Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-02-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government has a policy on resettling refugees from Syria who have previously been living in Syria as Palestinian refugees.

James Brokenshire

The UK operates three resettlement programmes: Gateway, Mandate and the Syrian Resettlement Scheme.

Only UNHCR registered Syrian nationals are eligible under the Syrian Resettlement Scheme, which has been expanded to resettle 20,000 individuals during this Parliament. We work closely with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify cases that they deem in need of resettlement according to agreed vulnerability criteria for the Syrian Resettlement Scheme.

Gateway and Mandate are not nationality specific.

The Gateway Protection programme resettles UNHCR recognised refugees from a small number of targeted locations.

The Mandate resettlement programme resettles individuals from anywhere in the world who have been recognised as refugees by UNHCR, and judged by them to be in need of resettlement; and who have a close family member in the UK who is willing to accommodate them.