Refugees Issues, Refugees issues, Reports
The claim: The government had committed to taking 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children from Europe, but it will now close the programme after taking in just 350.
Reality Check verdict: The government previously referred to a goal to bring 3,000 unaccompanied children to the UK but eventually passed an amendment that did not commit to a specific figure. Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill says the 350 figure meets the "intention and spirit" of the Dubs Amendment, but Lord Dubs disagrees.
Speaking on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, Labour peer Lord Dubs spoke of his disappointment that the government had "gone back on their word" on how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children would be brought to the UK from Europe.
The 3,000 figure was originally put forward in a campaign run by charity Save the Children.
And in January 2016, the then Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, said the government would commit to resettling increasing numbers of refugees, most of whom would be children, mentioning the 3,000 figure as a goal but without giving any figure as a commitment.
Then, in March 2016, Lord Dubs, who came to the UK himself as a child refugee fleeing the Nazis, tabled an amendment to the Immigration Bill, which would require the UK to take in 3,000 children who had been separated from their families.
This had strong support from all opposition parties and a number of Conservative MPs.
And it passed in the House of Lords by a significant margin at the end of March.
But when it went to the Commons in April, the Conservative government's position was to vote against the amendment, and it was rejected by a narrow margin.
Jul 29, 2023
It has been close to six years since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya faced a deadly genocide by Myanmar’s military and fled the country in search of protection and refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. The Rohingya population has been undergoing persecution, discrimination, arbitrary arrests, and atrocities in Myanmar for over seven decades. Their condition is alarmingly […]