Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of allowing Sri Lankans based on Diego Garcia to the UK on the number of people who will begin to attempt to reach the UK via Diego Garcia; and whether any of the 60 Tamil migrants recently arrived have made applications for family to join them.

Diego Garcia has never been a suitable long-term location for the migrants who have arrived there and this Government has worked hard to find a solution that protects both their welfare and the integrity of British territorial borders.

We have now closed down any risk of opening a new route, with any future arrivals to Diego Garcia to be relocated to St Helena until Mauritius takes responsibility for the island. Following this, we have temporarily relocated a small number of migrants, including children and their families, to the UK due to their acute welfare needs, and the lack of any suitable amenities on the island, including healthcare, to address those needs.

In line with normal practice, we will not comment further on those individual cases.