Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Well, of course, it is very serious when a child goes missing, particularly in those circumstances. When it happens, we work very closely with local authorities and the police to operate a robust missing persons protocol. We have also changed the national transfer scheme so that all local authorities with children’s services must support young people. We need to identify and ensure proper risk assessments so that we have the proper protections in place to ensure this does not happen.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a member of the RAMP Project. Returning to the issue of children, we have seen terrible accounts of children sleeping on mats at Manston. Can the Home Secretary reassure the House that no children are being kept at Manston for longer than 48 hours and that proper safeguarding procedures are in place? Will she let us know what work is being done with Kent County Council to make sure that the children who are there are being safeguarded? Will she please urge the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) to come to the Women and Equalities Committee, where we are doing an inquiry into the asylum system? He is not available this Wednesday, but can he make it as soon as possible please?

[Suella Braverman]

We take extremely seriously our duty of care towards children and young people who are in the system. As I said, there are delays in the system because of the extortionate amount of cases due to be processed. We are working to prioritise applications from children and young people where possible. We want to increase overall decision making, numbers and capacity, so that children are processed far more quickly than others.