Council chiefs have agreed to support the UK government with re-locating locally employed staff who have been supporting the UK within Afghanistan.

However, the East Ayrshire Council leader, Douglas Reid will write to both the Scottish and UK governments to request extra funding be made available to ensure the council can afford to accommodate the new arrivals.

At a meeting of the East Ayrshire Cabinet earlier today (Wednesday, August 25) he said: “The key thing is resources and that we’re able to support it.”

It does not mean that the council will be taking on any additional refugees, as the promise to resettle Afghans will be delivered under the council's pre-existing commitment to house 50 refugees, as agreed in 2019.

A council spokesperson clarified this for the Chronicle: “In terms of the 2015 refugee settlement agreement, we have fulfilled our commitment to support 50 refugees.

“In December 2019 we agreed to support further resettlement of up to 50 refugees, but  due to the pandemic a large number of pre-arranged flights were cancelled.

"The focus is now on restarting flights and resettling priority cases and we can confirm that the support for Afghan resettlement will form part of this previously agreed figure of 50 refugees.

"There will be no increase to these numbers but we will encompass various resettlement cohorts within this number going forward."

The cabinet also agreed to expand the number of countries from which it accepts refugees, previously the UK government had focused on resettling people from the Middle East and North Africa, but that has now been widened to include refugees from around the globe.