Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many adults and children have arrived in the UK seeking asylum from Afghanistan since August 2021; and of these, (1) how many are still waiting to be housed, and (2) how many children are still waiting to be enrolled at a school.

The UK Government undertook the biggest and fastest emergency evacuation in recent history, helping over 15,000 people to safety from Afghanistan. Due to the scale and pace of the evacuation we were not able to source appropriate accommodation in the normal way, so we have had to use hotels as a temporary measure. There are currently over 12,000 individuals from Afghanistan in bridging hotels. This cohort is made up of British and Afghan Nationals who may be eligible for Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) or Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS). Over 4000 Afghans have already moved, or are in the process of being moved, into their permanent accommodation and we are working at pace with our Local Authority partners to secure permanent accommodation for those still in temporary accommodation.

We are providing £12 million to help councils across the country to provide education services for children arriving from Afghanistan living in temporary accommodation.

Working with local councils and other networks, all of the school age children who arrived as part of Operation Pitting have been offered a school place. However, this remains a moving picture as some new bridging hotels have been opened in new areas, both as a result of hotel moves and to accommodate more recent Afghan arrivals via Pakistan.

The Department for Education (DfE) continues to monitor the position in these local authorities, all are progressing well with the process of placing children in schools and none report problems with doing so, however they are at different stages in the process depending on the date of new arrivals.