Child Refugees

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, apologies for confusing the procedure on Statements with Urgent Questions. I will deal with points in the reverse order to which they were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. First, the criteria for family reunion are set out in the Dublin regulations. They are currently under a period of review, but we will certainly honour the family reunion commitments under the existing Dublin arrangements. Regarding trafficking and the dangers, we are absolutely confident, in terms of the current Dublin regime, that all children—all adults, for that matter—arriving into the European Union should be identified with biometric passes at that point and recorded as such with as much data as are available. Once the data are there, at least that person is correctly identified. We have been providing support through the European Asylum Support Office in those regions to ensure that that recording of children and adults is going ahead.

I should say that the figure of 26,000 is an estimate of the number actually coming in to the European Union; the numbers are not held in one place. The Prime Minister is deeply concerned about that. This time last year, we had a couple of hundred coming in under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement programme. The Prime Minister announced that that was to increase to 20,000, and we brought in 1,000 before Christmas, 50% of whom were children. So we are not unmoved by that plea, but UNICEF and the UNHCR have seriously warned about the interests of the child being best served when they remain with wider family networks in the region, as that offers the best prospect for their safety and well-being once, as we hope, the conflict there is resolved.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, like others, I suspect, I would have welcomed a rather wider and more positive announcement about immediate steps to be taken for children not just from Syria but from Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea. When, as I hope we will, we get a positive announcement about the Government’s plans, will it include detailed proposals for everything that needs to be done to support the children whom we wish to welcome: funding and wider support for local authorities, training and support for social workers and, in particular, a focus on the availability of foster placements and support for foster parents, who will be dealing with very delicate situations?

[Lord Bates]

That is certainly the arrangement that we have under the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme: they get that assistance, which comes out of the overseas development assistance budget in the first instance. We have a real problem with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who are in the UK already, a high proportion of whom are in Kent. Funding is available to the authorities, and we will make sure that they have the resources necessary to provide the level of care that we expect under our international obligations, and our national obligations under the Children Act.