Missing Asylum Seeking Unaccompanied Children Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Chakrabarti
Main Page: Baroness Chakrabarti (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Chakrabarti's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to find all the asylum seeking unaccompanied children who have gone missing from Home Office care.
While the responsibility for locating missing children is ultimately for the police, the Home Office works closely with local authorities and other partners to try to locate missing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and ensure that they are safe. As part of this, the Home Office continues to collaborate with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the National Crime Agency to ensure consistency in our national approach and response.
I am grateful for that. Could the Minister help the House with the number of those who were lost and the number who have been found to date, and whether photographs have been passed to the police for a national campaign? What about the ongoing safeguarding issue? Recent court proceedings reveal that 40% of those now in unregulated hotels are under 16, including some as young as nine. Is that not a grave and dangerous dereliction of duty?
The noble Baroness would not expect me to comment on ongoing litigation. I can provide her with the statistics: there are presently 154 unaccompanied children who are currently missing. Of that 154, 100 have since turned 18, and 25 of the 154 currently missing were age-disputed individuals.