WEST Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger this week voted in the Commons to reject a plan for Britain to accept 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian child refugees who had travelled to seek a new life in Europe.

Mr Liddell-Grainger and Taunton Deane MP Rebecca Pow were among the 294 MPs who voted to throw out the bill, which failed by 18 votes.

The amendment to the Government’s Immigration Bill had been proposed by Labour peer Lord Dubs, who had arrived in the UK as a child refugee from the Holocaust in the 1930s

Mr Liddell-Grainger told the Free Press: “We have already taken children in and will continue to do so, so no-one can call us inhumane.

“But it is quite wrong to say we had to take these children solely from Syria when there are equally child refugees from many other countries looking for a home in Europe.

“The other point is that responsibility for looking after these children will fall on the county councils, which will inevitably incur additional costs as a result.

“And at the moment there is no indication whatever that the Government intends to make additional grants available to cover those costs, so the Bill would fall directly on Council Tax payers.”

Lord Dubs said he would make another attempt to force the Government’s hand when the Bill returns to the Lords.