PM rejects Juncker refugee plan

The Prime Minister said the UK would stick to its “own approach” after EC president Jean-Claude Juncker suggested that all EU states, rather than just members of the Schengen borderless zone, should agree to share the burden.

And he warned that focusing on migrants who have already reached Europe would merely encourage more to come.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, Mr Cameron said: “I think the British approach will be very clear, which is this must be a comprehensive approach.

“If all the focus is on redistributing quotas of refugees around Europe, that won’t solve the problem, and it actually sends a message that it is a good idea to get on a boat and make that perilous journey.

“Of course Europe has to reach its own answers for those countries that are part of Schengen.

“Britain, which has its own borders and the ability to make our own sovereign decisions about this, our approach is to say yes, we are a humanitarian nation with a moral conscience.

“We will take 20,000 Syrians but we want a comprehensive approach that puts money into the camps that meets our aid commitments, that solves the problems in Syria, that has a return path to Africa that sees a new government in Libya. We have to address all these issues.”

Mr Cameron insisted he had spoken to German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande in recent days and they were clear that Britain was “playing its role”.

But he said more attention had to be paid to refugees still in the region around Syria. The “bigger reality” was that 11 million Syrians had been “pushed out of their homes, and just three pre cent had come to Europe”.

Responding to a suggestion from acting Labour leader Harriet Harman that the UK should be taking more than 4,000 Syrian refugees this year, Mr Cameron said there was “no limit”.

“We have to use our head and our heart. We have committed to taking 20,000 people, I want us to get on with that,” he said.

“There is no limit to the amount of people that could come in the first year, let’s get on with it.

“But let’s recognise we have to go to the camps, we have to find the people, we have to make sure they can be housed, we have to find schools for their children, we have to work with local councils and local voluntary bodies to make sure when these people come they get a warm welcome from Britain.”

Mr Cameron also dismissed claims that child refugees would be automatically kicked out of the UK when they reached the age of 18, insisting the “assumption” was they would be granted leave to remain.

In his State of the EU address, Mr Juncker said that Europe was “sought worldwide as a place of refuge”.

“This is something to be proud of, and not something to fear,” he said. “We can build walls and fences ... But imagine for a second if it were you, your children in your arms, the world you know torn apart around you. There is no price you would not pay, no wall you would not climb, no sea you would not go to sea in, no border you would not cross.”

Mr Juncker urged member states to adopt the Commission’s proposals on refugee relocation at a summit of interior ministers later this month.