Full Statement of the Prime Minister

The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on last week’s European Council, which focused on the migration crisis affecting continental Europe.

The single biggest cause has of course been the war in Syria and the brutality of the Assad regime, but we have also seen a huge growth in the numbers of people coming to southern Europe from Afghanistan, Pakistan and north Africa, all facilitated by the rapid growth of criminal networks of people smugglers. There are over 8,000 migrants still arriving in Greece every week, and there are signs that the numbers using the central Mediterranean route are on the rise again. So far, 10,000 have come this year.

Of course, because of our special status in the European Union, Britain is not part of the Schengen open border arrangements—and we are not going to be joining. We have our own border controls, and they apply to everyone trying to enter our country, including EU citizens. So people cannot travel through Greece or Italy onward to continental Europe and into Britain, and that will not change. It is in our national interest, however, to help our European partners deal effectively with this enormous and destabilising challenge.

We have argued for a consistent and clear approach right from the start: ending the conflict in Syria; supporting the refugees in the region; securing Europe’s borders; taking refugees directly from the camps and neighbouring countries but not from Europe; and cracking down on people smuggling gangs. This approach, of focusing on the problem upstream, has now been universally accepted in Europe, and at this Council it was taken forwards with a comprehensive plan for the first time.

As part of the plan, the Council agreed to prevent migrants from leaving Turkey in the first place; to intercept those who do leave, while they are at sea, and to turn back their boats; and to return to Turkey those who make it to Greece. There can be no guarantees of success, but if this plan is properly and fully implemented, it will, in my view, be the best chance to make a difference. For the first time, we have a plan that breaks the business model of the people smugglers by breaking the link between getting in a boat and getting settlement in Europe.

I want to be clear about what Britain is doing, and what we are not doing, as a result of this plan. We are contributing our expertise and our skilled officials to help with the large-scale operation now under way. Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Mounts Bay and Border Force vessels are already patrolling the Aegean, British asylum experts and interpreters are already working in Greece to help them process individual cases, and at the Council I said that Britain stood ready to do even more to support these efforts. Above all, what is needed, and what we are pushing for, is a detailed plan to implement this agreement and to ensure that all the offers of support from around Europe are properly co-ordinated. Our share of the additional money, which will go to helping refugees in Turkey under this agreement, will come from our existing aid budget.

Let me also be clear about what we are not doing. First, we are not giving visa-free access for Turks coming to the UK. Schengen countries are planning to give visa-free access to Turks, but because we are not part of Schengen we are not bound by their decision. We have made our own decision, which is to maintain our own borders, and we will not be giving that visa-free access.

Secondly, visa-free access to Schengen countries will not mean a back-door route to Britain. As the House knows, visa-free access only means the right to visit; it does not mean a right to work or to settle. For instance, just because British citizens can enjoy visa-free travel for holidays to America, it does not mean they can work, let alone settle there. Neither will this give Turkish citizens those rights in the EU.

Thirdly, we will not be taking more refugees as a result of this deal. A number of Syrians who are in camps in Turkey will be resettled into the Schengen countries of the EU, but again that does not apply to Britain. We have already got our resettlement programme and we are delivering on it. We said we would resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees over this Parliament, taking them directly from the camps, and that is what we are doing. We promised 1,000 resettled here in time for last Christmas, and that is what we delivered. The other 27 EU countries agreed to two schemes, one of which was to relocate 160,000 within the EU, but by the time of last December’s Council only 208 had been relocated. The second scheme was to have a voluntary resettlement scheme for 22,500 from outside the EU, but by the end of last year just 483 refugees had been resettled throughout the 27 countries.

We said what we would do and we are doing it. Britain has given more money to support Syrians fleeing the war, and the countries hosting them, than any other European country. Indeed, we are doing more than any country in the world other than the United States, spending over £l billion so far, with another £1.3 billion pledged. We are fulfilling our moral responsibility as a nation.

Turning to the central Mediterranean, the EU naval operation we established last summer has had some success, with over 90 vessels destroyed and more than 50 smugglers arrested. HMS Enterprise is taking part and we will continue her deployment throughout the summer. What is desperately needed is a Government in Libya with whom we can work, so that we can co-operate with the Libyan coastguard in Libyan waters to turn back the boats and stop the smugglers there, too. There is now a new Prime Minister and a Government we have recognised as the sole legitimate authority in Libya. These are very early days, but we must do what we can to try and make this work. That is why at this Council I brought together leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Malta to ensure that we are all ready to provide as much support as possible.

Turning to other matters at the Council, I took the opportunity to deal with a long-standing issue we have had about the VAT rate on sanitary products. We have had some EU-wide VAT rules in order to make the single market work, but the system has been far too inflexible, and this causes understandable frustration. We said we would get this changed and that is exactly what we have done. The Council conclusions confirm that the European Commission will produce a proposal in the next few days to allow countries to extend the number of zero rates for VAT, including on sanitary products. This is an important breakthrough. Britain will be able to have a zero rate for sanitary products, meaning the end of the tampon tax. On this basis, the Government will accept both the amendments tabled to the Finance Bill tomorrow night.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) spent almost a decade campaigning for welfare reform and improving people’s life chances, and he has spent the last six years implementing those policies in Government. In that time, we have seen nearly half a million fewer children living in workless households, over a million fewer people on out-of-work benefits and nearly 2.4 million more people in work. In spite of having to take difficult decisions on the deficit, child poverty, inequality and pensioner poverty are all down. My right hon. Friend contributed an enormous amount to the work of this Government and he can be proud of what he achieved.

This Government will continue to give the highest priority to improving the life chances of the poorest in our country. We will continue to reform our schools. We will continue to fund childcare and create jobs. We will carry on cutting taxes for the lowest-paid. In the last Parliament, we took 4 million of the lowest-paid people out of income tax altogether and our further rises will take many, many more out, too. Combined with this, we will go on with our plans to rebuild sink estates, to help those with mental health conditions, to extend our troubled families programme, to reform our prisons and to tackle discrimination for those whose life chances suffer because of the colour of their skin. And, in two weeks’ time we will introduce the first ever national living wage, giving a pay rise to the poorest people in our country. All of this is driven by a deeply held conviction that everyone in Britain should have the chance to make the most of their lives.

Mr Speaker, let me add this. None of this would be possible if it was not for the actions of this Government and the work of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in turning our economy around. We can only improve life chances if our economy is secure and strong. Without sound public finances, you end up having to raise taxes or make even deeper cuts in spending. You do not get more opportunity that way; you get less opportunity that way, and we know that, when that happens, it is working people who suffer, as we saw in Labour’s recession. So we must continue to cut the deficit, control the cost of welfare, and live within our means. We must not burden our children and grandchildren with debts that we did not have the courage to pay off ourselves. Securing our economy and extending opportunity, we will continue our approach in full, because we are a modern, compassionate, one-nation Conservative Government. I commend the statement to the House.

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