David Davies criticises 'naive' emotional response from Lily Allen to child refugee: 'We need to be quite hard-nosed here'

Lily Allen’s emotional exchange with a young refugee continues to attract opprobrium, this time from the Tory MP leading calls for refugee children being resettled in the UK to have their ages verified.

David Davies criticised Allen’s response as he called for children to undergo dental checks to stop adults posing as children in order to claim asylum.

The MP for Monmouth was condemned by dentists after claiming those arriving in the UK from Calais “don't look like children” and should have their teeth checked to determine their age.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Mr Davies also singled out the response from Allen when she spoke to unaccompanied children at a makeshift camp in Calais.

The tearful singer apologised to a 13 year old boy from Afghanistan “on behalf of my country”, sparking anger on social media.

“It just seems that at three different intervals in this young boy’s life, the English in particular have put you in danger,” she said at the time.

“We’ve bombed your country, put you in the hands of the Taliban and now put you in danger of risking your life to get into our country.

“I apologise on behalf of my country. I’m sorry for what we have put you through.”

“We must not be naive about this. It's no good Lily Allen turning up with tears in her eyes and all the rest of it - we need to be quite hard-nosed here,” Mr Davies told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Wednesday.

“People are desperate, I understand that, and they will say what they need to say to get in.

“When I was in the camp in Calais there were caravans with notices on saying 'Come here, we will coach you in what to say to get into the UK'.”

He added: “People in Britain, I think, want to help children but we don't want to be taken for a free ride either by people who seem to have got to the front of the queue even though they clearly look, in some cases, a lot older than 18.”