Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

4. When he plans to announce details of the integrated programme to resettle an additional 5,000 refugees from 2020-21.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

23. When he plans to announce details of the integrated programme to resettle an additional 5,000 refugees from 2020-21.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

We continue to engage with international and domestic delivery partners and stakeholders, as we work through the detailed policy and operational considerations for the new global resettlement scheme. In the meantime, we continue towards our commitment of resettling 20,000 of the most vulnerable refugees affected by the conflict in Syria.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The Minister knows that I would like the ambition to be as high as possible. What plans has she got to consult refugees and refugee organisations about the lessons that can be learned from current resettlement schemes?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady will know—this is an ambition that I have often voiced to her—that we have sought to bring together the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme and the gateway protection scheme, to consolidate our refugee programmes. We continue to work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and indeed with those delivering the schemes, local authorities included. As part of the ambition—this is why we have given a figure in the region of 5,000—it is important that we learn from VPRS, work through local authorities to establish the number of people they can best assist through the schemes and make sure that we do not downgrade the good commitments we have previously given on resettlement.