EU-Turkey Agreement Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Lidington
The EU and the United Kingdom Government made it very clear last week that we continue to see freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the media as a cornerstone of the values that we champion at an international level. Adherence to those principles is written into the European treaties, and no country that fails to subscribe to them can expect to receive EU membership.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The principle of closing off the dangerous smuggler routes and instead providing safe legal routes to sanctuary is clearly sensible, but the Minister will know of the legal, practical and political problems with the plans put forward. He rightly makes it clear that there will be no changes to Turkish visa arrangements for Britain, but I suspect that in many others areas of the proposals there will be significant changes in the week ahead. In particular, have the British Government raised the plight of Afghan and Iraqi refugees? We know that about half the lone children who claimed asylum in Europe in January were from Afghanistan. What provision will be made for them?
Mr Lidington
The right hon. Lady makes a reasonable point, and the position of people who have come from other war-torn countries needs to be seriously considered, but we need always to bear in mind the basic principles of the 1951 UN convention on refugees: first, that to get refugee status one must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution; and secondly, that when somebody flees they are expected to apply for refugee status in the first safe country they reach, and not try to pick and choose, perhaps at the behest of people traffickers, between various safe countries.