12:43 Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour)

It has been sad to watch a summer of the Government chasing cheap newspaper headlines, rather than getting a grip of this challenge, because growing global climate change will only make more challenging migration patterns for European countries. We need a cross-European solution. We have heard from the Minister for immigration compliance what his solution is: “Nothing to do with me, guv—stay in Italy, stay in Greece, stay in France, stay in Germany.” That will not do. So what are the Minister and the Home Office doing, today, to get to a mature, equitable and humane solution with our European partners?

The Minister keeps referring to applying for asylum in the first safe country, as though it were a legal requirement. It is not—it is one of the criteria under Dublin. People have a right to apply in any country they choose and family reunion is supposed to take precedence, so I would like him to correct that when he replies. I would also like him to say whether his Government will focus more on the causes of migration, including the accelerating climate emergency, and take seriously a Bill that I will be tabling later today—the climate and ecological emergency Bill—which is designed precisely to try to tackle some of these root causes of why so many people are taking to dangerous boats.

Of course we agree that dealing with issues in source countries—economic issues and others—is a vital part of fixing this problem. Migration trends across the world, and into Europe across the Mediterranean and the Aegean, have grown dramatically over the last few years. The small boat crossings that we are seeing are a small part of that much bigger picture. This Government have done a huge amount on climate change. We have virtually eliminated coal-fired power stations, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and CO 2 emissions generally in this country have fallen dramatically over the last 10 or 15 years, as the hon. Lady well knows.

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