Tahir Ali
Main Page: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)Department Debates - View all Tahir Ali's debates with the Home Office
Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children
Tahir Ali Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend is right to say that this is a terrible case, and our thoughts are with the family and friends of Thomas Roberts. As he will know, sentencing has yet to take place but we will be investigating the full circumstances surrounding the case so that we can ensure that we learn all the lessons. One that we will certainly take forward is, as I said earlier, a more robust method for assessing the age of those coming into the country, taking advantage of modern scientific methods.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
One child missing is one child too many. It is horrendous that these children have left their home country seeking safety in the UK, only to be put at serious risk because of the incompetence of the Home Office and its failure to ensure basic safety in hostels. Can the Minister explain to the House what measures are in place to safeguard children and adult asylum seekers to ensure that no refugee needs to face such preventable dangers?
Robert Jenrick
These young people are not being put at risk primarily by the Home Office; they are being put at risk by dangerous people smugglers and criminals—those who smuggle them into the country and those who might exploit them when they are here. Our efforts are focused on protecting the young people in the hotels, as I described earlier, and we are also doing everything we can to fight the people smugglers, whether upstream or here in the United Kingdom, through working with the National Crime Agency and the security services and police forces.