The immigration minister has dodged questions on the number of unaccompanied minor immigrants currently missing in the UK.
Robert Jenrick was asked by several MPs on the current figures following reports that 400 children who arrived in Britain unaccompanied had disappeared.
In January Jenrick told MPs that of the 4,600 unaccompanied minors who arrived in the UK without an adult since July 2021, 440 had gone missing while housed in hotels.
More than half returned, but over 180—including over a dozen under the age of 16—had not been found.
Of those who have vanished, 88 percent are Albanian nationals, with the remaining 12 percent from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Turkey. Just one is female.
Asked on Wednesday to update Parliament on the current statistics, Jenrick failed to give a specific answer.
However, he did reveal that there are currently 24,300 under the age of 18 who have arrived in Britain alone currently in government accommodation.
Of those who were missing, the minister said there was “no evidence that people have been abducted from outside hotels.”
Jenrick said intelligence suggests some had left to meet individuals who gained them employment in “the grey or black economies.”
He said that strict protocols were in place to deal with missing children including MARS (Missing After Reasonable Steps), which is widely used across children’s homes and supported accommodation for minors.
Haunted
Speaking during the debate, Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Deirdre Brock said that it was unacceptable that vulnerable children are still being housed alone in hotel accommodation.The Edinburgh politician said those working with young immigrants in Scotland had described the children as “bewildered” and “terrified.”
Brock read out an account from a Scottish children’s rights worker describing how one child asked if she was going to be sent back to her village “where she was at risk of female genital mutilation.”
Another girl, who had arrived in Scotland just two months prior, discovered she was pregnant during a medical examination.
The “distressed” child asked the support worker if “the Home Office would kill her for being unmarried and pregnant,” Brock told the Commons.
The MP said another child, who had arrived in the UK from Afghanistan, “was haunted by the image of his inconsolable mother saying goodbye to him.”
“Rather than compounding the fear and trauma of children like him, we have a legal and moral duty to look after them,” Brock said.
“If the Home Office has no interest in creating an asylum system that is based on fairness and dignity, it should devolve the necessary powers to the Scottish Parliament to allow Scotland to do so.”
In January 100 charities wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling for an end to housing unaccompanied minors in hotels, warning that children were at risk of exploitation and one charity calling it a “child protection scandal.”
The letter also condemned the government’s “reported failures to protect vulnerable children from harm,” and highlighted how housing young immigrants in hotels was intended to be used only as a short-term emergency option.
The letter added: “There is no legal basis for placing children in Home Office hotel accommodation, and almost two years into the operation of the scheme—which is both unlawful and harmful—it is no longer possible to justify the use of hotels as being ‘temporary’.
Bill Risks More Going Missing
MPs also raised concerns that the proposed implementation of the Illegal Migration Bill would see more children going missing.Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said, “I am gravely concerned that, as a result of young people’s fear that they will be deported at age 18, potentially to Rwanda, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will be more likely to go missing from care to avoid that, and therefore be at even greater risk of exploitation and abuse by traffickers.”
Lucas also called for a dedicated team to help find missing youngsters.
“Safeguarding surely means remaining shocked that the Home Office has been housing children without legal basis and that we still do not know where nearly 200 of those children are,” she said.
“I and other members have repeatedly questioned the minister about the need for a national dedicated operation to find them. His answers have not instilled confidence.
“On the contrary, the government’s plan to degrade children’s rights even further will increase the risks.”
On Monday, retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss told Parliament that children have been “disregarded and downgraded” under the small boats cutting legislation.
The independent crossbencher branded measures in the controversial Illegal Migration Bill “truly sad.”
She was among a string of critics in the House of Lords to round on the draft legislation, which would allow for the detention of children arriving in the UK by unauthorised means.
It also contains the power to remove unaccompanied youngsters.
Those permitted to stay would be allowed to do so only until they turn 18 and would not be able to settle in the UK.
The government has said the provisions in the bill aim to act as a deterrent against minors being taken on the dangerous Channel crossing.
But challenged on this in the upper chamber, Home Office minister Lord Murray of Blidworth said there was “no evidence” over the impact of the measures as they were not yet in force.
Liberal Democrat Lord German argued the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill did not protect unaccompanied children.
He said: “It just defers their removal. These children will not be able to start to rebuild their lives or focus on their futures because of the threat of removal.”
Responding, the minister pointed out the majority of unaccompanied children who claimed asylum in the UK in 2022 were aged 16 or 17.
Where there was a dispute about age, half were found to be adults, he said.
“If we fill this bill with exceptions and carve-outs it will not achieve its aims and it would serve to put more children at risk as the people smugglers would seek to fill the boats with even more young people, putting further lives at risk and splitting up families,” Murray said.
