Questions raised over refugee routes

The government should question the “primary route” to refugee
status, the chair of the Home Affairs select committee said last
week.

Speaking at the Refugee Council’s AGM, John Denham MP said that, as
the number of asylum claims fell, the government needed to expand
its co-operation with the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees to bring refugees to UK in an organised way.

But he said that he was against ending the right to claim asylum
once they have arrived in the UK, as proposed by Conservative
leader Michael Howard, as it was “neither practical nor morally
justifiable”.