Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department holds on the number of asylum seeker children who were in Home Office-procured hotels in Sussex have disappeared without notifying anyone in the past 12 months.

We take the welfare of those in our care extremely seriously. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in emergency interim hotels are safe and supported whilst we seek urgent placements with a local authority. Young people are supported by team leaders and support workers who are on site 24 hours a day. Further care is provided in hotels by teams of specialist social workers and nurses.

The Home Office has no power to hold asylum seekers, including children, in hotels or any temporary accommodation if they wish to leave. All Home Office staff and contractors engaging with asylum seekers are trained to adopt a risk-based approach towards potential indications of vulnerability and to refer relevant cases onto the Safeguarding Hub, a dedicated resource assigned to identifying and safeguarding vulnerable asylum seekers.

We have a central record of young people who have gone missing from UASC hotels and so have the details of these specific young people and the details of their missing incident. When any child goes missing, a multi-agency, missing persons protocol is mobilised, and many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located. The Home Office is also notified about any asylum-seeking children who went missing from adult/family hotels by the accommodation provider and therefore we would have the data regarding them, which is recorded on their individual records rather than centrally.