Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake today clashed with Daily Politics host Andrew Neil over the low number of Syrian refugees accepted by Sutton Council.

During the heated discussion, it was revealed the borough had settled either four, or 20 young asylum seekers depending on contrasting figures obtained from the council by Mr Neil and Mr Brake.

The figures are low compared to northern local authorities such as Salford and Stockton-On-Tees, which received 728 and 850 refugees, respectively.

When asked why the borough had taken so few, the Carshalton and Wallington MP, who is standing for re-election on June 8, said: “That may be down to the Government’s policy of relocating asylum seekers in specific places and they do tend to focus refugees in a relatively limited number of locations.”

The discourse followed Lib Dem leader Tim Farron’s announcement today that the party intended to settle 50,000 Middle Eastern asylum seekers in the UK should it win the upcoming general election on Thursday, June 8.

Mr Brake was then unable to directly say how the policy would be funded as he was grilled by Mr Neil.

But he did indicate the costings would be in the party’s manifesto, which will be released next week.

The Lib Dem candidate said: “We will explain where that funding will come from, the detail of costings will be there for people to see next week.

“We know what it costs at the moment to support a refugee and we know how many the Government have taken, so we can extrapolate the cost from that.”

Sutton Council has been asked to confirm the number of Syrian asylum seekers taken in by the borough since the civil war began in 2011.