Robert Flello
Main Page: Robert Flello (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent South)Department Debates - View all Robert Flello's debates with the Home Office
(8 years ago)
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Mr Goodwill
Yes, indeed. Much of that dreadful trade is fuelled by the fact that the people traffickers seem to have no regard for people’s safety. During the summer, I was in Nigeria talking to the authorities there, and they are very concerned about the way that people are putting their children’s lives at risk by putting them into the hands of people traffickers. If and when the children arrive in Europe, the nightmare continues, particularly when they are pressed into modern slavery, or even worse in the case of some of the girls.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
In the run-up to the closure of the so-called Jungle camp at Calais, there were reports of a thousand or more people disappearing from the camp and melting into the countryside. What work is the Minister doing with his counterparts in France to ensure that when the French authorities identify people who melted away from the Calais jungle and who have vulnerable children, they too can be included in this programme?
Mr Goodwill
I certainly received reports of some people leaving the camps as the clearance started. I also received reports of people coming back into the camps as they saw how that clearance was taking place. Indeed, some children who had been elsewhere in France arrived at the camps, hoping that they would be part of the scheme and could be relocated and considered under the Dubs and Dublin regulations. Unfortunately, those late arrivals were not considered in the same way. The advice that we always give to people is to claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach, and if not so, then to claim asylum in France, where they can be adequately processed.