Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why only three of the 25,800 unaccompanied children reported by Unicef to be in Italy have been transferred to the UK.

In 2016, we transferred over 900 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to the UK from Europe. More children will be transferred under the Immigration Act and we will continue to meet our obligations under the Dublin Regulation. We have a long standing secondee in Italy who is based in the Italian Dublin Unit. We will announce in due course the process and criteria for transferring more children to the UK from Europe.

We continue to work with the Italian authorities to implement section 67 of the Immigration Act, and Immigration Minister met with his counterpart in November to discuss how we can support them; discussions are ongoing. We must secure the consent and cooperation of the host governments concerned before taking any action on their territory and can only act within their laws.