Refugees: France

(asked on 27th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 19 June 2019 to Question 266773 on France: Refugees, whether his Department has made representations to the French Government on protecting the human rights of refugees based in (a) Calais and (b) Dunkirk.


Answered by
Caroline Nokes Portrait
Caroline Nokes
This question was answered on 2nd July 2019

The UK and France continue to maintain a strong bilateral cooperation on illegal migration. Central to this relationship is the Sandhurst Treaty, signed in January 2018. Articles 2-4 of the Treaty outline our commitment to (i) continued implementation of the Dublin process (ii) facilitating the transfer of unaccompanied minors under national relocation schemes, and (iii) improving access to French domestic asylum procedures.


A portion of the Sandhurst funding package has been used to implement these Treaty obligations. £3.6 million was specifically allocated to funding the development of the Dublin and Dubs process to support transfers of eligible children to the UK, including training for those working with unaccompanied children, family tracing and targeted information campaigns. We continue to work with France to transfer eligible children under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 and the Dublin regulation and transfers are ongoing. These projects are overseen by the UK-France Migration Committee, which is comprised of policy experts and senior officials from the UK and France.

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