I have just returned from a whistle-stop trip to Albania with the Home Affairs Select Committee as part of our ongoing enquiry into the Channel boats problem. Last year more than 28% of the near 46,000 migrants who came across the Channel in small boats were Albanian and currently most of them are still going through the asylum process.
Most of the time was spent inside Government and Embassy offices and hotel meeting rooms but I am told that Albania is a beautiful country and certainly what we saw of Tirana was a surprisingly cosmopolitan city. We met Government ministers and MPs, refugee and civic society organisations, law enforcement bodies, UNICEF and crucially migrants who had been returned from various European countries. We were also very impressed with the greatly beefed-up British Embassy operation with around 80 staff now including senior army officers and National Crime Agency officials.
The problem is clear to see. The Albanian economy is shot. The minimum wage is just £300 per month, corruption is rife and many leave failing schools as young as 14. Hence so many of the younger population at least are desperate to leave for purely economic reasons and all readily admitted that there really were no legitimate grounds for claiming asylum based on fleeing war, persecution or danger. Clearly there is a problem with gangs trafficking people into the UK and other European countries for sex work and drug running but that is a crime issue which needs to be dealt with by the Albanian authorities with our help.
It was a thoroughly depressing state of affairs. Whilst we may empathise with the plight of young Albanians wanting to come to the UK for a better life, paying people smugglers and then claiming asylum is absolutely not the right way to go about it and most of all harms the prospects of those genuinely escaping danger who may have a better claim to seek safe haven in the UK.
I will be back at the Shoreham Farmer’s Market on Easter Saturday from 10am for our regular street surgery.
