Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

That is an important point. We want to place these minors in the care of local authorities, and, of course, we want to place them in the care of local authorities with good track records of looking after young people. I presume that my hon. Friend is referring to his own local authority, Sefton Council. If there are concerns about its performance, he should bring them to my attention and, in particular, to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Thank you for allowing me to contribute, Mr Speaker; I appreciate it.

The community that I represent was given just a couple of hours’ notice that 96 unaccompanied children were to be placed in a hotel in that community. I visited the hotel within days and have visited it many times since, so I am able to say that it is ignorant to suggest that these are specialist facilities.

In those ensuing days, I saw for myself, having met the children who were there, that some of them were extremely vulnerable—vulnerable emotionally and vulnerable, should they leave the premises, to being coerced into crime—so I contacted the council, the police, social services and the Minister’s Department, the Home Office. The only organisation that responded effectively, in my view, and with the kind of seriousness that one would expect, was Sussex police, but it lacked the facilities, the resources and the powers to do the job that needed to be done. It is incorrect to say that these children are not being coerced into crime, because just last year Sussex police pursued a car that had collected two of them from outside the hotel. When the officers managed to get the car to safety, they released the two children and arrested one of the drivers, a gang leader who was there to coerce the children into crime.

The uncomfortable truth for us is that if one child related to one of us in this room went missing, the world would stop, but in the community that I represent, a child did go missing; then five went missing, then a dozen went missing, then 50 went missing, and currently 76 are missing—and nothing is happening. My question to the Minister is this: the next time I visit the hotel, in the coming days, what will be different there from what went before? If nothing is different, children will continue to go missing.

[Robert Jenrick]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I should visit the hotel and see its facilities together, as I am due to visit it in the coming days. According to the assurances that I have had, when we visit the hotel—if the hon. Gentleman does visit it— he will see that there are several security guards who immediately raise with the police any suspicious activity that they find, and also a number of nurses and social workers, so there is a strong set of support staff on site. He will also see that there are robust procedures for signing in and out when young people want to leave the facility, and that as soon as any concern is raised that someone has not returned within the agreed time, Sussex police are alerted and the usual procedures are followed.

However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s remarks very seriously, and will continue to listen to him. If he would like to meet me and discuss this, I should be happy to do so, because it is in all our interests to ensure that this never happens again.