Syria refugees: former judges condemn government response

Sedley also said that, “since refuge from persecution and war is a universal human right, this means recognizing that our Government’s present offer to take no more than 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years is wholly inadequate”.

In a session at the Home Affairs select committee on Tuesday, Richard Harrington, the minister in charge of managing the flow and settlement of Syrian refugees, said that he was aware of the number of people arriving in Britain, but was “not prepared to give a running commentary” on the current figures.

Cooper will likely improve the strain upon the authorities to operate from a solar panel of former legislation lords described the government’s strategy to require…

“This also deters people from attempting these perilous journeys which have already led to so many tragic deaths”, he said.

Mr Harrington said the Government would not be accepting offers from members of the public to house Syrian refugees in their homes.

The harrowing images this summer of dead refugees, including a three-year-old child, washed ashore as people flee civil war in Syria and other countries would move even the hardest to tears.

“Around the Balkan crisis we were receiving around 75,000 a year”. We managed it well.

Responding to the judges’ letter, David Cameron’s official spokeswoman told a regular Westminster media briefing: “People can express views, and different views”.

“We are the sixth or seventh richest country in the world, it is not beyond our capabilities to make the necessary changes to receive our share”.

Political issue The crisis comes at a time when immigration is a major political issue in Britain, with polls suggesting it is now Britons’ top concern, and could be a significant factor in influencing how the country votes in a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union due by the end of 2017.

Britain has provided £1.1 billion in assistance to support refugees in the region, making it the second largest bilateral donor.

“Yet so far the British government has taken very few Syrian refugees and won’t tell us how many have arrived”.

Catriona Jarvis, a former judge of the Upper Tribunal, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the United Kingdom had been “too low, too slow and too narrow” in responding to the crisis. “If every city and county took ten families we could help 10,000 people this year”.

For Labour, shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said the lawyers’ statement was a “serious intervention” which ministers could not afford to ignore.