Thank you for contacting me about child refugees and the Dubs amendment.

The Government is undertaking the largest ever humanitarian response to the Syrian conflict. That involves welcoming 20,000 vulnerable Syrian nationals directly from the region in this Parliament and we have also pledged to resettle up to 3,000 vulnerable children and their family members from the Middle East and North Africa. Asylum or protection has already been given to over 10,000 Syrians since 2011. In the first nine months of 2016, more than 8,000 children were given refuge or remain to leave. According to EU figures, in 2016 the UK resettled the highest number of refugees than any other EU country. In addition, the UK is the second largest donor with £2.3 billion committed to the area which is supporting affected people with food, shelter, medical care and education.

Regarding unaccompanied children in Calais and Europe, after working with local councils it has been established that 350 can be appropriately accommodated on top of the approximately 4,500 unaccompanied children already in local authority care. 200 have already arrived and another 150 will be welcomed. We do not want to help the traffickers by encouraging people to make perilous journeys, a view we share with France.

To suggest that the UK is not helping with this crisis is far from the truth as the above has demonstrated.