Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will review the cap on the number of places available to transfer children to the UK under the Dubs scheme.

The Home Office consulted extensively with local authorities over several months to reach the specified number of children under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. This included a national launch event and over 10 regional events in England, as well as Scotland and Wales. There are already over 4,000 unaccompanied asylum seeking children in local authority care in the UK, and some local authorities host a disproportionate number of children. These children all need support, as do the British children in our care system.

In order to ensure the specified number of children to be transferred is a true reflection of the responses to that consultation, the Government increased the specified number from 350 to 480 following the notification of an administrative error as part of collating the figures.

The Government welcomes all offers from local authorities with capacity to look after unaccompanied asylum seeking children which we will to fulfil our existing commitments, including ensuring a fairer distribution of unaccompanied asylum seeking children between local authorities.