Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to help co-ordinate (a) a European and (b) a wider international response to the refugee situation.

The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) told the House on 7 September that the UK would meet its moral obligations and take 20 000 Syrian refugees over the lifetime of this Parliament. He also said we are using our aid budget to alleviate poverty in those countries of origin, we are the only major country in the world who has kept our promise to spend 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product on aid, and that we are the second largest donor to the Syrian conflict, including providing over 18 million food rations, and providing clean water for 1.6 million.

The Prime Minister also announced on 4 September an additional £100 million in aid, taking our contribution to over £1 billion. Sixty million pounds of this additional funding will go towards helping Syrians still in Syria. The remainder will go to neighbouring countries – to Turkey, to Jordan and to Lebanon where one quarter of the population are Syrian refugees.

The UK is taking part in the UN’s programme to resettle refugees who have fled their countries of origin. Additionally the UK operates three resettlement schemes in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: Mandate; Gateway and the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Scheme.

We continue to work closely with our EU partners, to develop a comprehensive approach that will help reduce the pull factor. We are also seeking to disrupt those criminal gangs engaged in people smuggling ad trafficking. There will be an EU/Africa conference in Valletta in November. The UK is fully engaged with the preparations for it.