International aid budget to help fund refugees response: Osborne

Britain's international aid budget will be used to help fund the Government's promised influx of "thousands more" Syrian refugees, Chancellor George Osborne has said.

Mr Osborne said that the money from the UK's £12 billion-a-year aid spending will be diverted to local authorities to help them cover the costs of housing people from the refugee camps bordering Syria.

Speaking on BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show, he said that it was part of a "fundamental re-think" of Britain's aid policy, which would see more support directed towards the region.

"The foreign aid budget that we have can provide the support for the first year for these refugees, to help the local councils with things like housing costs. We will deploy the foreign aid budget to help with the costs of these refugees," he said.

"We have got a £12 billion aid budget, we spend £250 million on those countries like Syria, Jordan and Turkey. We have got to have a fundamental re-think of how we are using this budget.

"This budget is tied to our GDP, our GDP is going up, let's use the additional money very specifically on the challenges that Britain faces, one of which is this crisis on our doorstep."