Migrant Crossings

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I understand my noble friend’s point, but of course it was not so much the quantum of the number of people who arrived but the sudden upsurge of arrivals, and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made the correct decision to deal with that swiftly both to protect our border and lives at sea.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will know already that millions of pounds have been spent on massive fences around Calais and probably Dunkirk, and on equipment to scan vehicles that are about to cross the channel. The effect of these measures has been to force people who want to come to this country to resort to the most dangerous crossings you can almost possibly imagine: namely, going in dinghies at right angles across the main shipping lanes, where they are likely not to be seen and to be run down. This brings us to the question, already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, of safe and legal routes for getting here. Is the Minister aware that the European Parliament recently passed a resolution calling for humanitarian visas along the lines of the former Nansen passport after the First World War? If they could be implemented, these would surely lead to fewer deaths, both in crossing the Mediterranean and the Sahara. I therefore urge the Government to give some serious thought to this matter.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I refer the noble Lord to the humanitarian assistance that we are giving the people in the MENA region and our commitment to resettling 20,000 refugees before 2020. He may laugh, but if ever there was a humanitarian visa, it is there.

[Lord Hylton]

I am not laughing.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Also, the safe and legal route to refuge is to seek asylum in the first country in which you arrive in Europe. That is the safest route. We do not want to encourage people to resort to what is, as he says, the most dangerous routes. It is right that we protect our borders but it is also right that people seeking asylum do so in the first safe country in which they arrive.