Tunisia, and European Council

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I have not forgotten the voice of Kettering, whose patience is now rewarded.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

With regard to the desperate and growing wave of human misery that is taking to the Mediterranean in leaky boats from the north African shore, what advice have Her Majesty’s Government and the European Union taken from the Australian Government about the successful way to tackle large-scale, organised, seaborne human trafficking?

[The Prime Minister]

We have looked at what the Australians have done, and we have also looked at what the Spanish did in respect of migration from west Africa to the Canary islands. In one year they received 36,000 migrants, but just a few years later that was down to zero. They broke the business model of the smugglers and found a way of returning people to the African states and working with those states. That, I think, is the model that we need to adopt. It is obviously more complicated in this case, but that is the long-term answer.