Migration and Economic Development

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have met Australian officials who were involved in the design of their sovereign borders programme, and they say that once they were able to remove illegal entrants to Papua New Guinea or Nauru, they saw a dramatic change in the numbers of people attempting the journey in the first place. That is the model on which our Rwanda scheme is based.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

If every country took this Government’s approach, this Rwanda approach, the countries that already host the overwhelming majority of refugees—the Jordans, the Lebanons, the Pakistans and the Ugandas of this world; the first countries—would be required to host all of them, while wealthy western countries such as the United Kingdom could pick and choose if and when they wanted to help out. What this Government are arguing for is an end to the international system of refugee protection, is it not?

[Suella Braverman]

I really disagree with the moral high ground that the hon. Member seems to be taking, in the light of Scotland’s paltry record on taking asylum seekers. It has refused to take anybody who has come here on a small boat, and that is unacceptable.