Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Gethins Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The service that the BBC provides through its World Service and the independent journalism that that brings to millions of people around the world is very important, including by bringing that to people in places where free speech is often limited. It is important to support the BBC World Service, which is why we are investing £289 million over the next four years so that it can provide accurate and independent news to some of the most remote parts of the world.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman will know that we have already given guarantees about the research funding available from the EU and those contracts that will be signed. He will know, too, that within the immigration rules for people outside the EU, we are already able to ensure that the brightest and the best can come to the United Kingdom. I remind the hon. Gentleman, however, as I reminded his right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), that it was not that long ago since he was campaigning to come out of the European Union and come out of free movement.
Humanitarian Aid: Refugees in Greece and the Balkans
Stephen Gethins Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Justine Greening
I have been the first person to get on a plane. I have spent a lot of time in the region seeing for myself the issues affecting refugees, and I have no doubt that the European situation is no different. Such visits are important, and when I visited Lebanon we decided to introduce the No Lost Generation initiative to get children into school, because it was clear that there was so little facility. As the hon. Lady says, there are organisational challenges on the ground. Such initiatives are country-led—that is how they work—and in spite of efforts by countries such as the UK, and UN agencies, more work must be done to enable countries to cope with the flow of people arriving. Alongside such initiatives, the work that VOS Grace will be doing really matters, and we also need to disrupt criminality—the work of people smugglers is leading to the flows of people that countries such as Greece are finding it hard to cope with.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
As has been said, the weight of refugees often falls on those countries that are least able to cope. Has the Secretary of State considered increasing the number of refugees that the UK is willing to take in?
Justine Greening
We have set out our position on the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, which I think is responsible, but the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the issue of where refugees are. More than 85% of displaced people in the world—there are a record number at nearly 60 million—are in developing countries and the places least able to cope, rather than developed countries such as those closer to home in Europe. That is why the weight of our response has—quite rightly—been in the region, helping countries in Africa such as Ethiopia, which has 700,000 refugees. We do not see those refugees in the paper, but that country still needs assistance to cope with them.