Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-02-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the UK’s capacity to provide further resettlement opportunities to Syrian refugees whose individual medical or humanitarian needs cannot be met in refugee camps in Syria’s neighbouring countries.

James Brokenshire

With millions of people in need in Syria and the region, the Government believes that substantial humanitarian aid and actively seeking to end the conflict are the most effective ways for the UK to help the largest number of displaced people, rather than larger scale resettlement. We have now pledged £800 million in response to the crisis, and UK funding is providing vital support to hundreds of thousands of people across the region.

However, we recognise that there are some very vulnerable displaced Syrians who cannot be supported effectively in the region. We therefore launched the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation (VPR) scheme to complement our aid by providing protection in the UK to some of those at greatest risk. The scheme is based on need rather than fulfilling a quota, but we have said we expect it to help several hundred people over three years, and we remain firmly on track to achieve that. Groups of Syrians are arriving in the UK on a regular basis under the scheme, including people in severe need of medical care, survivors of torture and violence and women and children at risk.

The Government liaises regularly with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regarding the operation of the VPR scheme. We continue to work closely with the UNHCR to identify some of the most vulnerable people displaced by the conflict and bring them to the UK.