The Home Office has announced it is to take 130 more refugee children under the Dubs scheme, after admitting it had underestimated the number of available places in UK in an "admin error".

Ministers said the previous announcement that Britain would take 350 lone child refugees was incorrect and the correct number was 480.

Labour peer Lord Dubs, whose amendment to the Immigration Act paved the way for Syrian children to settle in the UK, expressed dismay when Theresa May announced the 350 limit.

The peer, himself a former child refugee from the Nazis, said the new announcement was “especially shocking that they have ‘just discovered’ this dreadful mistake after we and the local authorities have been telling them for several months that there were more offers of places.”

The government had previously said it would allow up to 3,000 children into the UK when the Dubs amendment was passed last year.

At the time, Downing Street defended the cap by saying there was a "limit to the capacity" councils could provide.

But it later emerged some areas had offered to house more child refugees and they had not been factored into the 350 figure.

In a written statement to Parliament, Robert Goodwill, Home Office minister, said: "The Home Office... believed that two regions in England had not provided responses after the consultation closed.

"The Home Office recently discovered that one of the regions had sent a return.

"We are now including their pledges in the specified number for the purposes of section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016."