Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to help reduce the number of people who are forced to migrate.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Alok Sharma)]

The Department is investing in migrant source countries to give people better opportunities to build decent lives at home. Over the past four years, support for UK aid across all programmes has enabled 14 million children to gain a decent education, and nearly 52 million people now have access to clean water and better sanitation.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Refugee settlement is one way to allow people to secure a safe and legal route to a safe country if they are classified as refugees by the United Nations. DFID funds and supports that, but there is no commitment to long-term resettlement programmes. Will the Secretary of State consider committing himself to a minimum of 10,000 refugees per year via resettlement and for a minimum of five years?

[Alok Sharma]

As the hon. Lady will know, in every year since 2016, the UK has resettled more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU member state, and I pay tribute to the local authorities that have already settled 16,000 refugees from Syria. The hon. Lady will also know that we intend to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees, as well as up to 3,000 vulnerable children and their carers, by 2020. Under our new compact, there are global resettlement scheme plans to resettle 5,000 of the most vulnerable every year post 2020.