Patrick Grady – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the likely effect of the agreements reached at the 2015 Valetta Summit on migration on the flow of refugees and asylum seekers from Eritrea.

James Duddridge

At the Valetta Summit, EU and African leaders made clear their shared determination to provide a comprehensive solution to irregular migration. They agreed an Action Plan that sets out a clear strategy to deal with the root causes of irregular migration and respond to its consequences. The UK will now use our chairmanship of the EU-AU “Khartoum Process” on migration to drive forward delivery of that Plan in the Horn of Africa. The EU launched a £1.3billion Trust Fund at Valetta to improve stability in Africa and tackle the drivers of migration. Over £400 million of that funding will be spent in the Horn of Africa, including Eritrea. This, and other EU and bilateral funding, will be used to build the region’s capacity to fight organised immigration crime, and to help create jobs, security, better living standards and better governance. The UK has been clear to the government of Eritrea that poor respect for human rights is also a driver of migration. At the UN Human Rights Council and in bilateral discussions we have set out to the government of Eritrea steps we believe it needs to take to improve its human rights record, including fulfilling its commitment to limit National Service to 18 months.