Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the deaths in the English Channel on 27 October, what plans they have to urgently arrange a safe legal route for refugees to enter the United Kingdom.

This week’s tragic event highlights the danger to life from channel crossings and the need to stop callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people.

Safe and legal routes are a core part of our proposed reforms to the asylum system to ensure it is both firm and fair. As Baroness Williams has previously made clear in Lords, as an integral part of that work the Government will conduct a review of safe and legal routes to the UK for asylum seekers, refugees and their families. This government intends to bring forward legislation next year that will deliver some of our much-needed reforms.

The UK already provides safe and legal routes for people to join family members in the UK through existing Immigration Rules and have a proud record of providing safety to those who need it through our world-leading resettlement schemes.