Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans for the first payments to be made under the ex-gratia payment scheme for former child migrants.

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 Migration Programmes. The Government 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 as quickly as possible, and further details will be provided shortly.

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.