Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

16. What steps she is taking to support refugees in the UK and other European countries.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

18. What steps she is taking to support refugees in the UK and other European countries.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

The UK provides protection for refugees here, in accordance with our international obligations. The Government have established a £10 million refugee children fund for Europe, provided significant assistance via the European Asylum Support Office, and allocated up to £39 million to the humanitarian response in Greece.

[Mr Goodwill]

We work very closely with our colleagues in France, Greece and Italy. We committed 115 staff into Greece, 75 of whom are already there, including one embedded member of the Home Office staff who is helping with Dublin applications in Athens. Of course, we also have our Border Force commitment in the Mediterranean, which ensures that we save people’s lives should they make that perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Home Office guidelines recognise that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender refugees are at serious risk in Afghanistan, but also suggest that if the individual did not attract or seek to cause public outrage, they would avoid persecution, so could be returned. Will the Minister tell us why the Home Office has decided to depart from the UN guidelines on refugees?

[Mr Goodwill]

We aim to process all asylum claims sympathetically. Our staff are trained in interviewing asylum seekers who may have LGBT issues or, indeed, who may have converted to Christianity and find it difficult to express some of their feelings during those interviews.