Asked by: Baroness Sheehan (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the remarks by Lord Bates on 21 March (HL Deb, col 2149), what evidence they have that allowing child refugees to sponsor relatives would "create a situation that encourages children to risk hazardous journeys to and across Europe".
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
There are a range of factors that affect migrants decisions to leave their countries and travel across Europe to seek asylum. The Government believes that allowing children to sponsor relatives would create further incentives for children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and risk hazardous journeys to the UK in order to act as sponsors.