David Cameron today promised to welcome 'thousands' of Syrians living in UN refugee camps as he stepped up efforts to tackle the crisis.

The Prime Minister vowed that 'Britain will act with our head and our heart' as he announced plans to dramatically expand a scheme to resettle over 10 times more refugees in the UK.

The United Nations suggested the UK will take 4,000 more refugees from Syria, but Downing Street insisted no decision on numbers had been made.

In a bid to avoid a backlash from the public, Mr Cameron ruled out playing any part in an EU quota scheme and there will be no move to accept any of the thousands of people who have reached Europe already.

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David Cameron today promised to would welcome 'thousands' of Syrians living in UN refugee camps as he stepped up efforts to tackle the crisis

Mr Cameron announced the plans after holding talks with Portugese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho in Lisbon

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Mr Cameron used a visit to Portugal today to set out a commitment to take 'thousands more' people.

Details of the plan are still being thrashed out, after Downing Street was caught off guard by the extraordinary public and political reaction to harrowing images of three-year-old Ayan Kurdi who died with his brother and mother trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.

In Lisbon, Mr Cameron said: 'We have already accepted around 5000 Syrians and we have introduced a specific resettlement scheme, alongside those we already have, to help those Syrian refugees particularly at risk.

'As I said earlier this week, we will accept thousands more under these existing schemes and we keep them under review.

'And given the scale of the crisis and the suffering of the people, today I can announce that we will do more – providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees.'

He said the policy of taking those from the refugee camps would 'provide them with a direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey which has cost so many have lives'.

It is understood that the number will be in the 'thousands not the tens of thousands' and will see an expansion in a scheme which offers refuge to the most vulnerable fleeing violence in Syria.

However, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency appeared to pre-empt the process by publicly welcoming a plan for 4,000 more refugees to move to Britain.

'We obviously welcome very much the move to increase resettlement spaces for Syrians in the UK. Those spaces are going to be critical to the lives and future of 4,000 people,' said UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, adding that there was 'momentum' for other countries to follow Britain's example.

Downing Street vehemently denied that any decision had been made on numbers and insisted details of the scheme would only be announced next week.

Downing Street was caught off guard by the extraordinary public and political reaction to harrowing images of three-year-old Ayan Kurdi who died with his brother and mother trying to reach the Greek island of Kos

HOW SAMCAM WAS MOVED BY VISIT TO SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMP IN 2013 In 2013 Samantha Cameron travelled to Lebanon with Save The Children to meet families torn apart by the crisis in Syria David Cameron today insisted that 'as a father and a human being' he could not fail to be moved by the harrowing images of desperate refugees, including the lifeless body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach. But the Prime Minister is also said to have been influenced by his wife, Samantha, who visited a Syrian refugee camp in March 2013. On her first solo foreign trip, Mrs Cameron travelled to Lebanon to meet families torn apart by the crisis in Syria. She said at the time: ‘As a mother, it is horrifying to hear the harrowing stories from the children I met today. No child should ever experience what they have. ‘With every day that passes, more children and parents are being killed, more innocent childhoods are being smashed to pieces.’ Downing Street has previously denied Mrs Cameron had put pressure on the PM to take a harder line on military action in Syria. And when asked about the influence of his wife on refugee policy today, Mr Cameron sidestepped the question. Advertisement

Talks will continue over the weekend between ministers, officials and aid charities with full details expected next week.

Mr Cameron added: 'Alongside this, Britain will continue to work with partners to tackle the conflict in Syria, to provide support to the region, to go after the smuggling gangs exploiting these people and to save lives at sea.

'HMS Enterprise remains in the Mediterranean alongside the Border Force cutters and together with HMS Bulwark, they have now rescued more than 6700 people.

'Britain will act with our head and our heart providing refuge for those in need while working on a long term solution to the crisis.

'As I said earlier in the week, that means bringing an end to the conflicts that are driving so many to flee, including the bloodbath that has engulfed Syria.'

Since early 2011 the UK has granted asylum to almost 5,000 Syrians who have managed to reach Britain themselves. To claim asylum, a person has to be in the country.

Genuine refugees are expected to seek asylum in the first safe country to arrive in.

However, it can be difficult for people from the most dangerous parts of the world to reach the UK.

Anger: Migrants protest at a railway station in Hungary after their train was stopped by police and ordered to be taken to a refugee camp

Desperate: Furious at their treatment and feeling they had been tricked onto the train, some migrants held placards reading 'SOS' and 'Help us'

Around 300 people refused to board buses in Biscke – a town 22 miles from Budapest – after police stopped them reaching the Austrian border

HOW UK'S ASYLUM SYSTEM WORKS It would be easy to think from some of the attacks in recent days that Britain refuses to accept any refugees. In fact, since early 2011 the UK has granted asylum to almost 5,000 Syrians. To claim asylum in the UK, a person has to be in the country. Last year some 32,344 adults and their dependants from around the world applied in 2014, the highest annual number since 2004. In the first quarter of 2015, the figure was 7,435. Genuine refugees are expected to seek asylum in the first safe country to arrive in. However, it can be difficult for people from the most dangerous parts of the world to reach the UK. Under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme, refugees can apply to be resettled in the UK by being transferred from Syria. A total of 216 people have been resettled under scheme so far. Advertisement

Under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme, refugees can apply to be resettled in the UK by being transferred from Syria.

A total of 216 people have been resettled under scheme so far - a figure which has been seized on by critics in recent days.

Now, the government is preparing to dramatically extend the scheme, although no final figure has been agreed.

It follows intense political and public pressure on the Prime Minister to rethink his policy.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby urged Mr Cameron to 'respond with compassion' while Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman said it was 'deplorable' that the government was 'putting its head in the sand and showing itself to be heartless and out of touch'.

More than 340,000 people signed a petition calling for the UK to 'accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugee migrants'.

Several Tory MPs also broke cover to demand a change in government policy, including Nicola Blackwood who warned: 'We cannot be the generation that fails this test of humanity.'

While some councils including Liverpool and Kingston, Surrey have made offers to accept some refugees, ministers will have to avoid accusations that it is imposing Syrian families on areas where services are already stretched.

Mr Cameron is adamant that the impassioned pleas to accept more refugees will do nothing to stem the numbers fleeing North Africa.

He argues that only efforts to defeat ISIS and tackle trafficking gangs will deal with the problem in medium to long-term.

Mr Cameron is visiting Spain and Portugal today, on a trip designed to bolster support for his plans for EU reform ahead of his planned I out referendum.

But the talks have been overshadowed by the migrant crisis, with Germany, Austria and Italy warning that Britain's refusal to take more refugees was causing serious harm to Mr Cameron's chances of renegotiating EU membership.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said this week: 'The next financial framework negotiations are coming up

'When I think of the British, who have their own catalogue of demands, why should we do anything for them? Because, you have to say, solidarity is not a one-way street.'

EU leaders have drawn up a plan to relocate 160,000 refugees around the Continent – but Britain will remain exempt from taking any

BRITAIN SHOULD TAKE 25,000 REFUGEES, SAYS BLUNKETT David Blunkett Britain should take 25,000 refugees from Syria over the next six months., according to former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett. Britain should 'face the challenge of taking refugees in very large numbers ourselves', he told the BBC's Newsnight programme. Mr Blunkett said: 'I can say this with some authority i think because i was extremely tough all those years ago when I was Home Secretary. 'I think we have a moral obligation if we're going to lecture others and wring our hands to say that the kind of figure we should take over six months organised with the UN High Commission - in the region of 25,000 refugees. 'That is a fraction of what the Germans are taking and we should concentrate on those coming through Turkey, those persecuted and dejected from Syria and we should concentrate on women and children.' He added: 'I understand entirely that people do not want the borders open and do not want a situation where anything goes. How could i not understand that at a time when we had to take quite drastic measures. 'But this is on a different scale. This time we must be seen not to wash our hands and not pretend that good as it is our investment in the camps in the region is an alternative to overcoming the sheer blinding misery of women and children who have nowhere else to go.' Advertisement

Stephan Mayar, a spokesman for Mrs Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance, said that Britain's insistence that it is 'out of the club' in sharing the burden of migrants entering Europe could harm David Cameron's plans to win back powers from the EU.

The government is now trying to balance public demands for action with concern that opening the door to more refugees could act as an incentive to more people to try to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

Brussels has drawn up an emergency plan relocate 160,000 refugees across the EU. However, Britain has opted out of the scheme is not obliged to accept a single extra migrant.

Under the new scheme, migrants stranded in Italy, Greece and Hungary will be transferred to countries across the EU based on their population and economic wealth.

It will see Germany granting asylum to 35,000 refugees, France accepting 26,000 and Spain 16,000.

Even poverty-stricken Bulgaria and Romania will be expected to take thousands of families.

However, the UK – which refused to join the scheme when it was originally set up in May – will not have to take in any refugees despite being one of the largest and wealthiest countries in the EU.

If the UK were to take the same share as the rest of the EU it would be expected to grant asylum to around 17,000 refugees - or 11 per cent of the total number.

According to today's leaked EU document there are 54,000 asylum seekers in Hungary 39,600 in Italy, 66,400 in Greece.

European Council president Donald Tusk admitted there was a 'divide between the east and the west of the EU' over the proposal to force all countries to accept a share of the refugees.

The most outspoken critic of the forced relocation of refugees has been the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.

He warned the influx of Muslim migrants was threatening 'Christian roots' and would leave Europeans a 'minority on their own continent'.

Mr Orban described the wave of refugees as 'endless' and warned that 'many tens of millions' more would come if the EU did not protect its borders.

He spoke as hundreds of migrants, many of them refugees from the Syrian war, woke after a night on a packed train stranded at a railway station west of Budapest, refusing to go to a nearby camp to process asylum seekers.

Bob Geldof says he'll take in four migrant families as he lambasts politicians' response to crisis as a 'sickening disgrace'

Bob Geldof has offered to immediately take in four families as he expressed disgust at the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe.

The aid campaigner and singer said he would open the doors to his family home in Kent and his flat in London in a personal response to the shocking scenes on borders, beaches and railway stations.

The harrowing image of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi, who died with his brother and mother trying to reach the Greek island of Kos, has sparked an international outcry over the human cost of the crisis.

Musician Bob Geldof has offered to personally take in families as he expressed disgust at the migrant crisis

Speaking today, Mr Geldof said: 'If there's a new economy then there needs to be a new politics and it's a failure of that new politics that's led to this disgrace, this absolute sickening disgrace.

'I'm prepared - I'm lucky, I've a place in Kent and a flat in London - me and (partner) Jeanne would be prepared to take three families immediately in our place in Kent and a family in our flat in London, immediately, and put them up until such time as they can get going and get a purchase on their future.'

Geldof told Ireland's RTE Radio: 'I can't stand what is happening. I cannot stand what it does to us.'

The Boomtown Rats frontman has been involved in humanitarian work for almost 40 years, most notably with the organising of the Live Aid concert in 1985 and the Band Aid Christmas single.

The 63-year-old said the pictures of Aylan Kurdi's body and other distressing reports from borders and cities across Europe, were a source of shame.

He said: 'I look at it with profound shame and a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be. We are in a moment currently now that will be discussed and impacted on in 300 years time.'

Geldof said he was in his home last night and could not grasp the depth of the crisis and the limited response from governments when he decided he should put his money where his mouth is.

'I've known, you've known, and everyone listening has known that the b******* we talk about, our values, are complete nonsense,' he said.

'Once it comes home to roost we deny those values, we betray ourselves, but those values are correct, and it happens time and time again.

'So we are better than this, we genuinely are.'

The aid campaigner said he was 'sickened' by the 'new politics that's led to this disgrace' as he offered to take in migrant families

Geldof said he was on the Italian island of Lampedusa 12 years ago where he visited a refugee camp and spoke to the mayor who said every morning dead men, women and children were being washed up on the rocks.

The aid campaigner described himself as a migrant.

He warned 'environmental decays' will worsen the migrant and refugee crisis in coming decades.

'All of this is happening now. We must have the politics and the humanity to deal with it. It makes me sick and a concert won't do it,' he added.

It comes as David Cameron used a visit to Portugal today to set out a commitment to welcome 'thousands' of Syrians living in UN refugee camps in Britain as he stepped up efforts to tackle the crisis.

The Prime Minister vowed that 'Britain will act with its head and its heart' as he announced plans to dramatically expand a scheme to resettle over 10 times more refugees in the UK.

But crucially, he ruled out playing any part in an EU quota scheme and there will be no move to accept any of the thousands of people who have reached Europe already.

It follows intense political and public pressure on the Prime Minister to rethink his policy.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby urged Mr Cameron to 'respond with compassion' while Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman said it was 'deplorable' that the government was 'putting its head in the sand and showing itself to be heartless and out of touch'.