Cameron to announce UK refugee plan

David Cameron will set out details of government plans to resettle more refugees from Syria, as France says it will take 24,000.

The prime minister has not yet said how many people the UK will accept but the total is likely to be more than 10,000.

He has said the refugees will come from camps bordering Syria rather than from among those already in Europe.

On Sunday Chancellor George Osborne said the international aid budget would be used to help councils house people.

The prime minister is also expected to touch on Syria and make a counter-terrorism announcement in a Commons statement, at 1530 BST.

European countries are dealing with a surge of people fleeing the Middle East and other regions, particularly from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

About 18,000 asylum seekers arrived in Germany over the weekend after an agreement with Austria and Hungary to relax asylum rules.

French President Francois Hollande has said France is ready to take in 24,000 people, as part of EU plans to welcome more than 100,000 refugees in the next two years.

Germany has said it will release billions of euros to help federal states and municipalities cope with the record numbers of migrants.

The UK has said it will not participate in a proposed mandatory EU programme to resettle migrants, and Cameron has said more must be done to stabilise their countries of origin instead.

However, calls for the UK to take in more refugees intensified after the publication of a picture of the body of a drowned three-year-old Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach.

HUMANITARIAN PROTECTION

A petition calling for Britain to take more refugees has received more than 420,000 signatures - although a petition saying no more immigrants should be allowed into the UK has received more than 82,000 signatures.

And MPs from all parties are taking part in a vigil in Parliament for victims of the Syrian conflict ahead of Cameron's statement.

On Friday, the prime minister said Britain would take refugees directly from the camps in countries bordering Syria - avoiding the need for them to put themselves in the hands of people traffickers.

The BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said Downing Street was not releasing a figure in advance of Cameron's statement but the PM would be more specific than in recent days - when he has talked of "thousands" being given refuge.

It is expected, he added, there will be a significant focus on children and orphans in a deliberate echo of the Kinder Transport scheme carried out by Britain during World War Two to rescue Jewish children.

There has been criticism of the PM's approach, with several Conservative MPs calling for more action and some political opponents saying his offer so far does not go far enough.

Yvette Cooper, the Labour leadership candidate and shadow home secretary, said on Monday that allowing 10,000 to 15,000 migrants settle in the UK would be "really helpful".

Although it has not been confirmed, it is expected Cameron's plan involves expanding the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation (VPR) scheme - under which 216 Syrians have been brought to the UK since March 2014.

CALL FOR SAFE ZONES

People brought to Britain under VPR have been granted Humanitarian Protection, a status normally used for people who "don't qualify for asylum" but would be at "real risk of suffering serious harm" in their home country.

They can stay for five years, have the right to work and access public funds. After five years they can apply to settle in the UK.

ANALYSIS BY BBC NEWS POLITICAL EDITOR LAURA KUENSSBERG

Ministers are loathe to do anything that makes the UK appear a more attractive destination for migrants - one said to me if the UK sends out a signal it's easy to come "more people will die in the water".

There has been a public outpouring of sympathy in the past few days. But that may well not last, and voters' appetite for large numbers of new arrivals is unlikely to be strong. Particularly when councils are already warning that they'd struggle to cope with the costs.

And remember, this government has already used up significant amounts of political capital promising to get immigration down, missing its own target again and again, but continuing to stick by it.