Yesterday the Prime Minister set out the Government's plans for the UK to take more refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa. As well as resettling individuals and families the Government has also set out how it intends to further increase aid to the region, where the UK is already the second largest bi-lateral donor. You can see more details of the Prime Minister's statement here. What this means for the Vale of White Horse remains unclear. The Government has not yet set out how and where refugees will be resettled around the country. There are currently around 50 unaccompanied refugee children in the county being looked after by Oxfordshire County Council. The Government is rightly focusing on children who have been orphaned or separated from their parents due to conflict, undoubtedly some of the most vulnerable victims who we can reach out to help. The Local Government Association is seeking funding from central government on behalf of councils to support refugees and it seems that the Government is committed to providing this funding, in the short term at least. There will of course be many things that public bodies can do within existing resources and we will naturally seek to do our part if called upon to do so. In the context of Oxfordshire's housing crisis The housing crisis in Oxfordshire is widely understood and there is a real issue of the availability of housing to accommodate refugee families regardless of funding. The Vale currently has 1,272 people on our housing register deamed to be in real or urgent need of housing, and as of last week we also had 15 households in hostel or emergency bed and breakfast accommodation. Today the Oxford Mail is reporting that hostels in the City are also at capacity. Whilst funding from government is important, the biggest challenge that Oxfordshire will face is one of housing and infrastructure, the same issues that face residents day in and day out. It is right that Britain should remain a safe haven for those freeing persecution, local authorities in the county will have to pull together to resolve the practical and not just financial issues relating to accommodating refugees as part of the Government's scheme. Tackling the problem at source The Prime Minister has made much of the need to tackle the causes of the refugee crisis rather than just the symptoms. The vast number of people moving across eastern and central Europe have undertaken an unimaginable journey to flee Syria and other areas of conflict. Those who have arrived in Europe are however now safe from persecution. There is a huge challenge for countries within the Schengen Area of how to deal with these incredible numbers of people arriving, but this is largely a political rather than humanitarian issue to be resolved by those countries. The British Government is quite right to focus on those in refugee camps in and around Syria. These camps are run by the UNHCR and the UK continues to use internationally agreed UN standards for identifying those who should be resettled, particularly unaccompanied children. Britain has been and continues to be one of the largest supporters of these camps. The shocking images of a Syrian boy laying dead on the beach reignited the current debate on refugees, but let us not forget that he died as a result of the perilous journey that many tens of thousands of people feel they need to undertaken, not directly as a result of the civil war which his family were fleeing. Anything that can be done to help people near to their homes without adding the additional perils of a danerous journey at the mercy of people traffickers must be a good thing. Andrew Mitchell's proposal of UN Safe Haven's being established inside Syria certainly merits serious consideration.