Clause 43 - International projects
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
12:30 pm
Mr Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat)
I have a couple of points to raise about how individuals resettled from the UK may be affected in future if their resettlement breaks down. We welcome the focus on international projects. In the current circumstances in Sri Lanka, for example, individuals coming to the UK as asylum seekers may be granted refugee status, but as Sri Lanka moves to a more peaceful and stable situation, international efforts to rebuild the Sri Lankan community within Sri Lanka may be appropriate, which may affect individuals here. There is no certainty about the future, so with any resettlement programmes or international projects to assist migrants to return to another country it is important to clarify what would happen if those projects were to break down and the migrants needed to return to the UK because of unforeseen circumstances.
At what level do the Government anticipate these plans working? Is it at all levels, be it the European Union, the United Nations, or the UNHCR? How do we expect the criteria for the UK engagement in projects to be set?
In a domestic Bill dealing with asylum and immigration issues it is helpful to have a reference to international projects as a reminder of the fact that refugee crises primarily affect countries far from the United Kingdom. Whatever questions anyone raises in the UK about tens of thousands of asylum seekers, the problems are multiplied to the nth degree in poor countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, which accept many hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants.
I hope that the that the Government will follow that commitment, in the interests not just of the United Kingdom but of many other countries with a far more serious refugee crisis than us.