Illegal Seaborne Migration

Lord Swinfen Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I recognise exactly the point made by the noble Lord about the welcome that refugees and asylum seekers have had and how welcoming organisations such as the Church have been. Starting with the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church has been very generous in terms of community sponsorship schemes for new arrivals, for which we commend it. Throughout our debates, we have been clear—and I think that Parliament has recognised it—that in respect of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, for example, we will ask local authorities to take only the number that they have the capacity to hold. In places such as those talked about the noble Lord—for instance, Folkestone—the national redistribution scheme has been in place for some time, because it cannot be incumbent on one single local authority to take all the new arrivals. Local authorities have been very generous to this end.

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, what proportion of these people are Christians and what is being done to help them?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said earlier, the vast majority of the individuals who have attempted to cross the Channel have declared themselves as Iranian. Some who have gone on to claim asylum have declared their conversion to Christianity. Therefore, I assume that they would have been Muslims converting to Christianity, but I cannot say for definite. However, a number of asylum claims have been based on conversion to Christianity.