argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I say to the right hon. Lady that this Government are taking a number of steps to assist child refugees both in the region and, with some of the specialist support we are providing to process asylum claims, in countries such as Greece and Italy. Indeed, looking at the situation in Calais and northern France, the support the Government are providing to the French in identifying those who are victims of slavery and trafficking is a key part of the agreement reached last August between the Home Secretary and Bernard Cazeneuve, the French Minister of the Interior It is important to acknowledge the right hon. Lady’s point about the role of trafficking and of those seeking to sell false hope who are very directly putting lives at risk. The way in which traffickers seek to place refugees in appalling conditions—literally not caring whether they live in die—is quite horrific. In that context, it is notable that work by Europol indicates that about 90% of those coming to Europe have been trafficked in some form or other by those involved in organised immigration crime. That is why the work we are doing in setting up the organised immigration crime taskforce is so important in working with Europol to confront and combat the heinous acts of the traffickers. On the issue of reunion, the Dublin arrangements are in place. The right hon. Lady mentioned the court case last week, which was specific to the four individuals concerned. Although we will look at the judgment, which has not yet been received, to understand the court’s decisions and the reasons it has set out for the order it made last week, it is important to recognise that a claim of asylum still had to be made in France to ensure, as we understand it, that the reunification arrangements were operative under the Dublin arrangements. We will wait to see the judgment On the Save the Children report and its request for us to consider taking the 3,000 children, I have already said—the Prime Minister said the same in the House a short while ago—that we are actively considering the proposal. We will obviously return to the House when we have investigated and concluded our consideration of that matter.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is obviously right to recall Holocaust Memorial Day, which we will mark on 27 January. I was at the Home Office earlier this afternoon for our own recognition of that very important event, given the context of what happened then and the need to ensure that the lessons of the past are remembered today Our focus is clearly on trying to assist the children who are most in need and the refugees who are most in need. That is why we have taken the approach of providing aid assistance and of having the vulnerable persons relocation scheme. The resettlement scheme is aimed at the issues of vulnerability, part of which is about children and about orphans, and it is very much focused on those who have suffered most.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): This country can be proud of the record that we have maintained and the work that we are doing to provide aid and assistance to vulnerable people in the region. Some £1.1 billion has been committed I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we are working closely with the UNHCR on the resettlement programme and in our consideration of this issue of children. The UNHCR and UNICEF have made it very clear that the best way to help children is to work in the region itself, because that is often where the connections with family are The right hon. Gentleman highlighted the issue of Europe. We are acting in solidarity in Europe by providing expertise to the European Asylum Support Office; providing support to Frontex for the search and rescue operations; and supporting Europol and the activities in the Mediterranean to confront the people traffickers and smugglers to deal with this issue at the border. We are also working beyond the borders of Europe in the source and transit countries to provide the long-term stability and security that are fundamental to dealing with all of this. We have to be very careful that the stance that we take does not make an extraordinarily difficult situation even worse. We know that the people traffickers exploit anything that we say and twist it in a perverse manner to encourage more people to travel and put more lives at risk. That is why we are looking at this issue very closely to determine what is in the best interests of the child, to ensure that more lives are not put at risk and to see how we can support this activity. I have highlighted the direct support that we are giving to provide aid and assistance to children and refugees in flight across Europe and in the Balkans The combination of approaches that we have taken sets a clear record, but as I have indicated, we continue to look at this issue very closely.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
Timothy Paul Loughton (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think that it helps to confuse this issue with reform of the EU Notwithstanding the considerable aid that we have given to displaced Syrians in the area, which is the right thing to do, there is a humanitarian case for helping the children who are in limbo and very vulnerable to traffickers, the elements and so on. Given that doing so will be fraught with problems, and that there is a record high number of children in the care system in this country already and a shortage of foster carers, what assessment has the Minister made of our capacity to take these children and to give them the specialist support that clearly they will need in the absence of the networks that they have been used to?
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an important point, because the figures for asylum applications from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children show that last year there were 2,500. That is already putting strain on a number of local authorities, and Kent in particular has been bearing a lot of that burden. We are working closely with local government, and he may be aware that in the Immigration Bill, which is currently in the other place, we are also seeking to set out a mechanism to distribute that burden more fairly across local authority areas.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): No one doubts the humanity of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—it is very difficult to argue against it—but surely the duty of Government is to balance natural emotion with hard-headed realism. Net migration into this country has been far bigger in last 20 years than for any other country, and we are at the limit of what the public will accept. We are also spending more than the whole of the rest of Europe put together on helping people in Syria. For every child refugee we take from a camp in Dover or Calais, we will simply have to take many other people who will come as part of the family. I urge the Government to stick to their present policy—their humane and correct policy—of spending money to help in the region and not to listen to the Leader of the Opposition and his daft policy of taking people from Dover and Calais.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): We want to see children who are affected by this appalling crisis given help and assistance at the earliest opportunity. That is why we have committed the aid and support that we have in the region. It is also why in Calais, for example, we have been giving support to the French Government to ensure that claims can be made as quickly as possible. The French Government have set up 78 new centres away from Calais to help migrants to make their claims as quickly as possible. That way, we see people get help at the earliest chance.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): Work is continuing in respect of Turkey and the Government have a commitment to providing funding in support of that. The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the issue of the external border in countries such as Greece and Italy. This country has provided more support for asylum processing, in terms of experts, than any other country in the EU, and that sense of how we can support the external border is very much at the forefront of our work.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend has mentioned, Kent is already looking after hundreds of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Kent has asked other councils to help to look after these children, but few have been forthcoming. We have to do a good job with the young people who are already here seeking our help, so as we rightly consider whether we can help more Syrian child refugees, can my hon. Friend assure me that he will press on with ensuring effective dispersal of the young asylum seekers already in the UK?
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I can assure my hon. Friend that the Home Office is working closely with the Department for Education. I have the Minister for Children and Families on the Bench alongside me. To see that children are given the support they need in counties such as Kent, which are taking on a considerable burden, we are working with the Local Government Association and others, as well as maintaining that backstop provision in the Immigration Bill to ensure a fair allocation of young people in need of support.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said to other right hon. and hon. Members, we are closely considering the issue of children. I have already indicated that of the 1,000 refugees who arrived through the resettlement scheme before Christmas, around a half were children. We are very conscious of the need for support for local authorities. We have announced additional funding to meet the needs under the resettlement scheme for years 2 to 5, recognising the pressures that the right hon. Gentleman has outlined.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
Andrew John Turner (Conservative, Centre-right): We were told that 100,000 people would be admitted to this country each year. In fact, 320,000 people have been admitted in the past year. If we admit another 20,000 people over the next five years, or 4,000 per year, does that mean that 4,000 are not admitted from other parts of the world?
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): The vulnerable persons resettlement scheme is meeting our rightful obligation to respond to the crisis that we see in Syria, which is the basis for the figure of 20,000 that we have outlined for the course of this Parliament. Obviously, we have certain other arrangements with UNHCR, but we need to meet that commitment and respond to the crisis that we see before us.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): The most effective way to do that is to see that those families claim asylum in France. There have been around 2,800 claims of asylum in and around Calais. The French Government have put in place the new arrangements that I described so that people can be moved away from Calais into better reception centres. That is the clear message that I would give, which may well identify some of the family reunion issues that the hon. Lady has highlighted.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
Andrew James Bridgen (Conservative, Centre-right): Many Members of this House are suggesting that we rescue unaccompanied minors from other European Union countries and bring them to Britain. Does the Minister agree that one of the dangers of that is that their relatives will appear, and human rights lawyers in this country will insist that they have a right to join those minors in the UK because they have a right to a family life?
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): We need to consider these issues carefully. What is at the forefront of my mind is not seeing more children being put at risk and their lives being put at risk. That is what the people smugglers and traffickers will do, and why we need to act with such great care so that we do not make the situation even worse than it is.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. If we were playing cricket, which we are not, the hon. Gentleman’s bowling would be a little wide of the wicket, but I am sure the Minister is dextrous enough to deal with it sensitively and pithily.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): It is right that we take some time to consider the issue properly because of what the hon. Gentleman highlights: the best interests of the children. The advice we have had from the UNHCR is that the best way is to help children in the region. The aid investment we have given in the region, and the focus on education to ensure that children there have hope, have that sense of compassion behind them. That is why assistance has been structured in that way.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): Ultimately, those are matters for the French Government, but we have committed resourcing in terms of arrangements in people’s own country. I underline that claiming asylum in France means that assistance will be provided at the earliest opportunity. We have committed to support the French Government in that activity. We have provided funding to assist them in creating those reception centres outside Calais so that people can travel away from the area and get the support they need.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): The appropriate thing to do is to consider the best interests of the child and get further input from the UNHCR and others, because of the risk of making the situation worse, and the risk of seeing more children put their lives on the line by making those perilous journeys across the Mediterranean. That is at the forefront of our minds, and why we will consider the matter in that way.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): As part of the joint declaration that was signed last August, we are providing specific financial assistance to fund a project aimed at the most vulnerable people in and around Calais. That project aims to increase observation in the camps to identify vulnerable migrants; to provide medical help and protection where required; to put in place a system to transfer them briskly to places of safety; and to ensure they are offered the appropriate advice and support from the French system.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): The focus of the Government is providing the most appropriate support to the vulnerable. That is why we have established the resettlement scheme and are providing aid assistance in the region. It is about helping the most people possible. We do that most effectively in those areas and through some of the additional funding that I have outlined to the House this afternoon. In all honesty, we are considering the issue carefully, but it is right that we get it right, rather than running to any specific timetable, because of the issues involved and because we are talking about children.
Child Refugees in Europe — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): As I informed the House on 26 October, before a Report stage begins on a Bill I will seek to identify in advance those changes made in Committee which I would expect to certify, together with any Government amendments tabled for Report stage which, if passed, would be likely to lead me to issue a certificate. My provisional certificate, based on those changes, is available on the "Bills before Parliament" website and in the Vote Office. At the end of the Report stage on a Bill, I am required to consider the Bill, as amended on Report, for certification. As I informed the House on 26 October, I have accepted the advice of the Procedure Committee not, as a rule, to give reasons for decisions on certification during this experimental phase of the new regime. Anybody wishing to make representations to me prior to any decision should send them to the Clerk of Legislation.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): It was a pleasure to meet the hon. Lady in the Department, along with some of my officials, to discuss how we could test the early implementers for children with special educational needs and disabilities. I assure her that that will be at the heart of the process. We will conduct specific research with parents’ groups to establish how they access childcare and what challenges they experience during the early implementer phase More broadly, the Department and HMRC recently commissioned a feasibility study to consider how best to evaluate the labour and childcare market impacts of both tax-free childcare and the free early education entitlement, both of which policies are aimed at working parents. The study is due to be published in February, and will inform the development of an evaluation framework for both the 30 hours and tax-free childcare.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady raised this point in Committee and we debated it extensively. I promised to write to her about the needs of women in refuges. Having looked at the matter, I want to give her an assurance. First, I want to put it on the record that £40 million of extra support is going to women who find themselves in that tragic situation. In terms of childcare, they will get the first 15 hours for their three and four-year-olds, as everyone does. If they are entitled to the extended entitlement and, as a result of their situation, their children have to leave childcare, there will be a grace period of three months, which we have discussed.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Consideration completed. I will now suspend the House for about five minutes in order to make a decision about certification. The Division bells will be rung two minutes before the House resumes. Following my certification, the Government will be tabling the appropriate consent motion, copies of which will be available shortly in the Vote Office and will be distributed by Doorkeepers.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I can now inform the House of my decision about certification. For the purposes of Standing Order No. 83L(2), I have certified that clauses 3 and 5 of the Bill relate exclusively to England on matters within devolved legislative competence, as defined in Standing Order No. 83J. For the purposes of Standing Order No. 83L(4), I have certified that amendment 3 to clause 2 made to the Bill in Committee, which is now Clause 1(5) in the Bill as amended, relates to England. Copies of my certificate are available in the Vote Office. Under Standing Order No. 83M, a consent motion is therefore required for the Bill to proceed. Does the Minister intend to move the consent motion?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): That was a useful lead in to another nod, which the Minister has graciously provided The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England) (Standing Order No. 83M). [Mr Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady very much indeed. I think that that is a matter for the authorities. I will happily write to her, but Mr Speaker has certified that the Bill applies to England. My understanding is that it is not a devolved matter, but I am very happy to write to her to provide any clarity she might require After Opposition Lords’ attempts to delay the Bill—
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady should not get too worried, because EVEL will not change a single part of a single Bill in this or any other Parliament. There is an overall Conservative majority in this one, and, as all the other parties are opposed to it, if we do not have a majority next time, they will cancel it.
Central and East Africa — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Other
Stephen Phillips (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I agree with him. Perhaps when the Minister responds to this debate, he will tell us that that is a particular focus of the Government, which I think would be a useful thing for the Government to say.
Central and East Africa — House of Commons, 2016-01-25
Topic: Immigration
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very interesting and valid point. I was about to move on to the issue of migration and to talk a little about refugees. We are hearing and seeing—as well as holding such discussions in the Chamber—many debates about economic migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and about the movement of people across Europe. It is even more important that we tackle the root causes and do what we can to maintain stability in the home country. That means that democracy is a crucial element in development. Strengthening global security also matters, as does corruption, which we have already discussed this evening To bring my short contribution to a conclusion, I want to thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham for bringing this debate to the Chamber because it is important to remember and keep in our minds Burundi, Rwanda and the whole of the region. It is sometimes very easy to think about different parts of the world, which are also important, but there are ongoing issues in many such countries and the countries of the region need us to keep them in mind. We must ensure that the Government’s diplomatic and humanitarian actions continue, and that we keep the focus on such countries. I will listen carefully to what I am sure will be an interesting update from the Minister.