Unaccompanied Migrant Children

Lord Laming Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I remind him that the hotels were closed because of legal challenges to force the previous Government to close them. There were 472 episodes of children going missing, from 464 young people in practice. My noble friend mentioned 100 children. I can report to the House that 90 individuals are still missing, of whom seven have a claimed age of under 18. Through the good efforts of the police and local authorities, we have found 382 young people as of 26 September. The responsibility for finding those missing young people lies with police, and the Home Office will co-operate with them and local authorities accordingly. My noble friend mentioned an inquiry. I hear what he says, but the Home Office’s key focus is on continuing to work with the police to support efforts to locate missing individuals.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, unaccompanied children still come to this country. Does the Minister accept that those children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and serious neglect? That being so, can he assure the House that, whenever an unaccompanied child is discovered, they are immediately referred to the local authority for proper safeguarding and protection?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is the intention of the Home Office. The noble Lord will know that this Government, in our current incarnation and in previous incarnations between 1997 and 2010, have been very strong on enforcement, securing action against people who commit modern slavery and supporting action to avoid exploitation, and we will continue to do that. The local authority has primary responsibility, and we have a duty to ensure that we reduce the number of unaccompanied children but support local authorities in safeguarding them properly.