Lord Dubs
Main Page: Lord Dubs (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Dubs's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, in 2016, we transferred over 900 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to the UK from Europe. The Government are fully committed to implementing Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, and more than 200 children are already here under that scheme. We are working closely with EU partners to implement Section 67 of the Immigration Act and ensure that children with qualifying family in the UK can be transferred quickly and safely under the Dublin III regulations.
My Lords, if I have heard correctly, am I right in thinking that the Government have changed their policy from before the election when they set a cap on Section 67 children coming here, which was going to be 480 in total? Will the Minister confirm that that cap no longer applies?
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.