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| Migrant crisis: UK must do even more to help refugees - George Osborne | Migrant crisis: UK must do even more to help refugees - George Osborne |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Britain "needs to do even more" to help refugees from Syria, Chancellor George Osborne has said. | Britain "needs to do even more" to help refugees from Syria, Chancellor George Osborne has said. |
| Speaking to the BBC, Mr Osborne called for a "fundamental rethink" of how the UK uses its international aid budget to deal with the "crisis on our doorstep". | |
| He said Britain would approach the challenge with "head as well as heart", suggesting money from the budget could be given to councils helping refugees. | |
| The PM has said the UK will take in "thousands" more refugees from Syria. | The PM has said the UK will take in "thousands" more refugees from Syria. |
| Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, Mr Osborne confirmed that David Cameron would be making a Commons statement on the refugee crisis on Monday. | |
| He would not confirm how many people the UK would take in, but said it would look at bringing refugees directly from Syria, rather than those who had already travelled to the EU. | |
| Mr Osborne said: "While helping people in desperate need, we should not encourage more families to make that desperately dangerous journey across the Mediterranean and so we think we should go directly to these refugee camps and help people and bring people from those camps to the United Kingdom. | |
| "We need to make an assessment of what our public services and infrastructure can support. | |
| "But let me say this, the foreign aid budget we have - and we've increased this foreign aid budget - can provide the support in the first year for these refugees, can help local councils with things like housing costs." | |
| Under existing schemes, the government offers financial support for Syrians resettled in the UK for 12 months. |