Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has taken recent steps to help ensure that application registration cards are issued quickly to unaccompanied asylum seeking children who are travelling to Scottish island authorities to allow them to travel by air rather than by road and sea.

Work is ongoing to improve the speed at which ARC are issued for children transferring to local authority care placements, where it is considered necessary to facilitate air travel. We work closely with local authorities on the most suitable method of travel for an individual child.

Where an unaccompanied asylum seeking child (UASC) is temporarily accommodated in a hotel and not in the care of a local authority, the Home Office is able to arrange transport for the UASC to the local authority care placement. It is open to receiving local authorities themselves to arrange the transport and to accompany the child on their journey from the hotel to the care placement.