Child Refugees

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the figure that we set before the election was based on the capacity of local authorities to accommodate those children through Section 67. As the noble Lord knows, and I have apologised for this, there was an administrative error and that number is now 480. I do apologise. It was not so much a cap as the ability of local authorities to accommodate these children. I have said before at this Dispatch Box that our doors are always open for local authorities to come to us and say that they can accommodate more children.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, when the Minister comes to look again at the Dublin regulations with a view to replacing them, will she look to see if there are ways of setting aside the regulations that require unaccompanied children to travel very long distances from places such as Greece so that they can be reunited with their families? Given the evidence that I sent her previously from Europol about the 10,000 unaccompanied children who went missing on the continent and the more than 360, according to the Independent, who have gone missing in the United Kingdom, can the Minister tell us what has been the fate and what is her speculation about the fate of those unaccompanied minors?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord asked first about Dublin III and what those regulations might look like in the future. We will always co-operate with our European partners in terms of taking unaccompanied children and asylum seekers into this country. It is important to note—the noble Lord alluded to this—that some of these children have to travel many miles. The work that we do in the regions is in many ways more beneficial to these children. There is a huge economy of scale both in financial terms and in the welfare of these children—as well as adults—for them to be helped in the region.

The noble Lord has brought up the issue of missing children before. Of course we work with Europol. When a child is in a European country, that child or adult is the responsibility of that country and we cannot intervene in countries without abiding by the laws and processes of those countries.