I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I am afraid that I have not seen that series, but I will certainly look out for it. On his second point, a key
part of our international development aims is to try to tackle absolute and abject poverty, and the risks to people’s safety and security that often drive large waves of migration and lead to people seeking asylum. One of the strongest arguments for why it is right that, as a country, we commit to spending a proportion of our national wealth on international development and overseas development aid is absolutely that it helps to reduce the numbers of people involved and the risks and dangers to them.
UNICEF’s six-point agenda for action acknowledges that children who travel alone are more easily preyed on and more vulnerable to violence and abuse. We should be wary of changes to legislation that risk increasing the numbers of children put into that position if there are other means of keeping families together and of being able to offer people a safe haven from danger.
I look forward to listening to the debate about changing the rules on the sponsorship of refugees and whether it would be right and effective to allow those under 18 to sponsor. I hope that the House will have an opportunity to debate such legislation without too much more delay. However, other action could be taken to improve the welfare and safety of those seeking asylum—refugees coming into the United Kingdom. The first, as we have heard, is to ensure that, after Brexit, the United Kingdom and the European Union continue to operate on the basis of keeping families together so that refugees with close relatives in the United Kingdom who come into another European Union country are able to join them here, and the few refugees who come into the United Kingdom and have relatives in another European country are similarly able to join their relatives in those countries. I was very pleased to hear the Solicitor General commit to ensuring that that happens after Brexit.
What would clearly make a big difference to not only child refugees but refugees more broadly would be to make sure that asylum claims are processed quickly, without unnecessary delay. It is not only those claiming asylum who are adversely affected by long delays in processing claims while they are unable to work, because our local economies and local societies similarly miss out because those people’s ability to contribute to those local economies and societies is severely restricted while their claims are being processed. I look forward to hearing the Minister say what more can be done to make sure that asylum claims are processed in a timely and efficient manner so that those who need asylum in our country are able to live here, to settle, to contribute and to integrate, and so that our communities are able to welcome and support them.
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