Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-11-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the average cost to a local authority of taking in a Syrian refugee under the UNHCR VPR scheme in year (a) one, (b) two, (c) three, (d) four and (e) five; and how much additional central government funding has been made to local authorities to help meet those costs per refugee for each of those years.

Richard Harrington

The Government has committed to resettling 20,000 Syrian refugees in the lifetime of this Parliament. The Prime Minister has said that we want to see 1,000 refugees brought to the UK by Christmas.

The first 12 months of a refugee’s resettlement costs will be funded by central government from the Overseas Development Aid budget. The Government has also committed to providing additional funding to local authorities to assist with costs incurred for years 2 to 5. This funding package forms part of the forthcoming Spending Review and full details will be confirmed shortly.