Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what children's best interest evaluation has been made of their policy to refuse children entitled to asylum in the UK the family reunion rights granted to adults since the removal of the UK's immigration reservation to the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2008.

The current family reunion policy meets our international obligations. Widening it to allow children to sponsor family members would create additional motives for them to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family, and risk hazardous journeys to seek to enter the UK illegally. This would play into the hands of criminal gangs who exploit vulnerable people, and goes against our safeguarding responsibilities.

The Government believes that the best interests of children are reflected in their remaining with their families and claiming asylum in the first safe country they reach; this is the fastest route to safety.