NICOLA Sturgeon will this afternoon have talks with Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond about Scotland’s contribution to the UK's response to the refugee crisis.

The talks, expected in Whitehall at the Foreign Office, take place as Britain this week is due to give sanctuary to more asylum-seekers as part of the first tranche of an additional number taken from refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Thus far, the UK Government has steadfastly refused to say how many will be arriving and where they will be accommodated.

David Cameron has announced that the UK during the next five years will take up to 20,000 additional asylum-seekers, which is calculated to mean that Scotland will take around 2000. The First Minister has made clear an acceptance of 1000 refugees north of the border should only be considered as Scotland’s first response to the crisis, suggesting a larger number would be accepted in the months ahead.

Since the civil war began in Syria in 2011, Britain has taken in almost 5000 Syrian refugees but has come in for criticism for accepting only around 200 under the current United Nations resettlement programme.

Holyrood sources confirmed Ms Sturgeon would be having talks with Mr Hammond today in London with the refugee crisis at the “top of their agenda”.

The First Minister has already announced funding of £1 million to help with Scotland's response to the refugee crisis; this will help with the work of the taskforce the Scottish Government has established with other bodies.

In the coming days, the refugee crisis will continue to dominate headlines as not only will the first of the additional asylum-seekers be arriving in Britain but also tomorrow:

*the PM will hold talks on the issue with President Hollande over dinner at his country residence of Chequers;

*Mr Cameron will attend a special EU summit on the crisis in Brussels on Wednesday evening;

*Home Secretary Theresa May will tomorrow attend the EU’s home affairs council, which will look at Europe's response to the refugee crisis, particularly those members in the Schengen travel area and

*Mr Hammond will be in the Belgian and French capitals this week to discuss the refugee issue with his counterparts.

Mr Cameron’s spokeswoman stressed how the PM wanted a “comprehensive approach” to the crisis and would raise what more the EU could do when he has talks with President Hollande and other European heads of government this week.

She explained that one issue that Mr Cameron was concerned about was the “underfunding” of the World Food Programme in relation to providing food to those refugees in the border camps of the Middle East.

Pointing out how just three per cent of the 11m people displaced from Syria had arrived in Europe, the spokeswoman said aid agencies were now worried the lack of food funding in the camps was encouraging people fleeing persecution to “reconsider decisions they were making and what life would be like in the camps”.

Another issue the PM would be focusing on in talks with his EU counterparts would be what more could be done “upstream to tackle the smuggling gangs”, stressing how it was important to distinguish between the two types of migrants; those genuinely pursuing a claim of asylum and those simply seeking to gain access to Europe for a better standard of living.

Noting how there was a particular focus in recent days on people coming through Eastern Europe and the Balkans, she made clear all of them needed to be properly processed. “Where those claims are not accepted, then we do think the European countries need to be looking at what is the process of returns and removing those people who are in European countries without the right to be so.”

Asked about the prospect of EU member states returning hundreds if not thousands of migrants back to the Middle East, the spokeswoman replied: “It’s important decisions are made on a case by case basis according to the individual’s circumstances. Do we need to be clear that we will stand by our moral responsibility to help those in genuine need but also…to discourage people from embarking on perilous journeys when they get here and have no right to remain, then yes that’s a message we should continue to be clear on.”

Last week at Holyrood, Humza Yousaf, the Scottish Government’s External Affairs Minister, made clear Scotland would take a proportionate share of the refugees brought to the UK from the border camps.

He also told MSPs: "While the expansion of the scheme is very welcome, we do believe the UK must do more than this. The figure of 20,000 refugees over five years should not be seen as a cap or an upper limit.”

The Scottish Minister also said the SNP Government believed the UK should be playing its part in responding to the crisis on the southern European coast.