Calais

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

We are always grateful for the generous way in which local authorities come forward, and for their positive response to our call for their support. I particularly thank West Sussex County Council for the good work that it has been doing, notably in hosting one of the dispersal centres. We will of course work closely with the council to ensure that that good relationship continues.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have listened carefully to the Home Secretary’s statement and the answers that she has given to a number of very serious questions about safeguarding. A social worker contacted me this week to say that for the children who have started to enter Britain, it has been a “bureaucratic shambles”: those are her words, not mine. She says that the social services have been given wrong addresses, wrong family contacts, and no forms or pro formas. How will the Home Secretary and her Department, as a matter of urgency, ensure that the correct provisions are in place to help social services throughout the country to ensure that once children are here, they do not fall through the cracks?

[Amber Rudd]

We do not always have all the information that we need. One of the reasons why the full cohort of nearly 200 “Dublin” children has not yet been brought over is that we have not been able to establish where their close family members are. It is possible—this is an issue to which the hon. Lady has particularly drawn attention—that the close family members who have been claimed, and have been contacted before the children have been brought over, are no longer quite as contactable once the local authority is trying to address the situation. As I have said to other Members, this can be a complicated process, and it is not always straightforward to follow up the contacts that we have been given. However, if the hon. Lady wants to send me a particular example, I will of course look at it.