Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health and Inequalities of 27 November 2018, Official Report, Column 152, if the formal Government response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse's report on Child Migrant Programmes published on 1 March 2018 remains imminent.

On 19 December the Government published its response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse's (IICSA) Interim Report and its report on Child Migrant Programmes. The Government’s response outlines the Prime Minister’s decision to ensure that former child migrants receive a payment as soon as possible, in recognition of the fundamentally flawed nature of the historic child migration policy. It is our intention that the ex-gratia payment scheme is set up without delay, and further details will be provided in the new year.

We are aware that a number of former child migrants have sadly passed away since the IICSA Child Migration Programmes report was published, so the Government will accept applications in respect of any former child migrant who was alive on 1 March 2018, when the Inquiry’s Child Migration Programmes report was published.

We are grateful to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse for putting this recommendation forward, and will continue to support former migrants through the Family Restoration Fund, which we set up in 2010 to reunite child migrants with their families.