Syria: Refugees

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Lord Bates]

We hope to play an active role through the International Syria Support Group, which has the two strands of humanitarian aid and conflict resolution. That meets weekly in Geneva and we are still playing a part in it. We wish the negotiations all success and will of course support them in every way we can.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, would it not make more sense if we and the other western European nations offered to take as many as could come here of the Christian refugees from these troubled areas, leaving it to the Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, which are immensely wealthy and have immense amounts of space, to take their fellow Muslims?

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, we have said that we recognised that Christians and other minorities face a level of persecution in the region. In fact, my noble friend will be pleased to note that there was a commitment to protect Christians, particularly in the Middle East, in the 2015 Conservative manifesto. We are very mindful of that commitment; of course, anyone who is persecuted, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is eligible for international protection—the type of protection that this Government have been offering.