Tag Archives: 3000 child refugees

Well – did they consult or not?

By Chris White | Mon 6th March 2017 - 5:27 pm

The issue of refugee children will not go away – both in reality and in terms of a decency-check on the current Government, including the Home Secretary in particular.

The Government is adamant that the decision to close the ‘Dubs’ scheme, which many believed would allow the country to accept a further 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees, was because local government did not have the capacity for more than around 400. The evidence for this is that the Home Office asked councils and this is what councils told it. Simples.

The problem with this is twofold.

First of all, why did the Home Office …

Posted in News | Also tagged dubs amendment | 2 Comments

LibLink: Tim Farron: The Government’s latest capitulation to take up to 3000 more refugees is welcome but not enough

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 22nd April 2016 - 12:40 pm

Well, it serves me right for not reading something properly. I was on the train yesterday on my way to a hot date with lots of blue envelopes and leaflets when I saw the BBC announce that the UK was going to take thousands of child refugees. I thought that they had agreed to the request that had been made repeatedly by Tim Farron over the last few months.

I should have known better that this was just a re-hash of an earlier announcement ahead of a key parliamentary vote on Monday. Tim Farron saw through it straight away, and explained in the Huffington Post why it fell far short of what is needed:

If I was cynical I’d remark on the fact that this latest announcement comes just days before a crucial vote in the Commons which would force the Tories to take 3,000 vulnerable child refugees from Europe and it seems that the Government are trying to buy off MPs ahead of that.

Of course the Government’s latest capitulation to take up to 3,000 individuals from the Syrian region over the next four years is welcome but it is simply not enough. When I travelled to Greece earlier this month I saw thousands of refugee children languishing in camps that were overstretched and understaffed. Tens of thousands of vulnerable children travelling alone arrived in Europe last year – this latest announcement will do nothing for them. Instead they will continue to live on food rations, without access to education and without hope or fall prey to traffickers and those who would exploit them.