UK Resettlement Scheme 2025

Lord German Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord German]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in setting a quota for refugee resettlement through the UK Resettlement Scheme for 2025.

[Lord German (LD)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in doing so I draw attention to my interest that I am supported by the RAMP organisation.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

The United Kingdom works closely with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, to determine the appropriate quota in any given year. We are focusing on the delivery of existing commitments, and we will continue to work with the UNHCR on an appropriate quota for 2025.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. This is a safe and legal route, but, unfortunately, there are few people in the queue. The queue sometimes lasts five to seven years, and so, quite clearly, the United Nations authorities need time to prepare people to come here in waiting for that length of time. What they are doing in that queue, of course, is not going for routes that are dangerous—crossing the channel and so forth—so, given the importance of reducing the number of people who come via irregular routes, what assessment have the Government made of trying to make these allocations to the United Nations not sporadically but in a regular format with multi-year assessments?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The UK Government continue to discuss on a yearly basis with the UNHCR what the requirements and pressures are. As the noble Lord will know, both the previous Government and this Government have given safe and legal routes to around 680,000 people in the past 10 years alone. We are continuing to work with the agency and we are looking at that for next year—in my original Answer to the noble Lord, I said that we are looking at potential quotas for 2025. He makes an interesting suggestion for certainty, but we need to examine the requests of the UNHCR, what their demands on us are and how we can potentially accommodate any or all of those requests.