Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children have been transferred to the UK under the Dublin III Regulation since January 2017; and if she will make a statement.

The Dublin Regulation allows unaccompanied children who have claimed asylum in another Member State to be transferred here to have their asylum claim assessed if they have a qualifying family member legally present in the UK and transfer would be in their best interests. In order for the Dublin Regulation to apply, an unaccompanied child must first claim asylum in the Member State in which they are located and that Member State must issue a Take Charge Request to the UK.

The Government has committed to publishing regular updates on the number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children transferred to the UK from Europe. This data will be published in the coming months.

Statistics on transfers under the Dublin Regulation are already available here:

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report

Asylum statistics are published quarterly in the Home Office Immigration Statistics release, which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2017/how-many-people-do-we-grant-asylum-or-protection-to