UK accepts 1,500 asylum seekers from Syria

Britain has accepted 1,500 asylum seekers from Syria in the past year, the Deputy Prime Minister has disclosed.

The government has been criticised by politicians including Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, for refusing to admit Syrian refugees to Britain.

However, Nick Clegg said in the Commons that official estimates suggest that more than 1,500 Syrians came to Britain last year through the asylum system.

The Deputy Prime Minister told MPs in the House of Commons: "We have accepted about 1,500 asylum seekers. It is a fact that we have accepted hundreds upon hundreds of individual asylum seekers from Syria under our international asylum obligations.

"Of course we should do that. We have accepted hundreds of asylum seekers who have sought and been provided with refuge in this country under our international obligations.

"At the same time, I think that we should all, on all sides of this House, should be very proud of the fact that we, and the generosity of the British people, have led to more British assistance going, through £500 million of assistance, to Jordan and other front line states, to those communities in the region who are dealing with this terrible humanitarian crisis."

Last month Mr Farage, who has been at the forefront of the opposition to allowing migrants from Bulgaria and Romania unfettered access to the UK, said the position of those displaced by conflict is "very different".

He said: “I think refugees are a very different thing to economic migration and I think that this country should honour the spirit of the 1951 declaration on refugee status that was agreed.

“It was agreed with the UN and even through the European Court, which sadly has changed its role. But the original ideas of defining what a refugee is were good ones.

“I think actually there is a responsibility on all of us in the free West to try and help some of those people in Syria fleeing literally in fear of their lives.”

Labour has suggested that Britain should accept between 400 and 500 Syrians, including torture victims, women and girls.

The United Nations has called on the international community to offer not only humanitarian aid for refugees, but also resettlement opportunities outside the country.

The £500 million of official aid to Syria is the UK's largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis, with £217 million being spent inside Syria and £236 million in neighbouring countries.