No extra money was found for the overseas aid budget to support Syrian refugees, Chief Minister Howard Quayle told the House of Keys.

And Mr Quayle was quizzed by Ayre and Michael MHK Tim Baker over whether funding has been reduced to other aid organisations as a result.

It was announced last month that the island won’t take in vulnerable Syrian refugees under the UK’s resettlement scheme.

Instead, an extra £973,000 has been allocated from the international development budget to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

In the Keys, Mr Quayle confirmed that the £973,000 came from the existing international development budget, with most of that sum resulting from an underspend in 2016-17 and a small proportion coming from the 2017-18 budget.

All funding commitments for international development projects and organisations that have been made to date will continue to be honoured, he insisted.

Mr Baker asked why there had been close to £1m underspent.

’Did this relate to local charities who would normally have received funding from this budget not having received it in this financial year?’ he asked.

The Chief Minister explained that the Council of Ministers had recently reviewed the way international development funds are delivered.

This was done undertaken to streamline administrative processes and governance, and ’ensure that our funding is used effectively,’ he said, adding there was a need to ensure due diligence and avoid funding being misused following the introduction of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

But the review resulted in a delay to the calls for applications from the Small Grants funding stream, which usually takes place between November and February - and this led to the underspend.

’Given the understandable strength of feeling from both the Manx public and charities about the plight of the Syrian refugees, Council took the decision to use this underspend to provide life-saving and humanitarian aid,’ he said.

He said 11 small charities were funded in 2015-16, five of which have been raising funds for Syrian refugee aid.

Daphne Caine (Garff) said the fact this was not extra money was ’not impressive’. She asked if we were playing our part, given that the Isle of Bute, with a population of 4,700, has taken in 15 Syrian refugees.

Mr Quayle said it was felt that there was better value in looking after thousands of people with medical supplies, tents and food. But he said he did not believe the £2.4m allocated to overseas aid is enough and CoMin was putting a case to Treasury for increased funding.