Heidi Alexander
Main Page: Heidi Alexander (Labour - Lewisham East)Department Debates - View all Heidi Alexander's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Harper
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Our usual asylum rules are in place, and as I have said we have already granted asylum, in the year to last September, to 1,100 Syrian refugees and will continue granting asylum where someone has a claim that meets the rules on providing international protection. My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about the various crises around the world where we apply our normal asylum rules. In this case, I think we have more than stepped up to the plate. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said this was an enormous humanitarian crisis: it is, and that is why we have delivered our biggest ever humanitarian response.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
A few months ago the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and suggested that Britain was leading the world in the humanitarian response to the Syrian crisis. Why does that leadership not extend to doing the most human thing of all: giving a home to vulnerable children who have suffered horrendous atrocities at the hands of President Assad?
Mr Harper
I do not think anybody can say that this Government are not playing our full role on the diplomatic front. The Foreign Secretary has been leading efforts in trying to get a diplomatic solution and I am very pleased that those Geneva II talks will take place and start this week. They are, of course, a process, not a single point in time. I think we are leading. We are the second largest donor in the world and the largest donor in the European Union. Until very recently when the Germans stepped up, we had donated more money than the rest of the EU combined.