Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which is why I pointed out earlier that we will take people who are vulnerable and that could include Yazidis or Christians, who, because of their religious beliefs, have not only been persecuted in Syria but have sometimes found life difficult in the camps as well.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

This afternoon the Prime Minister has unhelpfully conflated membership and signing up to the Schengen agreement with taking a proactive part in a proper co-ordinated pan-European response. Why does he continue to unhelpfully muddy these waters, and will he now give a clear explanation as to why, beyond the opinions of his rabid Eurosceptic Back Benchers, he is not engaging properly with our partners in Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

We are engaging. Our decision to take 20,000 people and our immense funding of the refugee camps will take the pressure off other European countries. I am not conflating those two things. Those who are part of Schengen have taken away all their internal border controls across Europe and they maintain their external border, so obviously the Schengen countries have to come together to work out what they are going to do about this migration crisis. We can be part of that—we help to fund Frontex and to secure the external border, and we are helping to break up the criminal gangs —but we have not decided to take our borders down, as they have, so we are not in the same position. I am not conflating the two; this is a really important point.