Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-12-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the £275 million offered by the Prime Minister to Turkey to secure its southern border” will be spent; whether that funding is intended to stop refugees entering Turkey in advance of any general ceasefire or peace agreement; and how that expenditure will be verified.”

Lord Bates

Turkey is a key partner in the response to the migration crisis and we should commend its generosity in hosting over 2.2m refugees from Syria and Iraq. Acknowledging this pressure, the EU has recently agreed an Action Plan with Turkey. Within this and building on the UK’s existing funding, our contribution of up to £275m (part of a wider European package of €3 billion) will be spent helping Turkey address the consequences of the Syria conflict. This funding will help control the flow of migrants to the EU from Turkey and improve education, health and labour rights for Syrian refugees in Turkey addressing potential push factors for further migration. Implementation of the funding will be jointly overseen by the European Commission and the Turkish government through the establishment of an EU-Turkey high-level working group on migration.