History > 2015 > UK > Immigration  (I)

UK will accept

up to 20,000 Syrian refugees,

David Cameron confirms

Prime minister tells parliament
UK will ‘live up to its moral responsibility’
by taking in vulnerable refugees
over next four and a half years

Monday 7 September 2015

16.57 BST

Last modified on Monday 7 September 2015

17.13 BST

The Guardian

Press Association

Britain is to take up to 20,000 refugees from Syria over the next four and a half years, David Cameron has announced.

Cameron told the House of Commons the UK would “live up to its moral responsibility” towards people forced from their homes by the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Islamic State terror group.

He said Britain would accept vulnerable refugees only from camps in the region, and not those who have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe in their thousands over recent months.

Cameron told MPs: “We are proposing that Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the rest of this parliament.

“In doing so, we will continue to show the world that this country is a country of extraordinary compassion, always standing up for our values and helping those in need.”

The European commission is understood to be preparing to ask EU member states to take part in a mandatory scheme to resettle 160,000 migrants who have already arrived on the continent.

The French president, François Hollande, has said France is ready to take in 24,000 people.

But Cameron told MPs that because Britain is not part of the Schengen open border arrangements that cover many EU states, it was able to decide its own approach.

“We will continue with our approach of taking refugees from the camps and elsewhere in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon,” he said. “This provides refugees with a more direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey to Europe which has tragically cost so many lives.”

Refugees coming to Britain will be chosen under established UN procedures and will be granted five-year humanitarian protection visas, said Cameron. The scope of criteria used to identify vulnerable refugees will be “significantly expanded”, recognising that children have been particularly badly affected.
The Guardian’s decision to publish shocking photos of Aylan Kurdi

Pressure to admit more Syrians has grown since the publication of photographs of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who drowned with his mother and brother trying to cross from Turkey to Greece by boat.

Steve Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee expert, said: “It shouldn’t have taken a photograph to get politicians to start to do the right thing, but this news offers a vital lifeline to thousands of Syrians. If acted upon urgently, it will be a truly positive step forward.

“However, it does not address the huge challenge facing Europe right now – countries like Greece and Hungary cannot cope alone. Nor does it offer a solution to the many Eritreans, Afghans and others, forced to flee bullets, bombs, torture and overcrowded refugee camps elsewhere.

“We all need to acknowledge there is no single measure that can immediately solve the current crisis, and no one country can achieve its resolution all by itself.”

UK will accept up to 20,000 Syrian refugees, David Cameron confirms,
G,
7 September 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/
uk-will-accept-up-to-20000-syrian-refugees-david-cameron-confirms

David Cameron:

Britain 'should not take

more Middle East refugees'

Prime minister maintains hardline position
despite pressure for UK to do more to help
amid outcry over pictures
of drowned refugee child in Turkey

Wednesday 2 September 2015

21.16 BST

Last modified on Thursday 3 September 2015

01.10 BST

The Guardian

Patrick Wintour

Political editor

David Cameron faced accusations of heartlessness after he insisted Britain should not take any further refugees from the war-torn Middle East, as community groups prepared to show that councils in the UK are willing to take thousands more.

The prime minister knows he and the home secretary, Theresa May, will be pressured over the migration issue when parliament returns next week, but some senior Tory backbenchers said they expected Cameron to shift his ground after distressing pictures of a drowned child, who had been found washed up on a beach in Turkey, went viral.

Cameron insisted the best solution to the crisis was to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. During a visit to Northamptonshire, he said: “We have taken a number of genuine asylum seekers from Syrian refugee camps and we keep that under review, but we think the most important thing is to try to bring peace and stability to that part of the world.

“I don’t think there is an answer that can be achieved simply by taking more and more refugees.”
Analysis How many refugees should Britain take?
Yvette Cooper’s call for 10,000 more places for people fleeing the Middle East is welcome, but the UK has the infrastructure and experience to take many more
Read more

But in a sign that the political temperature on the issue was rising, Cameron faced calls to do more from both the Catholic church and two of the Labour leadership contenders.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, said: “This is a disgrace. That we are letting people die and seeing dead bodies on the beaches, when together, Europe is such a wealthy place. We should be able to fashion a short-term response, not just a long-term response.

“It is no longer an abstract problem of people on the scrounge. It’s not. It’s people who are desperate for the sake of their families, their elderly, their youngsters, their children. And the more we see that the more the opportunity for a political response that is a bit more generous, is growing. What is screaming out is the human tragedy of this problem, to which we can be more generous.”

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary and Labour leadership candidate, accused the prime minister of turning his back on the worst migration crisis since the second world war.
Yvette Cooper: UK should take in 10,000 Middle East refugees
Read more

“When mothers are desperately trying to stop their babies from drowning when their boat has capsized, when people are being left to suffocate in the backs of lorries by evil gangs of traffickers and when children’s bodies are being washed to shore, Britain needs to act.

“It is heartbreaking what is happening on our continent. We cannot keep turning our backs on this. We can – and must – do more. If every area in the UK took just 10 families, we could offer sanctuary to 10,000 refugees. Let’s not look back with shame at our inaction.”

Cooper urged May to convene a conference of council leaders to discover how many refugees local authorities are prepared to take. The task of organising a conference is being handed to Citizens UK, the community campaign group, and there are signs that some Conservative-led councils are likely to offer help.
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The Conservative leader of Kingston upon Thames council, Kevin Davis, has already written to 50 Tory-led councils asking them to become involved in a scheme run by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, to help find private housing for refugees for a year.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary and another Labour leadership contender has demanded that the government make a Commons statement next week. He said the response of Cameron and his ministers had veered from the inadequate to the misjudged and was a stain on the nation’s conscience.

“Many of these refugees are children, fleeing the violence and horrors of war. The images we have seen of children washed up on beaches will leave no person unmoved. When Parliament returns next week, MPs must be given an opportunity to debate the Government’s handling of the crisis and the chance to make a judgement on whether Britain should accept a share of refugees,” he said.

Cameron does not want to join any Europe-wide resettlement programme for refugees, believing that if the UK became involved in a large-scale scheme, it would act as a magnet for other migrants and it would be impossible to distinguish economic migrants from refugees.

The prime minister said Britain was focused on stabilising and improving the countries where migrants and refugees came from and highlighted action the government was taking to improve security at the French port of Calais.

He said: “We are taking action right across the board, helping countries from which these people are coming, stabilising them and trying to make sure there are worthwhile jobs and stronger economies there.

“We are obviously taking action at Calais and the Channel, there’s more that we need to do and we are working together with our European partners as well. These are big challenges but we will meet them.”

Citizens UK, the community organising group, the Refugee Council and council leaders – including some from Conservative-run councils – are pressing ahead with holding a pledging conference about taking refugees fleeing the instability in the Middle East.

Neil Jameson, executive director of Citizens UK, said: “We are delighted Cooper has made her intervention, but this should not be a party-political issue. We think civil society can show there is a generosity in the British people, and with the help of churches, mosques and synagogues we can identify empty property in which refugees can be housed. The housing must not be public-sector housing because that would not be politically tenable.”

Citizens UK had been lobbying the government for more than a year to take more people under an EU-funded scheme that allowed refugees to be taken from UN camps and to be housed in the UK for a year.

Cooper has suggested a target of 10,000 refugees being taken by the UK – a figure endorsed by Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary and her rival for the Labour leadership. She also won the support of the Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, who said Wales “stands ready to play its full part”.

David Cameron: Britain 'should not take more Middle East refugees',
G,  2 September 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/
david-cameron-migration-crisis-will-not-be-solved-by-uk-taking-in-more-refugees

Cameron's immigration bill

to include crackdown

on illegal foreign workers

David Cameron to promise bill in Queen’s speech
that will make ‘Britain a less attractive place
to come and work illegally’

The Guardian

Thursday 21 May 2015

07.46 BST

Patrick Wintour

Political editor
 

David Cameron will try to brush off embarrassing net migration figures on Thursday by announcing details of a new immigration bill to be included in the Queen’s speech, which will propose a new criminal offence of illegal working that will allow police to seize the wages of anyone employed unlawfully.

It has been estimated that the backlog of people in Britain who have overstayed their visas and whose whereabouts are unknown is around 300,000, but it is not known how many are working. Cameron managed to survive the general election even though he once urged voters to kick him out if he failed to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands.

The last official quarterly net migration figures showed net migration was 298,000 last year, 54,000 higher than when he made the pledge in 2010.

Cameron promised in the Tory manifesto to keep the pledge, although he has also said he would be adding new metrics to test whether migration was being reduced.

In practice, his success in this parliament will not depend solely on new legislation but also on deeper trends in the European labour market and any agreements reached on tightening social security entitlements within the EU – one of his key targets in his renegotiation of the UK relationship with the rest of the EU.

The last published figures covered the 12 months to September 2014 and showed that immigration rose from 530,000 the previous year to 624,000, while emigration remained stable at 327,000.

In his latest speech on immigration – clearly designed to address the latest figures – Cameron will promise that the Queen’s speech will contain an immigration bill designed to bring the whole of government into the battle to reduce migration flows. He will promise the bill will make “Britain a less attractive place to come and work illegally”.

Migrants with current leave to remain who are working illegally in breach of their conditions may be prosecuted under the Immigration Act 1971 and be liable on summary conviction to a six-month custodial sentence and/or an unlimited fine.

But ministers say there is a loophole for migrants who entered illegally or have overstayed their leave and are not therefore subject to current conditions of stay.
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This new offence will address this gap and close a loophole whereby the wages of some illegal migrants fall outside of the scope of the confiscation provisions in the Proceeds of Crime Act, unlike those individuals who are working in breach of leave conditions.

The offence will apply to those who arrived illegally or those who entered the UK legally but then overstayed.

Cameron will say: “A strong country isn’t one that pulls up the drawbridge … it is one that controls immigration. Because if you have uncontrolled immigration, you have uncontrolled pressure on public services. And that is a basic issue of fairness.

“Uncontrolled immigration can damage our labour market and push down wages. It means too many people entering the UK legally but staying illegally. The British people want these things sorted.

“That means … dealing with those who shouldn’t be here by rooting out illegal immigrants and bolstering deportations. Reforming our immigration and labour market rules so we reduce the demand for skilled migrant labour and crack down on the exploitation of unskilled workers. That starts with making Britain a less attractive place to come and work illegally.

He will promise the bill will put “an end to houses packed full of illegal workers; stop illegal migrants stalling deportation; give British people the skills to do the jobs Britain needs”.

The main powers, many previously trailed but rejected by the Liberal Democrats, include new measures for councils to crack down on unscrupulous landlords and evict illegal migrants more quickly.

Banks will also be required to do more to check bank accounts against databases of people in the UK illegally.

The right to deport first and for the migrant to appeal later will be extended to all immigration appeals and judicial reviews. Satellite tracking tags will be placed on foreign criminals awaiting deportation so it is easier for Home Office officials to follow their location.

A new offence of illegal working will also be introduced to close a loophole that means people who are in the UK illegally cannot benefit from working and their wages will be given the same status as a proceed of crime so making it subject to seizure by police.

No businesses and recruitment agency will be permitted to recruit abroad without advertising in the UK.

In addition, a new labour market enforcement agency will established to crack down on the worst cases of labour market exploitation, such as workers being paid the minimum wage but then being housed in tied accommodation at extortionate rents.

Cameron's immigration bill to include crackdown on illegal foreign workers,
G, 21 May 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/20/
immigration-bill-to-include-crackdown-on-illegal-foreign-workers