Refugees: Children

(asked on 24th January 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to secure a resolution for the 30 unaccompanied children in Calais who have had their migrant status confirmed in the UK under the Dubs scheme.


Answered by
Caroline Nokes Portrait
Caroline Nokes
This question was answered on 29th January 2019

We continue to work very closely with participating States France, Greece and Italy, local authorities and delivery partners to relocate the specified number of 480 children under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 as soon as possible. Over 220 children are already in the UK and transfers are ongoing continuously.

As part of the Sandhurst Treaty, signed between the UK and France in January 2018, we made a number of specific commitments relating to un-accompanied asylum-seeking children. This included the deployment of a UK Asylum Liaison Officer to support the transfer of eligible children under section 67 and the Dublin Regulation. We also allocated £3.6 million specifically to fund the development of the Dublin process to support transfers of eligible children to the UK, including training for those working with unaccompanied children, family tracing and targeted information campaigns.

Relocation of eligible children to the UK is dependent on the availability of appropriate local authority care placements. The Government maintains a continual dialogue with local authorities, Strategic Migration Partnerships, and delivery partners in the UK. We welcome all offers from local authori-ties with capacity to look after unaccompanied asylum seeking children and will continue to utilise these offers to fulfil all of our existing commitments.

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