Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many of the 794 unaccompanied refugee children who were granted asylum in the UK in 2017 have made applications for family reunion.
There is currently no provision in the Immigration Rules for children with refugee status in the UK to sponsor family members to join them. Allowing children to sponsor parents would create further incentives for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and risk hazardous journeys to the UK to sponsor relatives. This plays into the hands of criminal gangs who exploit vulnerable people and goes against our safeguarding responsibilities.
The Government believes the best interests of children are reflected in remaining with their families, claiming asylum in the first safe country they reach that is the fastest route to safety and relying on resettlement schemes to travel safely.