Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied children were granted asylum in the UK in the last 12 months, by nationality.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Home Office publishes the number of initial decisions on asylum applications from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children, in each quarter by nationality, in table as_09_q of the Immigration Statistics release. The latest figures are available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/593029/asylum3-q4-2016-tables.ods
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been looked after by local authorities in (a) the UK, (b) the North West, (c) Greater Manchester and (d) Wigan in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Annual Figures on the number of claims for asylum from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC), including by country of nationality, are published quarterly by the Home Office in the Immigration Statistics release. A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics to December 2016, is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/asylum
A breakdown of these figures by region, city and immigration status is not available.
The Government is committed to ensuring that there is a more equitable distribution of UASC across the country and that no one authority has to care for more UASC than they are able to, including those transferred to the UK under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. That is why we introduced the voluntary National Transfer Scheme and have consulted with every region in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on their capacity. Every region in England is participating in the National Transfer Scheme and we are working closely with the Devolved Administrations to ensure they are able to accept cases under the National Transfer Scheme. We are very grateful for the way in which local authorities have stepped up to accept UASC under the National Transfer Scheme. We will continue to work closely with local authorities to take up offers of placements to help ease the burden on those local authorities caring for a disproportionate number of UASC.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been placed in (a) the UK, (b) the North West, (c) Greater Manchester and (d) Wigan under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Annual Figures on the number of claims for asylum from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC), including by country of nationality, are published quarterly by the Home Office in the Immigration Statistics release. A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics to December 2016, is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/asylum
A breakdown of these figures by region, city and immigration status is not available.
The Government is committed to ensuring that there is a more equitable distribution of UASC across the country and that no one authority has to care for more UASC than they are able to, including those transferred to the UK under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. That is why we introduced the voluntary National Transfer Scheme and have consulted with every region in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on their capacity. Every region in England is participating in the National Transfer Scheme and we are working closely with the Devolved Administrations to ensure they are able to accept cases under the National Transfer Scheme. We are very grateful for the way in which local authorities have stepped up to accept UASC under the National Transfer Scheme. We will continue to work closely with local authorities to take up offers of placements to help ease the burden on those local authorities caring for a disproportionate number of UASC.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children have ben reunited with family members in (a) the UK, (b) the North West, (c) Greater Manchester and (d) Wigan under the Dublin III Regulation in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Annual Figures on the number of claims for asylum from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC), including by country of nationality, are published quarterly by the Home Office in the Immigration Statistics release. A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics to December 2016, is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/asylum
A breakdown of these figures by region, city and immigration status is not available.
The Government is committed to ensuring that there is a more equitable distribution of UASC across the country and that no one authority has to care for more UASC than they are able to, including those transferred to the UK under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. That is why we introduced the voluntary National Transfer Scheme and have consulted with every region in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on their capacity. Every region in England is participating in the National Transfer Scheme and we are working closely with the Devolved Administrations to ensure they are able to accept cases under the National Transfer Scheme. We are very grateful for the way in which local authorities have stepped up to accept UASC under the National Transfer Scheme. We will continue to work closely with local authorities to take up offers of placements to help ease the burden on those local authorities caring for a disproportionate number of UASC.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied children claimed asylum in (a) the UK, (b) the North West, (c) Greater Manchester and (d) Wigan in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Annual Figures on the number of claims for asylum from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC), including by country of nationality, are published quarterly by the Home Office in the Immigration Statistics release. A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics to December 2016, is available from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/asylum
A breakdown of these figures by region, city and immigration status is not available.
The Government is committed to ensuring that there is a more equitable distribution of UASC across the country and that no one authority has to care for more UASC than they are able to, including those transferred to the UK under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. That is why we introduced the voluntary National Transfer Scheme and have consulted with every region in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on their capacity. Every region in England is participating in the National Transfer Scheme and we are working closely with the Devolved Administrations to ensure they are able to accept cases under the National Transfer Scheme. We are very grateful for the way in which local authorities have stepped up to accept UASC under the National Transfer Scheme. We will continue to work closely with local authorities to take up offers of placements to help ease the burden on those local authorities caring for a disproportionate number of UASC.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many sexual harm prevention orders were granted in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013, (e) 2014, (f) 2015 and (g) 2016.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
These figures are not collated centrally. The most recently published figures, given in response to the Honourable Member for Rotherham on 28 January 2016, show that between the introduction of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order in March 2015 and September 2015 2,425 full and 40 interim Sexual Harm Prevention Orders were issued in England and Wales.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to examine electronic devices in suspected child sexual exploitation cases.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The approach taken by police forces into the examination of digital devices in suspected child sexual exploitation cases is an operational matter for Chief Officers.
All police forces and the National Crime Agency (NCA) are connected to the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) that was launched in 2014 by the then Prime Minister. CAID provides law enforcement agencies with effective tools to search seized devices for indecent images of children (IIOC), reduce the time taken to identify such images and increase the ability to identify victims. Recently, the NCA’s Child Exploitation & Online Protection (CEOP) Command were able to use CAID to review one of their largest ever seizures within 6 weeks. Based on the case size, before CAID this would have taken a minimum of 6 months to review.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to raise awareness within the hotel industry of child sexual exploitation.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Government has funded a network of police regional child sexual exploitation (CSE) coordinators, analysts and prevention officers, who will work with local areas and hotels to prevent CSE, for example through training for hotel staff. We have also launched a CSE Response Unit, which provides support and free resources to local areas to raise awareness of CSE.
The Government introduced powers in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to disrupt offending in hotels. These provisions enable the police to serve notices on hotels requiring them to provide them with the names and addresses of guests and the power to close down hotels where child sex offences have taken place or are likely to take place.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children who arrived in the UK under the Dublin III Regulation in 2016 were assessed under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Government takes its responsibilities towards children extremely seriously and works with Local Authorities to ensure all necessary checks are undertaken to ensure any child’s safety, including those children who are transferred to the UK under the Dublin III Regulation. It is for the local authority to determine what assessments to undertake based on the circumstances of individual children and families, the Home Office does not hold data on the number of children that were transferred to the UK under the Dublin Regulation who have been assessed under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what financial assistance is provided for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to travel to their screening interview.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Asylum seeking children can arrive or be encountered in the UK in a variety of ways. The full policy and guidance for processing such claims is set out in the Processing Children’s Asylum Claims instruction which is published:
When an asylum seeking child is encountered they will undergo a welfare interview in order to record their basic information and identify any immediate welfare concerns. Those unaccompanied children who are unable to travel to the Asylum Intake Unit in Croydon are able to register their claim and undergo a welfare interview at the nearest available Home Office location. It is not possible to determine how many unaccompanied asylum seeking children have had welfare interviews in different locations without an examination of individual records which could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
In July 2016 the Government significantly increased the funding it provides to local authorities who look after UASC. Local authorities now receive £41,610 per annum year for each unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged under 16 and £33,215 per annum for unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged 16 and 17. This represents a 20% and 28% increase in funding respectively.