Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her department has made of the impact of failing to resolve the immigration status of children in care before turning 18.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Secretary set out in the Immigration White Paper published on 12 May 2025 that the Home Office will ensure children who have been in the UK for some time, turn 18 and discover they do not have status, are fully supported and able to regularise their status and settle where appropriate. This will also include a clear pathway for those children in care and care leavers.

This commitment will be delivered primarily through an update to the ‘children in care policy’. As part of this, separate targeted engagement will take place with external stakeholders to help us to understand the challenges in this area and develop a policy solution which supports children in care without status while upholding the need to have a robust and coherent migration system. Children who have claimed asylum are dealt with under separate provisions.

A range of reforms are underway across the immigration and asylum system, and the development of a clear pathway to settlement for children in care and care leavers must be considered alongside these changes.

Further detail on this will be set out in due course.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that citizenship application fees are affordable for children who need to regularise their immigration status.

Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Children seeking to register as a British citizen will have the fee waived if they are able to credibly demonstrate that they cannot afford the fee. In addition, where an application has been made by or on behalf of a child who is looked after by a Local Authority, no fee is payable and it is not necessary for the child’s financial circumstances to be evidenced.

Found: Great Smith Street London SW1P 3BT tel: 0370 000 2288 www.education.gov.uk/contactus/dfe Helen Hayes

Found: Smith Street London SW1P 3BT tel: 0370 000 2288 www.education.gov.uk/contactus/dfe Helen Hayes

Found: Also present: Helen Hayes.

Found: Department for Education Josh MacAlister OBE MP Minister for Children and Families Helen Hayes

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Helen Hayes (Chair); Jess Asato; Sureena Brackenridge; Darren Paffey

Submit Evidence (by 27 Mar 2026)

The Education Select Committee and the Health and Social Care Select Committee have jointly launched an inquiry into the mental health of children and young people. This inquiry will examine mental health support and services provided in education and community settings, available to children and young people up to the age of 25. The Committees wish to understand how this provision is integrated with specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), acute and other statutory NHS services.