece directly?
I have been the first person to get on a plane. I have spent a lot of time in the region seeing for myself the issues affecting refugees, and I have no doubt that the European situation is no different. Such visits are important, and when I visited Lebanon we decided to introduce the No Lost Generation initiative to get children into school, because it was clear that there was so little facility. As the hon. Lady says, there are organisational challenges on the ground. Such initiatives are country-led—that is how they work—and in spite of efforts by countries such as the UK, and UN agencies, more work must be done to enable countries to cope with the flow of people arriving. Alongside such initiatives, the work that VOS Grace will be doing really matters, and we also need to disrupt criminality—the work of people smugglers is leading to the flows of people that countries such as Greece are finding it hard to cope with.
(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI shall announce it very shortly, and we are absolutely committed to striking the right balance between looking at the important issues that my hon. Friend has just raised and doing what we can to maintain and, indeed, improve motorway safety.
Will the Secretary of State reject the previous Transport Secretary’s comments that high-speed rail would be affordable only for business passengers, and will she reassure passengers that the new high-speed line will be both affordable and accessible?
I want to be absolutely clear: my predecessor was very clear that the new high-speed rail line needed to be a railway that was beneficial to all people, including of course business people who want to use it. The business case works on an assumption of standard rail fares, as we have on the current network, and I am absolutely clear in my mind that the way in which we are going to make high-speed rail successful is by having as many people use it as possible—and that means having value-for-money fares.