Cameron rejects UK role in EC migrant redistribution plan

David Cameron has made clear that Britain will not participate in European Commission plans to redistribute 160,000 migrants around the continent from Italy, Greece and Hungary.

The Prime Minister said the UK would stick to its "own approach" after EC president Jean-Claude Juncker suggested that all EU states, rather than just members of the Schengen borderless zone, should agree to share the burden.

And he warned that focusing on migrants who have already reached Europe would merely encourage more to come.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons, Mr Cameron said: "I think the British approach will be very clear, which is this must be a comprehensive approach.

"If all the focus is on redistributing quotas of refugees around Europe, that won't solve the problem, and it actually sends a message that it is a good idea to get on a boat and make that perilous journey.

"Of course Europe has to reach its own answers for those countries that are part of Schengen.

"Britain, which has its own borders and the ability to make our own sovereign decisions about this, our approach is to say yes, we are a humanitarian nation with a moral conscience.

"We will take 20,000 Syrians but we want a comprehensive approach that puts money into the camps that meets our aid commitments, that solves the problems in Syria, that has a return path to Africa that sees a new government in Libya. We have to address all these issues."