Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied child refugees have been re-settled in Scotland in each of the last three years; and how many of those children were resettled with family already living in Scotland.

The Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS) resettles ’at-risk’ refugee children from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, including their families. Our aim is to resettle up to 3,000 people (children and families, where the child at risk is part of a family unit) through the scheme by 2020.

The scheme does not solely target unaccompanied children, but on UNHCR’s advice also extends to vulnerable ‘children at risk’, such as those threatened with child labour, child marriage and other forms of abuse or exploitation. It is open to all at risk groups and nationalities within the region.

The scheme, which is the largest resettlement effort aimed specifically at children at risk from the MENA region, is in addition to the Government’s commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees from Syria under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS).

The Home Office is committed to publishing data in an orderly way as part of the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics, in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The statistics are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2018.