Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refugees from the Syrian conflict relocated in the UK to date are (a) adults with a vulnerable characteristic, (b) adults in a family unit, (c) adults not in a family unit or with a vulnerable characteristic, (d) children with parents and (e) unaccompanied children.

Richard Harrington

The Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme is based on need and prioritises those who cannot be supported effectively in their region of origin. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is responsible for identifying people in need of resettlement based on its established vulnerability criteria, which are: women and girls at risk; survivors of violence and/or torture; refugees with legal and/or physical protection needs; refugees with medical needs or disabilities; children and adolescents at risk; persons at risk due to their sexual orientation or gender identity; and refugees with family links in resettlement countries.

The Home Office is committed to publishing data as part of the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics, in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The next set of figures will be in the quarterly release on 25 February 2016 and will cover the period October-December 2015. This adheres to the standard practice for the release of information about the work of the department, both through the quarterly national statistics and the additional transparency data that is released, which ensure that statistics are published properly in a way which is open and accessible to all. This information will not include a breakdown of the vulnerability criteria, or the family composition of the refugees that have been resettled.