Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps the Government has taken to speed up family reunification for unaccompanied refugee children in Europe.

The Government has, and continues to, work closely with partners across Europe to ensure the timely and effective operation of the Dublin Regulation. We have seconded experts to France and Greece, and we have a long-standing secondee in Italy to support the work on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Europe, including the Dublin Regulation. The Government has transferred more than 750 children to the UK in support of the French operation to clear the Calais camp under both the family reunification provisions of the Dublin Regulation and the terms of section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. Prior to the Calais camp clearance, between 1 January and 1 October, there were over 140 unaccompanied asylum seeking children accepted for transfer from Europe to the UK under the Dublin Regulation.