Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the capacity of local authorities to resettle child refugees; and what steps they are taking to secure that capacity.

The Government has transferred more than 900 unaccompanied children to the UK this year under both the family reunification provisions of the Dublin Regulation and the terms of section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. This includes more than 750 children from France as part of the UK’s support for the Calais camp clearance almost half of the unaccompanied children who were in the camp at the time of the clearance.

We have consulted local authorities on their capacity to care for unaccompanied asylum seeking and refugee children and will publish the total number of children to be transferred under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 in due course.

In July, the Home Office increased the funding provided to local authorities by up to 33 percent for the care and support of unaccompanied asylum seeking and refugee children. The recent operation to transfer children from Calais involved over 300 officials at home and abroad and the Government continues to work closely with partners across Europe to ensure the timely and effective operation of the Dublin Regulation. We have seconded experts to France and Greece, and we have a long standing secondee in Italy to support the work on unaccompanied asylum seeking children in Europe, including the Dublin Regulation.