Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure unaccompanied children moved from hotels are accommodated in safe, appropriate placements.

Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) are accommodated in hotels by the Home Office, on a temporary basis before they transfer to the care of a local authority through the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that UASC, like all looked-after children, are accommodated in safe and appropriate placements in accordance with the Children Act 1989. The department’s statutory guidance for local authorities ‘Care of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Child Victims of Modern Slavery (2017)’ sets out a range of factors that local authorities should consider when making placement decisions. This guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-of-unaccompanied-and-trafficked-children.

The department continues to work closely with the Home Office to ensure that all UASC are provided with care by a local authority as soon as possible after their arrival.