Ten refugee families for every town in Britain: Yvette Cooper calls on 'cowardly' Cameron to accept 10,000 fleeing Syrians

Yvette Cooper attacks David Cameron over migrant crisis, by saying that Britain could accept 10,000 refugees seeking asylum in the EU.

In a speech to the Centre for European Reform in London, Ms Cooper acknowledged that her comments would be controversial at a time of heightened concern about immigration.

But in the face of the crisis in the Mediterranean with tens of thousands risking their lives in an attempt to reach safety in Europe, she said that it was essential to separate out the issue of asylum from the wider immigration debate.

'This has become a humanitarian crisis on a scale we have not seen on our continent since the Second World War. Yet we seem paralysed to respond,' she said.

Read the full speech here.