The United Kingdom will be accepting student asylum seekers as well as extracting wounded and ill children from Gaza, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Foreign Minister David Lammy stated in a Monday House of Commons session.
As part of the Labor government’s proposal for asylum policy reforms amid controversy about unchecked immigration and criminality at asylum hotels, Cooper said that the UK would be giving Gaza student asylum seekers “fully-funded scholarships and places at UK universities so they can start their studies in autumn this year.”
He added that the students from Gaza would receive expedited visas with biometric checks before their arrival. A similar framework would be established for other refugee students in the future.
“We will set out plans to establish a permanent framework for refugee students to come study in the UK so that we can help more talented young people fleeing war and persecution find a better future, alongside capped and managed ways for refugees to work here in the UK,” said Cooper.
Lammy and Cooper said that their government was also bringing Gazan children in need of medical care to the UK to receive treatment from UK National Health Service specialists. The children and their families are also expected to be given biometric checks before arrival.
“We’re also taking immediate action to rescue children who have been seriously injured in the horrendous onslaught on civilians in Gaza, so they can get the health treatment they need,” said Cooper.
First Gazans will arrive in coming weeks
Lammy expected that the first patients would arrive in the coming weeks, but noted that extracting people from a war zone is complex and dependent on Israeli permission. The foreign minister assured that he was pressing his Israeli counterparts on the matter.
Besides evacuating select children, Lammy said that London would also commit 15 million pounds for medical care in Gaza and the region. He said that the UK had already given around 250m. pounds in development assistance since the Israel-Hamas War began.
Lammy called for a massive humanitarian aid effort to address a “famine” and an “unimaginably bleak” situation in the enclave.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick on August 9 criticized reports that the Labor government would bring ill children from Gaza, writing in The Telegraph that the UK should help Gaza’s children but not settle them in the British Isles.
Jenrick had rejected such proposals in 2023 because of the radicalism rampant in Gazan society that had brought neighboring Arab states to the decision to close their doors to Palestinian refugees. The conservative politician advocated instead to ensure more aid and medical supplies reached people in need in Gaza.
Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe wrote on X/Twitter on Monday that the country “must not accept a single ‘asylum seeker’ from Gaza” because “it is simply not safe.”