Labour peer Lord Dubs has delivered a petition to Downing Street, calling on Theresa May to reopen the British scheme to accept lone child refugees.

More than 50,000 people have signed the petition condemning the government’s decision to cap the number of children allowed to enter Britain at 350.

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

Religious leaders joined Lord Dubs to present his petition on Saturday.

The Kindertransport refugee, who was one of hundreds of Jewish children evacuated from Prague in 1939 by Sir Nicholas Winton, quoted his hero by saying: “If it’s not impossible, there must be a way.”

Lord Dubs said Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, was wrong to suggest local authorities had no space to take in more children.

He said: “All the government needs to do is put out a new appeal to local authorities asking who can take more children.

“It doesn’t need a whole new consultation. We are going to keep the pressure up about this. I believe that the government decision to limit the number of children allowed in to 350 flies in the face of both parliamentary opinion and public opinion.

“I was shocked and in disbelief, I couldn’t believe the government could back off in quite that way.

“We want the government to change their minds. The government have said they don’t want to take more than 350 in total under the amendment. I think that’s a very shabby cop-out.

“I believe that there are thousands of unaccompanied child refugees suffering greatly in Greece, Italy and some in France.

“The government has said no more and I think that is an abdication of their responsibilities, it goes against public opinion and it goes against parliamentary opinion.”

Communal leaders signed a joint statement expressing their disappointment in the government’s decision.

The statement, organised by Jewish Communal Taskforce on Refugees, expressed “bitter disappointment that the government will be ending the Dubs scheme for relocating some of the most vulnerable refugee children in Europe”.

The group comprises of Jcore, Rene Cassin, West London Synagogue, Masorti Judaism, Liberal Jewish Synagogue and Mitzvah Day.

The statement added: “The government is betraying Britain’s history of protecting vulnerable people seeking refuge.

“The taskforce strongly urge the government to reconsider its position on ending the Dubs scheme; and to ensure that the Dublin system of family reunification works faster and to its fullest extent, so that lone refugee children can be returned to parents and close members of their family in the UK that they have been separated from.”