The Home
Office will work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to identify
"exceptional cases" from camps in Syria and neighbouring countries.
The UK is to
take 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020 - but campaigners want 3,000 children
to be taken from Europe.
Save the
Children said child refugees in Europe were "incredibly vulnerable.
The
government also said it was giving £10m to help vulnerable refugee minors
already in Europe; some could be brought to the UK "where it is in their
best interests.
Campaigners
welcomed the announcement on child refugees, but Labour warned about a
"false distinction between refugees in the region and refugees in
Europe". UKIP said £10m was a "miniscule amount
The UK has
already accepted about 1,000 refugees from Syria under the Vulnerable Persons
Resettlement Programme, which the government expanded last year.
But Prime
Minister David Cameron has come under pressure from Labour and the Liberal
Democrats, as well as from within his own party, to do more.
In
particular, he has faced calls to prioritise children who have been separated
from their families as a result of the five-year war in Syria, conflicts in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and large-scale migration from Eritrea.
Mr Cameron
has also been criticised for not signing up to the EU-wide resettlement and
relocation scheme for refugees.
The prime
minister told MPs on Wednesday that while the UK had given more financial
support than any other country to refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and
Turkey, more could be done.
The Home Office
has not put a figure on how many under-18s will be taken in as part of the
joint initiative with the UNHCR or over what period but it has confirmed those
accepted will be in addition to the existing 20,000 figure.
Sources have
indicated the numbers involved would not significantly increase the current
20,000 commitment.
The prime
minister has been under pressure - just as in the summer months when the full
scale of the migrant crisis became clear - to make more effort to help the most
vulnerable among the hundreds of thousands of people on the move.
In recent
days that pressure has taken the shape of calls from the Liberal Democrats and
Labour, and campaign groups like Save the Children, to open Britain's doors to
3,000 children, alone and potentially in danger on the migrant trail in Europe.
Just hours
after the PM was accused of a "disgraceful" tone towards those in
need - calling them a 'bunch of migrants' - the government has given a partial
answer to its critics.
Home Office
minister James Brokenshire said that the government would focus on children
whose needs could not be met in the region and "whose best interests would
be met through protection in the UK.
The
vast majority are better off staying in the region so they can be reunited with
surviving family members. So we have asked the UNHCR to identify the
exceptional cases where a child's best interests are served by resettlement to
the UK and help us to bring them here.
The UK,
which has given £1.1bn in humanitarian aid to Syria and neighbouring countries,
will set aside an additional £10m to help vulnerable refugee and migrant
children from Syria and other countries who have made their way to Europe.
The money,
from the overseas aid budget, will be channelled through NGOs and UN agencies
and aimed at children facing "additional risks", for instance by
building protection centres.
The
government has also said that some migrants and their dependents could be
allowed to come to Britain, under the terms of the Dublin convention on asylum,
where they already have family members living lawfully in the country.
Demeaning
suffering?
Kirsty
McNeil, from the charity Save the Children, said more needed to be done to help
child refugees in Europe.
Thousands of
children simply disappeared from the Italian system last year into the hands of
traffickers, or working in the sex trade or the drugs trade.
They
were sleeping rough in the parks or train stations and they were incredibly
vulnerable in the circumstances," she said.
David
Simmonds, from the Local Government Association, said councils would need extra
support to take care of more unaccompanied children.
The 3,000
figure was originally proposed by Save The Children, which said it would
represent a "fair share" of the estimated 26,000 children who arrived
in Europe in 2015 without any family.
The latest
move comes amid a political row over Mr Cameron's language on the refugee
crisis during Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions, when he suggested Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn had met a "bunch of migrants" during a visit to
Dunkirk last week.
Mr Corbyn
has urged the PM to apologise for his "dismissive language and tone"
which he said demeans people's suffering.
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