I thank the leader of the house for that statement, and I'm very pleased to hear what she says. The UK has a long history of resettling those who've fled persecution in their homeland, and this is something of which we should be proud and must continue to do. But there is a big difference between refugees fleeing war and persecution and economic migrants, and it's vital that this distinction is not blurred.

I was therefore disturbed to hear the leader of the house say yesterday in response to David Rowlands that: 

'I simply cannot find it in my heart to say that somebody fleeing war is a proper refugee, but somebody fleeing starvation or grinding poverty is not.'

The definition of a refugee is a person who's forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster. If we blur that distinction with those who are economic migrants, then there's virtually no limit to the number of people who we have to admit, and that would, I think, raise a considerable amount of animosity amongst very large numbers of people, which we don't want to see.

So, would the leader of the house agree with me that it is very important that we should be exact in our use of language in this area in order to maintain the maximum possible public acceptance of taking as many refugees, who are true refugees, as possible?