Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to improve the processes for identifying children with rights to family reunion in the UK throughout refugee camps in Europe.

The Government works closely with other EU Member States to enact the safe transfers of unaccompanied asylum seeking children under the family reunion provisions of the Dublin Regulation, where they have eligible family in the UK. We have liaison officers based in France, Greece and Italy to support the transfer of unaccompanied children to the UK under the Dublin Regulation and section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016.

The Sandhurst Treaty, signed between the UK and France in January 2018, included measures to strengthen our cooperation with France on the operation of the Dublin Regulation, including shorter timescales for decisions and transfers. Where an unaccompanied child makes an asylum application in France, we will provide a decision to take charge of their claim within 10 working days of the conclusion of engagement with the relevant UK authority. Where we accept responsibility for assessing their asylum claim, we will aim, in cooperation with France, to transfer the child to the UK within 15 working days.

The Government has also announced a £3.6M development fund, which will be used to identify projects that support genuine claims through the Dublin process and ensure that those with no prospect of transferring to the UK are informed of their options.

The UK also continues our deployments to the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) to support their work in providing operational support to frontline Member States dealing with large numbers of migrant arrivals across Europe