Tim Farron may be coming towards the end of his tenure as leader of the Liberal Democrats but he continues to play an important role as an MP in the House of Commons.

Earlier on today he questioned the Minister of State for Immigration, Brandon Lewis over the government’s responsibility in relation to their duty under s. 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 that can be found below:

Section 67 is also known as the Dubs scheme.

This is also known as the Dubs scheme after Lord Dubs who himself came to the UK as a child refugee before World War 2 broke out.

The government was not keen on the introduction of section 67 but it nevertheless became part of the Immigration Act 2016 after getting passed in the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

The provision has become the subject for criticism recently because the government has done very little to help child refugees since the Act received Royal Assent and a new arbitrary deadline set by the government means that children must have arrived before 20th March 2016 in order to be eligible.

Lewis responded by noting that the UK government did not want to encourage refugees in such a situation to risk the journey to mainland Europe but this answer belies a seemingly wilful ignorance that the people in these situations have any choice in the matter.

The government regularly trumpets its large international aid budget and rightly so. We should be proud that the UK does so much to help those who are affected war and poverty but if we do not match the financial contribution with a practical demonstration of our commitment can we truly claim to have the moral high ground or is this just a case of throwing money at problems and hoping they go away?