Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have gone missing from Home Office accommodation since 2021 in (1) Leicester, and (2) Leicestershire.

The wellbeing of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is our priority. We maintain that the best place for these children to be accommodated is within local authority care.

There are currently no unaccompanied children in hotels and there has never been unaccompanied asylum seeking hotels in Leicester. Nationally all unaccompanied children’s hotel accommodation has been empty since 18 November 2023. Of the 7 hotels which were operational in 2022, 6 of those were closed permanently on 30 November 2023.

We take the safety of those in our care seriously. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all young people in emergency interim hotels were safe and supported as we sought urgent placements with a local authority.

The specific data requested cannot be provided as it comes from live operational databases that have not been quality assured.

The most recent published data can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).