Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to table dt 09 q of the Quarterly Immigration Statistics, October to December 2016, for what reasons two children who left immigration detention in the fourth quarter of 2016 has been detained for between 29 days and two months.

The Home Office does not routinely comment on individual immigration cases.

Currently, unaccompanied children under the age of 18 may be detained only in a limited number of very exceptional circumstances. Such detention is usually pending alternative care arrangements being made (with relatives or local authority children’s services), would be for the shortest possible time, and would not take place in an immigration removal centre.

The Home Office is committed to protecting unaccompanied asylum seeking children - ending the routine detention of children for immigration purposes and fundamentally changing the system to ensure their welfare is at the heart of every decision we make.