Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have made a decision about whether the power under the Illegal Migration Act 2023 for the Home Office to accommodate children will come into force; and if so, when.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Illegal Migration Act received Royal Assent on 20 July 2023. The Act seeks to ensure the only way to come to the UK for protection will be through safe and legal routes and will take power out of the hands of the criminal gangs and protect vulnerable people, including children.

Following the High Court ECPAT judgment and Supreme Court judgment on Rwanda, the Government is carefully reflecting on commencement of the powers in the Act, including those relating to the accommodation and transfer of unaccompanied children.

These powers have not yet been commenced and a decision will be made in due course. The Act does not change a local authority’s statutory obligations to children from the date of arrival and that the best place for an unaccompanied child is in the care of a local authority. This is something the Government was consistently clear about during the Illegal Migration Act’s passage through Parliament.

We are working at pace with Kent County Council, other government departments and local authorities across the UK to ensure suitable local authority placements are provided for unaccompanied asylum seeking children urgently and sustainably.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been received into Home Office accommodation each year since 2021 in (1) Leicester, and (2) Leicestershire.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

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).

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.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

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).

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Markham on 11 March (HL Deb col 1802), and taking account of the latest Households Below Average Income data, which shows a 300,000 increase in the number of children living in absolute poverty in the past year, what assessment they have made of the impact on health and well-being of the two-child limit for child benefit; and what assessment they have made of the strengths and weaknesses of using the measure of absolute poverty rather than relative poverty.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

It is not possible to produce a robust assessment of the impact of the two-child limit.

Child Benefit continues to be paid for all children in eligible families.

Relative poverty sets a threshold as a proportion of the UK median income and moves each year as average income changes.

Typically, a household is in relative poverty if its income is less than 60 per cent of the median household income.

Absolute poverty, by our definition, is a threshold as a proportion of the UK average income in a given year (2010/11) and moves each year in line with inflation.

This government prefers to look at Absolute poverty over Relative poverty as relative poverty can provide counter-intuitive results.

Relative poverty is likely to fall during recessions, due to falling median incomes. Under this measure, poverty can decrease even if people are getting poorer.

The absolute poverty line is fixed in real terms, so will only ever worsen if people are getting poorer, and only ever improve if people are getting richer.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of new fathers have taken (1) their full statutory paternity leave entitlement, and (2) shared parental leave, in each year since 2017.

Answered by Lord Johnson of Lainston - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

Data on the proportion of fathers taking Paternity and Shared Parental Leave is not available for each year since 2017. The 2019 Parental Rights Survey shows that, of all employee fathers who took any type of leave following the birth of their child, 74 per cent took Paternity Leave and 7 per cent took Shared Parental Leave. The same survey finds that 76 per cent of all fathers that took Paternity Leave took up their full Paternity Leave entitlement.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the National Audit Office’s report Investigation into asylum accommodation, published on 20 March, which found that (1) using large sites to accommodate asylum seekers could cost £46 million more than using hotels, and (2) the Home Office rated their own plans as “high risk or undeliverable”, why the large sites accommodation programme will be continued.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government has always been clear that the use of asylum hotels is unacceptable, and that’s why we acted swiftly to reduce the impact on local communities by moving asylum seekers on to barges and former military sites.

Thanks to the actions the Government has taken to maximise the use of existing space and our work to cut small boat crossings by a third last year, the cost of hotels will fall, and we are now closing dozens of asylum hotels every month to return them to communities.

Large sites provide adequate and functional accommodation for asylum seekers and are designed to be as self-sufficient as possible, helping to minimise the impact on local communities and services. They reduce demand on an already pressured private rental market and their larger capacity allows the Home Office to be agile in responding to fluctuations in demand.

It is better value for money for the taxpayer to continue with these sites than to continue using hotels. The latest assessment of value for money, which excludes committed or spent costs in line with the Green Book methodology, shows that large sites would be £153 million cheaper than hotels.

Despite the need to stand up large sites at speed, controls were in place to assure value for money for the taxpayer. Operational challenges at the sites have changed our costs since original estimates. We continue to keep costs under review while developing ways to reduce it.

The latest Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) review has upgraded the rating of the programme, meaning that the successful delivery of time, quality and cost is feasible.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Viscount Younger of Leckie on 27 March (HL3520), why it is not possible to undertake a robust assessment of the impact of the two-child limit.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We do not have the data to fully measure health and well-being behavioural impacts that may have resulted from the two-child limit.

Found: (attended for item 2 only) Lord Bishop of Leicester (attended for item 2 only) Hodgson of

Found: Baroness Bertin (Proposal 17) • The Need for a Strategy for Cultural and Social Integration in the UK – Lord

Found: In response to the Lord Bishop of Leicester, I agree that building partnerships based on mutual respect