In a Parliamentary Reply the Government says that since 2010, the UK has received over 23,700 asylum claims from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; admits its doesn’t have data on the nationality of the children; and says “We recognise a need to achieve a more equitable distribution of UASC”

Sep 24, 2020 | News

Baroness Williams of Trafford, the Home Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL8010):

Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many unaccompanied children have been transferred since June to the care of councils since arriving in England from crossing the English Channel; to list the countries of origin of such children, including the number of children for each such country;  what their policy is in regard to the long term needs and care of these children; and what plans they have to make the National Transfer Scheme compulsory. (HL8010)

Tabled on: 10 September 2020

Answer:
Baroness Williams of Trafford:

The Government remains committed to helping and supporting children in need of international protection. Since 2010, the UK has received over 23,700 asylum claims from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC).

The National Transfer Scheme (NTS) supports local authorities to transfer responsibility for these children to another participating local authority and seeks to achieve a fairer allocation of caring responsibilities across the country so that all children get the care and support they need.

We publish data on the number of transfers completed under the scheme each quarter as part of the Home Office Migration Transparency Data (NTS_01), which is available on GOV.UK. As at June 2020, over 1,050 children had been transferred under the scheme since it began. We do not currently publish a nationality breakdown of those children transferred under the scheme, however these children would be a subset of the UASC data published as part of the ‘asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement’ volume of the quarterly Immigration Statistics (Asy_D01), which is also available on GOV.UK.

UASC have often suffered deep trauma and they should receive the same level of care and support we would expect for any looked after child. In 2017, we published our Safeguarding Strategy for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Refugee Children which sets out the Government’s commitments to safeguard and promote their welfare.

Whilst there are statutory powers to mandate a transfer scheme, our preference is to continue to operate the NTS on a voluntary basis. We recognise a need to achieve a more equitable distribution of UASC and have therefore worked with local government partners to develop proposals to further improve the scheme. On 28 August we launched an informal consultation with local authorities on these proposals. The consultation also seeks views on a potential mandatory approach should participation in the voluntary scheme not achieve a more proportionate distribution of UASC.

Date and time of answer: 24 Sep 2020 at 17:00.

Syrian refugee children
Lord David Alton

For 18 years David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons and today he is an Independent Crossbench Life Peer in the UK House of Lords.

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