Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on which the principal pull factors are for unaccompanied children choosing to come to the UK; and if she will make a statement.

The Government’s clear strategy has always been that we do not want to encourage people traffickers and incentivise perilous journeys to Europe, particularly by the most vulnerable children.

Our policy is to support families to stay together and we have granted over 24,000 family reunion visas over the last five years. We are clear, from discussions with other Member States, that any schemes to transfer unaccompanied should not act as a draw. The Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme is a bespoke scheme to resettle 3,000 vulnerable children together with their families directly from the Middle East and North Africa region.