Calais: Fareham MP Suella Fernandes says asylum seekers should not be allowed to move on to Britain

She sounded the warning in Parliament as riot police clashed with occupants of The Jungle camp at Calais during moves by the French government to clear the ramshackle community.

In a Commons debate, Ms Fernandes, a former barrister, reminded MPs that an accord already existed for asylum seekers to be dealt with at their first point of entry to the EU.

The Tory MP said: ‘Before I entered this place, I worked as counsel on hundreds of asylum and trafficking cases.

‘A core principle of the Dublin regulations is that the first country of entry should take responsibility for the claimant, which imports fairness and equity into the system.

‘Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House of his commitment to that principle, and confirm that to discard it without legal basis would be undemocratic and illegitimate?

Immigration minister James Brokenshire replied that the Government recognised the benefits and the strength of the Dublin arrangements and believed that they should be upheld,

Earlier in the debate, a senior MP said ministers must use their powers to stop hundreds of children falling into the hands of human traffickers who could use them for prostitution as the Calais migrant camp known as The Jungle is demolished.

Yvette Cooper said asylum applications for unaccompanied children were taking nine months in France and that 400 are at “serious risk” of disappearing as the camp is dismantled and new shelters fill up.

The chairwoman of Labour’s refugee taskforce said around 150 of the children have their closest family in Britain and called on the Government to allow them to enter the country as their asylum claims are processed.

Insisting the children have nowhere to go, Ms Cooper called on the Government to accept an offer from UNHCR (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) to help process applications as part of a fast system to reunite children with their family in the UK.

Ms Cooper said unaccompanied children are not allowed into the new heated container shelters built to rehouse Jungle residents and that a nearby centre for women and children is now full.

Asking an urgent question in the Commons, she went on: “The tents and volunteer support network are about to be bulldozed and there is no safeguarding plan in place at all.

“There is a massive reality gap between what you said and what is happening on the ground.

“Save the Children warn that things are extremely chaotic and this is making an appalling situation for children even worse. This is dangerous.

“You know well there is a serious risk that those children will now just disappear - into the hands of traffickers or criminal gangs or prostitution.

“Another 400 children on top of the 10,000 who Europol say have already disappeared in Europe.”

Ms Cooper said the 150 children who have their closest family in Britain, according to Citizens UK, will not apply for asylum in France, Germany or Sweden because they want to be reunited.

The former cabinet minister stressed that the Government agrees that child refugees should be reunited with family and also agrees that if their closest family is in UK they should be able to apply within the country for asylum, promising funding.

She went on: “But that is not happening for the kids in Calais. Even if they manage to apply their cases are taking nine months. They don’t have nine months, their remaining tents are being bulldozed now.”

Ms Cooper added: “You have talked a good game on stopping trafficking and modern slavery and you are right to be appalled at the criminal gangs.

“But this is where it gets real - you have the power now to stop the trafficking of hundreds of children on our doorstep, will you do it?”

Mr Brokenshire said the best way for a child to get help is to lodge an asylum claim in France but admitted it should not take anywhere near nine months to process them.

Replying for the Government, he said: “Where an asylum claim is lodged by a child with close family connections in the UK both governments are committed to ensuring that such a case is prioritised.

“But it is vital that the child engages with the French authorities as quickly as possible.”

Mr Brokenshire said the Government has provided a single point of contact for family reunification cases.

An asylum expert is being sent to France to improve identification of children and the transfer of any relevant cases to the UK.

The Tory minister said children can make direct applications for family reunion from anywhere in the world if they have a parent in Britain.

He went on: “You reference this period of nine months.

“It should not take anywhere near that and we remain behind our commitments in respect of seeing that there is an efficient and effective process for what we judge is a small number of cases that may have that direct connection to the UK.

“Equally you will be aware of the broader family reunification provisions over and above Dublin (regulations) that would allow children to be reunited with their parents, with direct applications not from France, it could be from the region (around Syria), it could be from anywhere around Europe or indeed in the region itself where there is that direct link to a parent that exists.”

Mr Brokenshire insisted the Government takes its responsibility “extremely seriously” and said there are 100 welcome centres for asylum seekers in other parts of France.

He also claimed priority was being given to women, children and other vulnerable migrants in the container shelters designed to replace the tents of The Jungle.

Criticism of French officials came from all sides of the House, while some MPs questioned why the UK government continued to stand by the response.

Home Affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz said to the minister: “The short term solution is for him to ring his opposite number in France to see whether a more humanitarian approach can be arrived at, because this is the fault of the French government.

“They have been warned about Calais and they have done nothing about it.”

Demolition teams yesterday began pulling down tents and makeshift shelters in the sprawling migrants’ camp in Calais, observed by hundreds of riot police.

A flashpoint on the edge of the Channel, the camp known as the Jungle sprang up less than a year ago in the port city.

It has grown explosively in past months amid Europe’s migrant crisis, fuelling far-right sentiment in both Britain and France.

Some 4,000 people are estimated to live in the camp - down from 6,000 in December.

Calais has lived with migrants in its midst for years, but the current camp on the city’s edge grew around a day centre opened last April by the state.

Scores of riot police stood guard, keeping journalists and volunteers out as helmeted workers tackled the shelters one by one.

Prefect Fabienne Buccio, who had ordered the camp evacuated and dismantled earlier this month, arrived as the operation began.

She said: “Really three houses out of four - I mean three huts out of four, or three tents out of four - were already totally abandoned with a lot of garbage inside.”

Migrants, she said, “had the time necessary to gather their belongings. The rest was good enough to throw away”.

However, cameras zooming into huts captured scenes of daily life fully intact.

The start of what is likely to be a weeks-long operation came four days after a court ruled that shelters could come down - but not common areas like houses of worship, a school, a women’s centre and a library, much of it built with the help of French and British volunteers appalled by conditions in the makeshift camp.

Humanitarian groups and migrants who had contested the state decision to level the most populous sector of the camp filed an appeal against the ruling on Friday with the Council of State, but any decision is likely to take weeks or months, long after the camp is gone.

French authorities are offering to relocate uprooted migrants into heated containers installed last month nearby, or at centres around France where they can decide whether to apply for asylum.

Many have resisted the move, fearing it will hurt their chances of reaching Britain, and some migrant advocates say there is not enough space in the new area.