UK Resettlement Scheme 2025

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. He will be aware that, three and a half years ago, for example, nobody would have suggested that we would have the number of Ukrainian individuals on temporary placement in the United Kingdom because of the pressures of the illegal war by the Russians in Ukraine. Therefore, that flexibility needs to be maintained. What we are saying is that we are in constant discussion with the UNHCR and we want to meet our legal obligations. The 680,000 people in the past 10 years show that we are. The noble Lord makes a valid point that we do not know what may happen in the future which may cause challenges for the United Kingdom and indeed for the UNHCR.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows from my question yesterday, the Home Office scores all in-country migration costs as official development assistance. At the end of this Parliament, that level will be halved by this Labour Government, which have also chosen to make a policy decision to continue to score in-country migration costs as 100% aid, but they are not proposing to reduce that level in relation to the overall pot of aid. Why?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes his point again. We have set out our position on overseas aid through, and prior to, the Statement yesterday. We are setting out our position in relation to the UNHCR and the potential help and support that we can give now. We will address many of the points that the noble Lord has alluded to in a future immigration White Paper, which will be presented to this House and to the House of Commons in due course. We will debate this issue in due course. I think that we are meeting our obligations, and we will still, through our colleagues in the Foreign Office, support overseas aid and do so in an effective way, but that debate will undoubtedly continue.