Unaccompanied Child Refugees

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I ask the hon. Lady to consider why the children are going back to the camps rather than staying in the centres the French have taken them to in order to process them. Perhaps it is because they think that they will be able to move to the UK. Does that help them? It does not. What will help those children is if they have their claims processed in France, rather than going back to Calais and the mud. I am sure that she would not want that, just as I do not.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Like Lord Dubs, I have Jewish ancestry and I find it distasteful when some commentators compare the situation today with the 1930s and the Kindertransport. In those days, there was no opportunity to go to Germany or other Axis countries and assist those children who faced death in concentration camps. This situation is very different. Will my right hon. Friend condemn those commentators—thankfully, there have been none so far in this House—who compare the situation in the 1930s with today?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is not the same. Perhaps the one comparison one might make is the condition, sometimes, of the camps out in the region, some of which are in a terrible situation. We should put all our effort there to make sure that we take the children that we can from that most vulnerable area.