Suella Braverman: Sussex MP says there is 'nowhere to hide' for home secretary after his question 'exposed reality' of refugee system in UK
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Conservative backbencher – and East Worthing & Shoreham MP – Tim Loughton asked Mrs Braverman how an orphaned teenager, with links to the UK, could apply for asylum when fleeing conflict in East Africa.
The question – a video of which has gone viral on social media – was asked during the Home Affairs Committee yesterday (Wednesday) morning.
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Hide AdMrs Braverman could not provide an explanation as to how a child in this situation could find their way to this country via a safe and legal route.
In an exclusive interview with SussexWorld, Mr Loughton said: “I wanted the home secretary to lay out what are those safe and legal routes, knowing that they are actually few and far between. As it stands at the moment, a lot of the former schemes – which were stopped by the pandemic or connected with Brexit – haven’t been restarted. That’s what yesterday laid bare.”
During the exchange, the home secretary told Mr Loughton that the government ‘has an asylum system and people can put in applications’.
When asked how a young teenager would do this, she responded: "If you're able to get to the UK you're able to put in an application."
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Hide AdMr Loughton pointed out that the child would have entered the UK illegally. Ms Braverman responded: "If you put in an application for asylum on arrival that would be the process that you enter."
The Home Secretary was unable to elaborate when pressured, instead asking officials to stand in.
The Sussex MP said the response he received was ‘not encouraging’, adding that the home secretary was ‘digging herself a bit of a hole’ when she seemed to claim that a refugee would need to arrive in the UK before applying for asylum.
He added: “It laid bare exactly what the faults in the system are. She will be under pressure to restart some of those safe and legal routes, which many of us have been calling for, for quite a long time.
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Hide Ad“I’m not, by any means, saying that anybody who is escaping danger should come to the UK. But for those so there is a link and a claim in the UK, we should have a way of facilitating that.
"If you are a lone individual from a turmoil company, there are few routes. You may have to go through a refugee organisation or something like that but there’s not an obvious way. That’s the problem and those are the sort of people I’m most concerned about.”
Matthew Rycroft, secretary to the Home Office, said those fleeing could apply to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) but admitted there are ‘some countries where that's not possible’.
A video of the exchange has sparked uproar from people on social media, who were congratulatory of Mr Loughton for his line of questioning but shocked that the home secretary could not provide a satisfactory answer.