Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many community groups have signed up to the Community Sponsorship scheme since it was launched.

The number of people who have been resettled under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme is published in the quarterly Home Office immigration statistics. Since the scheme began in January 2014 a total of 5,706 people have been resettled in the UK to the end of December 2016. The figure includes those Syrians resettled with a community sponsor during this period.

We have seen considerable interest in the scheme from across the UK and are working with a number of groups as they develop their plans. Supporting a vulnerable resettled family is a significant responsibility and it is only right that we carefully assess every sponsoring organisation. We will, therefore, not be providing a running commentary on numbers that have been resettled with a community sponsor or how many community groups have signed up to the scheme.