Greening: UK will not accept migrant relocation quotas

Thousands of migrants have arrived in Italy and Greece, but the UK will not accept quotas to resettle them

The UK will not be part of any EU plan to relocate thousands of African migrants who have arrived in Italy and Greece, the international development secretary has told the BBC.

Justine Greening said the government will not accept mandatory quotas.

The European Commission is expected to announce details of its plan to deal with the migrants on Wednesday.

Reports suggest it will call for a quota system for member states to relocate some 40,000 asylum seekers.

The UK has an opt-out which it has previously said it would use.

Many of the migrants arrived in southern Europe by boat in recent months.

'Work together'

The plan to use quotas to resettle those who have made it to Europe has caused controversy among several EU countries, including France and Spain.

Ms Greening told the BBC: "We don't accept having mandatory quotas or mandatory resettlement programmes.

"Our concern is that approach simply ends up acting as a pull for more migrants to make, what for many of them is a life and death decision to get on a boat that may not be sea worthy and over the past year 5,000 migrants have died at sea."

She said looking at why people were making the journeys was key.

"If you look at what is driving people to start these journeys in the first place, it's the hope of a better life," she said.

"And that's why the only real answer in the long term is to work together, as the international community, to tackle what is an international problem and to work together to deliver development and to level up the world so that we don't leave anyone behind, or leave anyone living in poverty in the future, as is happened in the past."

The issue was catapulted to the top of the EU agenda after hundreds of people were believed to have drowned when a boat carrying up to 700 migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea in April.

The UN estimates that 60,000 people have already tried to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa this year.

More than 1,800 migrants have died - a 20-fold increase on the same period in 2014.

The UK has deployed a warship - HMS Bulwark - and search and rescue helicopters to the waters between Libya and Italy.