ANDREW Bowie's claim that the UK has taken in “more Syrian refugees” than any other country in Europe does not align with official UN figures, The National can reveal.
The Tory MP declared on Thursday’s Good Morning Scotland that the resettlement scheme for Afghan refugees would be based on the UK’s “world-leading” Syrian refugee programme.
Defending the UK Government’s much-criticised immigration policy, Bowie went on: “No country in Europe took more Syrian refugees than the United Kingdom and that’s what we based [our Afghan policy] on and that’s how we’ve come to the figures and the timescales that we’ve come to.”
However, according to readily available data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UK is quite far down the list.
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One UNHCR article from March of this year says that there are more than one million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers currently being hosted in European countries. Of these, 70% are in just two countries: Germany and Sweden.
Germany has more than half (59%) of all the Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Europe.
Sweden is second hosting 11%, while Austria, Greece, the Netherlands and France host between 2 to 5 per cent each.
It adds: “Other countries host below 2 percent.”
While it is not clear where the UK falls on this ranking, it is at least seventh.
Further data from the UNHCR also identifies Germany and Sweden as having taken the most Syrian refugees.
A report published in the summer of 2020 stated: “Syria has been the main country of origin for refugees since 2014. At the end of 2019, there were 6.6 million Syrian refugees hosted by 126 countries worldwide. The vast majority (83%) remained in neighbouring countries or in the region ...
“Outside the immediate region, Germany (572,800) and Sweden (113,400) continued to host the largest Syrian refugee populations.”
The UNHCR report published in the summer of 2021 also puts Germany at the top of the European table. It states that the nation "hosted the third largest number [of refugees and aslyum seekers worldwide], almost 1.5 million, with Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers constituting the largest groups (44%)".
Bowie made his comments as part of a discussion on Afghanistan, where he was asked if taking in 20,000 Afghan refugees over five years was “sufficient”.
He replied: “I hope so, so the resettlement scheme is separate from the asylum scheme that we announced yesterday, so right now the safe passage we are offering people, we are getting as many people in that country who helped British authorities over the past 20 years directly out of Afghanistan.
“Yesterday’s scheme which was announced is to help any refugees who want to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, it is based on our world-leading Syrian refugee programme.
“No country in Europe took more Syrian refugees than the United Kingdom and that’s what we based it on and that’s how we’ve come to the figures and the timescales that we’ve come to.
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“But obviously these things are flexible and if it turns out we need to take more than 20,000 or there is more of a demand for places than we saw from Syria then the government will act accordingly.
“But we’re basing this on proven and tested programmes which have already been developed in the middle east and which we can roll out again and have used before.”
The UK closed the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) in March this year, after accepting 20,000 Syrian refugees into the country.
It is the largest formal resettlement programme that the UK has “undertaken in the modern era”, according to the UNHCR.
Outside of the VPRS, House of Commons library figures say that "an average of around 4300 Syrians" were granted asylum in the UK every year from 2014-2019.
The Scottish Conservatives did not respond to requests for comment.
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