Extract from committee stage (Commons) of the Illegal Migration Bill - Mar 27

Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con):...There are hundreds of millions of people in the world who would like to move to our country—[Interruption.] Of course there are hundreds of millions who would like to move to our country and who could conceivably get refugee status, so if we talk about a cap and safe and legal routes, we need to talk about prioritisation. The question is: is it right that we prioritise young, single men from Albania over, for example, some of the refugees I met two weekends ago? Where was I two weekends ago? I was at the Rohingya camp in Bangladesh  It was the third time I had been there. Do you know who I spoke to? Overwhelmingly women and children who had fled directly from Myanmar. Some of the women had been raped, some of their dads and their brothers had been killed, and when I asked them what they wanted, all they said was that they wanted to go home safely. They do not have a choice about shopping between different European countries or about where they go. They do not have that choice...