Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the murals of cartoon characters at the Kent Intake Unit asylum centre were found to be 'too welcoming'; and under what legal powers they were removed.

We provide high-quality facilities to minors upon immediate arrival in the UK at Kent Intake Unit and all their needs are provided for.

The unit works closely with Kent Children’s Services to ensure the unaccompanied children are processed and placed into appropriate care as quickly as possible.

We continue to prioritise work with local authorities (LA), and Kent County Council, to ensure that children are transferred into local authority care as soon as possible via the National Transfer Scheme (NTS). We have supported this through our incentivised funding pilots to all local authorities across the UK, which aimed to encourage quicker transfers into local authority care.

Between December 22 and February 23, the Home Office increased our incentivised offer to £15,000 per child, to allow local authorities to invest more money in long term infrastructure to support the children they received. We will continue to provide incentivised funding throughout 2023-24, with every local authority receiving £6,00 for each unaccompanied child transferred from a dedicated UASC hotel into local authority care within five working days. This funding is in addition to the contribution made by the Home Office to LA’s receiving children through the NTS, which can equate to £52,195 per child, per year, up to the age of 18.

Recent figures show that 70% of UASCs are over 16. Further details can be found at the Asylum and Resettlement datasets – Gov.UK: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)