Syrian Refugees

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will follow the example of the government of Canada in welcoming further Syrian refugees.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, we have committed to resettling 20,000 refugees during this Parliament. As part of this, the Prime Minister gave a further commitment in September to resettle 1,000 Syrian refugees by Christmas. With the arrival of two further charter flights yesterday, into Belfast and Stanstead, this target has now been met and exceeded.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. However, we have been shocked this morning to hear of the situation in Sudan and Nigeria, and of the hundreds of thousands of children who are in need there. Is not there something we can do, perhaps by responding to Save the Children’s request and admitting 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children and giving them some hope? I ask the Minister to seriously consider how we could respond positively to this. We cannot respond to the situation in Sudan and Nigeria, but we can respond to the situation on our doorstep.

[Lord Bates]

The programme we are talking about is the Syrian vulnerable person relocation scheme. Of course, there are other schemes, such as Mandate and Gateway, which are not country specific and therefore people would be eligible to apply through that route. The noble Lord has been consistent in drawing attention to this. Under the previous Government, he would chide us that the Syrian vulnerable person scheme was too little, dealing with only 160 people in the first year. But in the past three months we have added another 1,000 to that. That is something to be proud of, as is our committing to a further 20,000 by the end of the Parliament, and the fact that we are the second largest cash donor. There is always more that can be done, but I think that we can hold our heads up high, particularly at this time of year.