Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her timescale is for bringing to the UK unaccompanied Afghanistan refugee children currently in temporary camps in Qatar who have relatives in the UK.

The Home Office is aware of a group of unaccompanied Afghan minors with family links to the UK in Qatar and officials are working closely with UNICEF, the UNHCR and the US State Department to ensure the most appropriate outcomes for these children. Our priority is to ensure that the children will be safe and well cared for and to ensure any outcome is in the best interests of the children.

We are working with the utmost urgency to ensure that, where appropriate, these children are brought to the UK. However, we need to conduct assessments of the relatives the children will be living with to ensure the children’s safety, and that moving to the UK is in their best interests. As soon as these assessments are made, and we are content moving to the UK is in the best interests of the children, arrangements will be made to bring them to the UK.