Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied children have been accepted by each (a) region of England, (b) nation of the UK and (c) local authority in each of the last six years; and if she will make a statement.

Annual Figures on the number of claims for asylum from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC), including by country of nationality, are published quarterly by the Home Office in the Immigration Statistics release.

A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics April to June 2016, is available from:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-stat

A regional breakdown is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. The Government is committed to ensuring that there is a more equitable distribution of UASC across the country and that no one authority has to care for more UASC than they are able to.

That is why we introduced the voluntary National Transfer Scheme and have consulted with every region in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on their capacity. In order to continue the success of the voluntary scheme more local authorities will need to participate and offer places for unaccompanied children from councils which are caring for disproportionately high numbers.