Tony Baldry
Main Page: Tony Baldry (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Tony Baldry's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Harper
First, Ministers speak at this Dispatch Box for the Government and set out the Government’s policy. We do not have different policies in different Departments. The hon. Gentleman ought to go away and have a look at that, because we have a collectively agreed policy and I am setting out the Government’s response to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). The reason why I do not want to agree to the proposition the hon. Gentleman puts is that the Government do not think it is the right solution. We think that the solution we have set out, which is to provide the UK’s largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis, will be more effective in helping in the region, and I think that is the right thing to do.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to have some policy coherence here? It is not coherent policy to call for the United Kingdom to admit refugees from Syria if one is not also simultaneously going to be calling for the UK to admit refugees from Darfur, South Sudan, Central African Republic and other jurisdictions. One cannot pray in aid just one country and say that the UK should admit refugees from that country. That simply is not a coherent position.
Mr Harper
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Our usual asylum rules are in place, and as I have said we have already granted asylum, in the year to last September, to 1,100 Syrian refugees and will continue granting asylum where someone has a claim that meets the rules on providing international protection. My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about the various crises around the world where we apply our normal asylum rules. In this case, I think we have more than stepped up to the plate. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said this was an enormous humanitarian crisis: it is, and that is why we have delivered our biggest ever humanitarian response.