Question

To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his Oral Statement of 26 November 2015, Official Report, columns 1489-94, what additional humanitarian support the Government plans to provide to countries that border Syria to assist with the likely increased displacement of people as a result of the coordinated international response to Daesh in Syria.

Coalition airstrikes have been on-going since September 2014. Airstrikes may cause some local level internal displacement and disruption; but it is the conflict that is the main cause of suffering of civilians in Syria. In Syria, the UN carries out regular humanitarian contingency planning exercises including preparing for the impact of military operations.

To date, the UK has allocated £559 million to support refugees in the region and vulnerable host communities, including £304 million in Lebanon, £193 million in Jordan and the remainder across the region.

The UK is very concerned about the plight of the Syrian people. This is why the Prime Minister announced on 16 November that the UK, Kuwait, Norway, Germany and the UN will co-host an international conference on the Syria crisis in London on 4 February 2016. The Conference aims to raise significant new funding to meet the needs of all those affected by crisis within Syria and to support neighbouring countries, who have shown enormous generosity in hosting refugees, to cope with the impact of the crisis. The Conference will aim to raise both emergency and long-term funding for 2016 and subsequent years.