Asylum: Children

(asked on 23rd January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department will take to facilitate child refugees being reunited with parents living in the UK after the UK leaves the EU.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 5th February 2020

The Government remains resolutely committed to the principle of family reunion.

When the UK leaves the EU, we will cease to participate in EU instruments at the end of the transition period, including the Dublin Regulation. This means that the ability of unaccompanied children under Dublin to reunite with family will end, unless a replacement agreement is negotiated. The Government has been clear that it is committed to seeking such an agreement with the EU, thereby ensuring these children can continue to reunite with family once we are out of Dublin. The Home Secretary wrote to the European Commission on 22 October to begin negotiations.

The UK will continue to be bound by the Dublin Regulation provisions during the transition period, allowing us to continue to transfer family reunion cases to the UK throughout 2020, and we will continue to process all family reunion requests that have been submitted but not completed under Dublin before the end of the transition period.

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