The Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Programme, sometimes referred to as a Relocation Scheme, is a programme of the United Kingdom government that plans to resettle 20 000 Syrian refugees from

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

s in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey over the period from September 2015 to May 2020. It was first announced in January 2014 and in September 2015 the expansion to 20,000 refugees was made. It is run in partnership between the UK

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

, the

Department for International Development The Department for International Development (DFID) was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid ...

, the

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for housing, communities, and local government in England. It was established in May 2006 ...

and NGOs such as

Refugee Action Refugee Action is an independent national charity founded in 1981 that provides advice and support to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and campaigns for a fairer asylum system. It is governed by a board of trustees chaired by Penny Lawrence. ...

. Only 2,659 Syrian refugees were resettled through the programme by the end of June 2016. The National Audit Office estimated the Programme's cost at £1,112 million. Syrians are only granted 5 years humanitarian protection and not indefinite leave to remain. In September 2018, following a changing military situation in north-west Syria and the ending of UK funded projects in the area, the government announced some former White Helmets (Syria Civil Defence) members would be included in the scheme, and resettled in Britain. On 17 June 2019, the British Home Secretary,

Sajid Javid Sir Sajid Javid (; born 5 December 1969) is a British former politician who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from June 2021 to July 2022, having previously served as Home Secretary from 2018 to 2019 and Chancellor of the ...

, announced that from 2020, a new resettlement scheme would be introduced, bringing the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme and the

Gateway Protection Programme The Gateway Protection Programme was a refugee resettlement scheme operated by the Government of the United Kingdom in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and co-funded by the European Union (EU), offering a ...

into a single programme with an initial quota of 5,000 people. The government stated that "the new programme will be simpler to operate and provide greater consistency in the way that the UK government resettles refugees". The start of the UK's new resettlement scheme in 2020 will also see all those arriving to the UK via Community Sponsorship counted in addition to the government's own resettlement targets. The new UK Resettlement Scheme started in February 2021. The programme's budget from 1 January 2015 to the end of 2020 was £177.6 million.

References

British involvement in the Syrian civil war Immigration to the United Kingdom Refugees in the United Kingdom United Kingdom border control Refugees of the Syrian civil war {{UK-gov-stub

See also

References