Amber Rudd defends action on child migrants

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37544271

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Home Secretary Amber Rudd has insisted the government is doing all it can to help child migrants in Calais after Tory MPs demanded ministers do more.

Ms Rudd said the government remained "keen, enthusiastic and committed" to taking children from the migrant camp known as the "Jungle".

Former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is among the Tory MPs to sign a letter calling for more to be done.

They said family reunion was the best way to "defeat the traffickers".

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, the MPs said: "We can do more to help these children... above all, as Conservatives, we must champion the role of the family in resolving this refugee crisis.

"Family reunion is the best tool we have for offering a legal and safe way to get unaccompanied children back into the arms of their family and out of the hands of the traffickers."

The fate of the camp and up to 10,000 people living there has become central to France's presidential campaign, and president Francois Hollande has vowed to dismantle it "definitively, entirely and rapidly" by the end of the year.

In their letter - co-ordinated by Unicef - the MPs said the UK should ensure children were "moved out of the camp before the bulldozers arrive, and into a safe place where they have access to the legal support and social care they need".

Ms Rudd was asked about the situation during a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

"Do not think for a minute that this government is in any way slack with trying to help these children," she said.

"These children are in France, so we can't just, as some people say, just drive in and get them."

She said the government was meeting its obligations to take children with family in the UK and those who would be better off in the UK..

"We are keen to take them, and we are doing that at the moment," she said, adding: "We've offered money, we've offered people and now we've followed through on that. it's a very very serious, committed enterprise from my department."

Asked about wider calls to help child migrants, the home secretary warned of a "difficult choice" and "unintended consequences" like encouraging traffickers.

At the fringe debate in Birmingham, hosted by the Times Red Box, the home secretary - who was a prominent Remain campaigner in the EU referendum - said she did not want to refight the campaign.

But she said it was "important" to have people like her "at the table" during Brexit negotiations, adding: "I hope I can influence the outcome when these decisions are taken."

She also said a spike in recorded hate crime after the EU referendum was over, and accepted she would be judged on whether immigration goes up or down under her tenure at the Home Office.