Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were housed in hotels in the UK in each of the last 12 months; what the average length of stay was for those children; and how many and what proportion of those children went missing in the same period.

The rise in the number of small boat crossings has placed significant pressures on local authority care placements for young people. Out of necessity, and with the best interests of the child in mind, we have had no alternative but to temporarily use hotels to give unaccompanied children a roof over their heads whilst local authority accommodation is found.

The Home Office takes the wellbeing, welfare and security of children and minors in our care extremely seriously. Robust safeguarding procedures are in place to ensure all children and minors are safe and supported as we seek urgent placements with local authorities.

The National Transfer scheme (NTS) transferred 3,148 children to local authorities with children's services between 1 July 2021 and 30 September 2022, which is over four times the number of transfers on the year before. To further expand the scheme, we are providing local authorities with children's services with an additional £15,000 for every eligible young person they take into their care from a dedicated UASC hotel, or the Reception and Safe Care Service in Kent, by the end of February 2023.

When any young person goes missing the 'missing persons protocol' is followed and led by our directly engaged social workers. A multi-agency, missing persons protocol is mobilised involving the police and the local authority, who have a shared statutory responsibility to safeguard all children including missing migrant children in order to establish their whereabouts and to ensure that they are safe.

The MARS (Missing After Reasonable Steps) protocol is followed for any looked after child who goes missing from a care setting, including the UASC hotels.

The average length of stay for those who arrived during this period was 19.85 days.

Of these 3,832 young people as of 28.02.23 there have been 410 missing episodes from the UASC Hotels, the number subsequently located on 224 occasions. Therefore 186 of these young people are still missing.

The safety and wellbeing of those in our care is our primary concern. Robust safeguarding and welfare procedures are in place to ensure all children and minors are safe and supported as we seek urgent placements with a local authority. This includes support workers being onsite in the hotels 24 hours a day, supported by nurses and social workers. UASC are not detained and are free to leave the accommodation. All contingency sites have security staff and providers liaise closely with local police to ensure the welfare and safety of vulnerable residents.