Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Immigration to the urgent question on Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children on 24 January 2023, Official Report, column 877, when her Department began its consideration of who has corporate legal responsibility for children living in bridging hotels; and when she plans to make a decision on this point.

The Home Office has always taken the view that these children should be in local authority care.

The Home Office does not have, and therefore cannot discharge, duties under Part 3 of the Children Act 1989. It is for the local authority where an unaccompanied child is located to consider its duties under the Children’s Act 1989.