Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effect on the UK's refugee policies of (a) renewing and (b) ending inclusion in the Dublin III Regulation after 29 March 2019.

The Dublin III Regulation is an EU reciprocal agreement which requires agreement by both sides, and cannot be replicated unilaterally. We intend to continue to cooperate with the EU on asylum and illegal migration issues when we leave, and the exact nature of this cooperation will be a matter for negotiations.

While Dublin III deals with the management of asylum seekers in the EU, the UK has its own family reunion policy to reunite refugees and recipients of hu-manitarian protection with their immediate family wherever they are in the world, granting over 23,000 family reunion visas in the last five years.

The UK has a long and proud tradition of providing safe haven to those in need of international protection, and this will not be affected by our exit. The UK will remain bound by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, and continue to provide protection to those who need it, in accordance with our international obligations.