Paul Maynard
Main Page: Paul Maynard (Conservative - Blackpool North and Cleveleys)Department Debates - View all Paul Maynard's debates with the Home Office
(3 years ago)
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Priti Patel
I know that this is a statement of the obvious, but many EU countries, including France, are safe countries, which is why not only the British Government, but other Governments around the world, including across the EU, pursue the principle of first safe country. I am sure that, if the hon. Gentleman engaged with other colleagues across EU member states, they would all recognise the extent of illegal migration and the impact that that is having on their own countries as well. With regard to safe and legal routes, we are very clear—we have stated this in Committee and I have stated it many times—that we are working with UNHCR and the IOM because it is through that partnership, at a multilateral level, that we will form these safe and legal routes. They will be crucial partners to identify the very people—as we saw with the Syrian resettlement scheme—who are fleeing persecution and need refuge.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
The Home Secretary should be aware of the very great anger of my constituents at the scenes that they see in the channel today and at the fact that these migrants are being inappropriately accommodated in a central Blackpool hotel. We hear much about France, but we know that these migrants are being held in both Belgium and Germany in a holding pattern only to be taken to France in the final 24 hours when the weather is conducive to a crossing. What steps is she taking to negotiate with both the Belgian and the German Governments to have a more combative approach to disrupting this pattern of delivering them to France?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend has raised some important points. He asked about the discussions taking place with France, Belgium and Germany. There are plenty of discussions. In the past two weeks, I have had discussions with all three of those countries in terms of the work that needs to happen. I should also emphasise for the benefit of the House that it is the EU Commission that leads on illegal migration and that member states themselves are not supposed to engage on a bilateral level, and they are all breaking out of that cycle right now because of their own frustration with the Commission’s inability to grip this issue.
My hon. Friend asked about the issue of accommodation, about which his constituents are absolutely right to be angry. As I said in Home Office questions, we want to end the use of hotels. As part of the new plan for immigration, the Home Office and others across Government are looking to deliver reception centres.
Finally, my hon. Friend mentioned holding groups in Germany, Belgium and France. France, in particular, is clearing the camps. It is literally seeing the type of patterns that it has seen over the last decade, with migrant camps now reforming. Those camps are being cleared on a regular basis, and one of the largest camps was cleared last week.