Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to improve the speed and effectiveness of asylum processes for reuniting unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in France with either parents or alleged parents in the UK.

The UK-France Joint Declaration of 20 August 2015 committed the UK to providing £3.6 million (or €5 million) per year for two years to help support a range of work to address the migrant situation in Calais. This includes increasing the frequency of communications campaigns involving British officials, French authorities and NGOs speaking to migrants in Calais to inform them of their rights to claim asylum in France and other matters such as family reunion.

The Joint Declaration also committed the two governments to establishing a permanent official contact group focused on ensuring that the provisions of the Dublin III Regulation are used efficiently and effectively, including the provisions on family unity. As a result a Home Office official has recently been seconded to the Interior Ministry’s Dublin Unit in Paris in part to assist with the identification of potential requests for the UK to take charge of an asylum seeking child in France and to bring them into the Dublin Regulation procedure without delay.