The Government must fully fund councils' costs in helping refugees

摘要

Prime Minister Anthony Eden's wife used to say, at the peak of the Suez Crisis, that the River Nile flowed through her Downing Street sitting room. After last week's storm over the refugee crisis it seems the rivers of Babylon are flooding through Local Government House. It was inevitable as the public and media demanded that 'something must be done' and the prime minister plucked figures out the air about numbers now eligible to settle here, that sooner or later hard-headed practicalities must intervene. Where would the refugees live? Is there vacant housing and if so, where? Are there school places for the children? What happens if they don't want to live in the places offered I to them? Inevitably these become local authority concerns but central government has form when it comes to making announcements that involve councils and then passing the buck.