Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen 12.39pm GMT DOCTORS OF THE WORLD, a charity providing healthcare to refugees, says the government should not be excluding unaccompanied child Syrian refugees in camps in France from its announcement today. This is from Leigh Daynes, its executive director. It’s great more unaccompanied refugee children will be helped across Europe, but actions must include those children stuck in miserable, freezing conditions in Calais and Dunkirk. These children are enduring a horrible winter, their physical and mental health suffering as a result, and they must be included in the government’s new resettlement programme. 12.31pm GMT My colleague Rowena Mason was at the Number 10 lobby briefing. The prime minister’s spokesman confirmed that Britain would take some unaccompanied child Syrian refugees who are in Greece or Italy if they have family links with the UK. Here is more detail from the spokeman’s briefing. Ultimately, we will be guided by the UNHCR so we are deliberately not putting a figure on it. If you look at what the UNHCR has said on this, broadly they prefer to keep unaccompanied children in the region because that is where they are from and there is a prospect of reaching a peaceful political settlement that means they can return home. But clearly there are some vulnerable children who the UNHCR will decide it is the best course of action for them to leave the region and those are the children we are looking at. It is simply because we are looking at those areas where you see a large amount of refugees arriving and we are trying to protect children as much as possible from exploitation and trafficking. We’re very deliberately not setting a target. It is is about identifying children that most need our help. We feel it is right to work closely with the Italian and Greek authorities to identify those who most need help. Continue reading...
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