Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateTasmina Ahmed-Sheikh
Main Page: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Scottish National Party - Ochil and South Perthshire)Department Debates - View all Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberNo, we will not reconsider that decision. We judge that the best contribution we can make is to take some of the most vulnerable. I am not saying that the fit young men do not have a reason for fleeing. I am saying that we must focus on the most vulnerable people, who do not have the option to flee. While I am on my feet, I would like to pay tribute to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, who have borne an extraordinary burden over many years, absorbing refugees and displaced people from Syria.
Why do the Secretary of State and the Government continue to conflate those important but separate issues? The refugee crisis—it is not a migrant crisis—is an exceptional circumstance. Those individuals and families are fleeing the region first and foremost for their own safety, but they want to go home. Does he not agree that a humanitarian plan for long-term peace in Syria would do far more to address the crisis than these short-term measures, which appear to have been designed to curry favour with the right-wing press?
I do not know where the hon. Lady has got that from. Of course we agree that addressing the upstream problem by getting a political settlement in Syria and defeating ISIL so that it cannot carry out its barbarous activities is the right way to go. I also agree with her that, when we come to build the new Syria, post-Assad, we will need those engineers, doctors and teachers who are now being encouraged to resettle in Europe. We have a responsibility to ensure that the new Syria has access to those qualified and educated people.