Plans to widen scheme helping refugees in UK

A scheme which enables community groups to help refugee families settle and integrate into the UK could be widened out under new government proposals.

The Community Sponsorship Scheme provides refugees with support from a group of residents who source affordable accommodation and help with essentials such as learning English and accessing work.

The Pickwell Foundation in North Devon said it was helping co-design a proposal for named sponsorship, which would allow communities to choose refugee families they think will be a good fit with them without some of the current restrictions.

The Home Office said further details would be "shared in due course".

Susannah Baker, director for the refugee and asylum programme at the Pickwell Foundation and chair of the Community Sponsorship Alliance, said the scheme would "allow communities to choose who they wanted to welcome to the UK".

She added the details are still yet to be worked out in terms of the timescale, the funding structure, the eligibility criteria and the countries it could welcome people from.

"I would love to see humanitarian protection extended across the world to the people and places which most need it," Baker said.

"Sponsorship alone cannot stop the boats, but what we do know is people don't make that journey unless they have to.

"Named sponsorship is a safe way to come to the UK, not just in terms of the journey but also the communities into which they arrive."

Baker hoped the number of people forced to take the more dangerous routes will reduce once the scheme expands.

Khadeja Alamary, 38, arrived in the UK with her husband and three children in 2017 after fleeing Syria and living in camps in Jordan for four years.

"The bombs were everywhere. We spent one week in the basement which wasn't fit for humans. It was really scary," she said.

The former teacher was given the option to resettle in North Devon under the UK resettlement scheme.

Her children are in school, her husband has retrained as an electrician and she is working for the Pickwell Foundation helping other refugees settle into a new life in the area.

Alamary said: "With each family coming over, I see myself arrive again.

"I just remember how I really needed the care and the love and compassion.

"I would like to help rebuild their life as the community rebuilt mine."

Jane Kivlin, who is part of a group sponsoring one family in North Devon, said her role is to help with any health needs such as registering with a GP.

"I don't think you can ever underestimate how difficult it is to make that decision to leave everything that is familiar and to come here," she said.

"They have never complained, they have never made difficult demands and they have been very generous in hospitality."

The government oversees the Community Sponsorship Scheme, which one of a number of refugee resettlement programmes.

In May 2025, Home Secretary Shabana Mamood said she hoped to build on this model.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "As part of the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in decades, we are proposing transformative changes to safe and legal routes which will fundamentally reshape how we provide opportunities for refugees through sponsorship."