Government under fire from backbenches over decision to close Dubs scheme

Ministers claim they made the controversial decision to close a resettlement scheme for child refugees because they feared it is luring vulnerable youngsters to a 'watery grave'.
Immigration minister Robert GoodwillImmigration minister Robert Goodwill
Immigration minister Robert Goodwill

The defence came as the Government faced a fierce backlash from its own backbenches over the move, after it emerged the UK took in just 350 children instead of the 3,000 initially anticipated.

In an opposition day debate in the Commons on child refugees, ministers faced accusations of slammed the door shut on some of the world’s most desperate children

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But the Government has said the scheme attracted children to make the perilous journey across Europe, driving them into the hands of traffickers.

Home Office Minister Robert Goodwill said: “The whole point of the Government’s approach is to help people in the region to prevent them making that perilous journey.

“In the majority of cases these aren’t orphan children, these are children whose parents are sending them forward into a very hazardous journey.

“And indeed, one looks at the mortality in the Mediterranean where those children make that journey, pull factors – I’ve got to say – encourage people to make those journeys and many people sadly end in a watery grave.

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Earlier in the debate, the Tory MP for Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey Cox, argued the Government had a moral and legal duty to provide more support for children arriving on the shores of Greece and Italy.

He warned ministers it was “the cruellest of charades to acknowledge an obligation and not to carry out that obligation... with a full sense of responsibility.”

And Yvette Cooper, chair of the Home Affairs committee, warned that human trafficking would only increase if desperate refugees could not use safe and legal channels to get to the UK. She added that “many people around the country” were disappointed by the end of the Dubs scheme.