THE UK Government has been urged by the SNP to boost its efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in Britain amid fears that the target of accommodating up to 20,000 by the end of the decade might not be met.
The call is made in a letter to Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, by Joanna Cherry, the Nationalists’ Justice and Home Affairs spokeswoman, and supported by the Scottish Refugee Council, which warns that, with fewer than 4,500 refugees resettled under the Syrian Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement scheme to date, the UK Government could fail to meet its resettlement target “by some way”.
Earlier this month, official figures showed Scotland, with 1,147 Syrian refugees, had taken in more than any other part of the United Kingdom in the first year of the Government's expanded resettlement scheme. A total of 4,162 people were resettled across the UK under the initiative in the year to the end of September.
At the time the numbers were released Downing Street expressed confidence that the 20,000 target would be met by 2020.
Ms Rudd praised the support of local authorities, the devolved administrations, and the “tremendous goodwill of the British people,” which, she said, had been paramount in helping to resettle so many vulnerable people who had fled conflict.
"The hard work will continue throughout this Parliament as we provide those, who have been traumatised and damaged by war with a safe and secure environment and the chance to rebuild their lives," she added.
However, Ms Cherry, the MP for Edinburgh South West, stressed how the UK Government’s 20,000 target was the “very minimum we should expect” given the scale of the humanitarian crisis and the comparative efforts of other countries.
She claimed that with the situation in Syria worsening and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimating that almost five million refugees had already fled the country, the UK Government’s response had simply not matched the scale of the crisis.
She pointed out how Canada, a country with half the population of the UK, had taken more than 35,000 Syrian refugees in 2016 alone while Germany was expecting to have taken in around 300,000 this year.
“As families across the UK enjoy the comfort of the festive season we must not forget the millions of Syrian families who have had their lives torn apart and who will face Christmas in crisis. The world’s response to the atrocities and unimaginable horror of the war in Syria has not matched the devastating scale of the humanitarian crisis,” said Ms Cherry.
She went on: “The UK Government in particular must now significantly step up its resettlement efforts in order to avoid missing its target of resettling 20,000 refugees by 2020; the very minimum we should expect given the larger and faster contribution that other countries are making.
“As we have said time and again Scotland stands ready to do its bit; we have already welcomed well above our population share of those Syrian refugees resettled in the UK and we are willing to do more but the UK Government cannot shirk its responsibilities and the Home Secretary must take urgent action now,” added the SNP spokeswoman.
John Wilkes, the Chief Executive of Scottish Refugee Council, stressed how his organisation strongly supported the call for the UK Government to settle more refugees and play its part in helping to deal with the ongoing crisis in Syria.
“The response by communities, charities and local authorities across Scotland over the last year in welcoming those Syrian refugees who have arrived so far demonstrates the strong public support that exists to help refugees.
“Scotland has taken over a third of those refugees who have come to the UK in the first year supported by the leadership shown by the Scottish Government in co-ordinating this effort in Scotland. Scotland and the UK can and should do more,” he added.
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