Baroness Sheehan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Sheehan on 2016-03-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many refugees have been brought to the UK under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons scheme; how many of those refugees were children; and where within the UK those refugees have been dispersed.

Lord Bates

The Home Office is committed to publishing data in an orderly way 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 26 May 2016 and will cover the period January – March 2016.

Latest statistics published on 25 February 2016 confirms in 2015, a total of 1,194 people were resettled the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) including 1,085 who arrived in the last quarter of 2015. Of those resettled under the scheme in 2015, 605 were under 18 years old. Resettlement under the Syrian VPRS by local authorities is voluntary. It is a matter for each local authority to decide whether they want to publish the fact of their participation and the numbers of refugees they take.