Urgent: Please ensure that Palestinians from Gaza are included in the first phase of Named Community Sponsorship 

The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP

Prime Minister 

10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AA

Secretary of State for the Home Department 

Home Office 

2 Marsham Street

London SW1P 4DF 

Dear Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Dear Home Secretary,

As you take up office as Prime Minister, we write to welcome the Government’s new Named Community Sponsorship route, announced by the Home Secretary and due to open for applications this autumn. A scheme that enables communities to take direct responsibility for welcoming refugees is a significant and hopeful step, and we want it to succeed. 

We understand that the first phase of implementation, expected to be announced shortly, will identify which groups of refugees are prioritised at the outset. Public reporting has suggested that Sudanese and Eritrean nationals are likely to be among those included. We have seen no indication that Palestinians from Gaza will be part of the first cohort, and we are deeply concerned that they may be excluded. 

We do not raise this to diminish the urgent claims of any other group. The humanitarian crises in Sudan and Eritrea are grave. We raise it because the humanitarian situation in Gaza is among the gravest in the world today, because many Palestinian families have longstanding family and community links with the United Kingdom, and because communities across the UK are already ready and willing to sponsor them. 

Named Community Sponsorship is intended to harness the commitment and capacity of communities prepared to welcome refugees. In the case of Palestinians from Gaza, that commitment already exists. Faith communities, refugee organisations and local community groups stand ready to provide practical support for families rebuilding their lives. Including Palestinians from Gaza in the first phase would therefore reflect not only humanitarian need but also the practical readiness that is central to the success of the scheme. 

We were reassured to hear your statement on Israel's war in Gaza, your shock at the suffering of the people of Gaza, and your regret and apology that the Labour Party's response had been insufficient. 

Including Palestinian families from Gaza in the Named Community Sponsorship scheme may provide the Labour government a unique opportunity to support this statement with deeds, to demonstrate Labour’s care about the plight of Gaza's residents and to take humanitarian action to provide sanctuary and relief to a small percentage of Palestinian families, who have communities across the UK ready to welcome them and help them integrate here. 

We recognise that this is a sensitive and contested area of policy, and we are not asking the Government to take a position on the wider conflict. We are asking for one specific and practical humanitarian decision: that Palestinian families from Gaza, subject to the same security, criminality and health checks as any other applicant, be included among those eligible for Named Community Sponsorship from the first phase. 

We realize that the announced scheme would operate in partnership with UNHCR, who will determine the refugee status of the sponsored individuals; however, since neither UNHCR nor UNRWA can register Palestinian refugees to come to the UK at this stage, the standard referral pathway may not extend to Gazans and they would be effectively excluded. Therefore, we are asking for an  alternative mechanism for screening Gazans to be established. 

If the Government concludes that this is not possible, we respectfully ask that it publish the reasons for that decision together with a clear timetable for the inclusion of Palestinian families from Gaza. 

We believe this would command support across faith communities and among organisations with long experience of refugee sponsorship. It would demonstrate that the scheme is guided by humanitarian need, practical readiness and fairness.

Given the urgency of the timetable, we would be grateful for an opportunity to meet with you before the first-phase announcement. We suggest that such a meeting include representatives of Communities for Palestinians UK and Citizens UK, together with a small delegation of the undersigned, so that we can discuss the practical case for including Palestinian families from Gaza in the initial phase of the scheme. 

We look forward to your early response. 

Yours sincerely,