My hon. Friend, a former leader of Hillingdon Council, will be more expert on this matter than I am. In various phases, I have been on either side of the argument between the Home Office and local authorities, so I shall declare a position of neutrality on that, but he makes a valid point.
Lords amendment 11 is modest in its ambitions. It sets a number, which I have heard Ministers claim is a limit, but the amendment actually states:
“The Secretary of State must arrange for the resettlement in the United Kingdom of at least 10,000 refugees each year.”
So if the arrangements are there, the Secretary of State has met the terms. It is conceivable that in some years there will not be the need to resettle 10,000 refugees, but, sadly, looking around the world at the moment, I do not think that figure is at all unrealistic. This approach will have huge practical advantages because, as we have discussed, it will allow local authorities and others to plan ahead. As we see at the moment, this country is good at scrambling together a plan at the last moment, but for once let us do some proper forward planning.
2.30 pm
We have all heard people say often, “Britain has a proud tradition of accepting refugees”, and indeed the Minister did not fail in this duty in his opening remarks. We all use that phrase a lot and it is largely true, if we perhaps look at history at bit sporadically. Let us take this opportunity to put ourselves in that proud tradition and show that this House can live up to the generosity of spirit that the British people are showing to Ukrainian refugees today. In that spirit, I ask the House to support Lords amendment 11.