Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to the Prime Minister’s announcement that he would “modestly expand” the Government programme to resettle vulnerable Syrian refugees, said:

“The Government should be providing help right now to many more refugees than have been helped so far.

“My message to the Prime Minister is that he needs to get on with it. These are among the most vulnerable refugees, people fleeing unspeakable violence, and we’ve been calling for the Government to take more refugees for many months.

“Syria is the humanitarian catastrophe of our generation. Most people need help in neighbouring countries and Britain is rightly setting an example in providing aid to the nearly four million Syrian refugees in the region.

“But so far the British government has turned its back on the far smaller number of refugees the UN is trying to resettle outside of the region. Only 187 people have come to the UK, when the Government pledged far more. Britain should be proud of our long history of helping those fleeing persecution, yet so far the Government has let people down.”