Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what responsibility her Department has towards children who go missing from accommodation provided by her Department; and if she will make an assessment of the reasons for which some children have gone missing (a) before arriving and (b) while at accommodation provided by her Department.

Any child going missing is extremely serious, and we work with the police and local authorities to seek to urgently locate them and ensure they are safe.

We are considering all options available to ensure unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) receive the critical care they need and to end the use of hotels. We have safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels are as safe and supported as possible as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.

Young people are supported by team leaders and support workers who are on site 24 hours a day. Further care is provided in hotels by teams of social workers and nurses.  Staff, including contractors, receive a number of briefings and guidance on how to safeguard children.

Records are kept and monitored of children leaving and returning to the hotel. Support workers will accompany children off site on activities and social excursions, or where specific vulnerabilities are identified.  The Home Office has no power to hold children in hotels or any temporary accommodation if they wish to leave.

When a child who has gone missing from a hotel appears in another local area they should be treated as a child in need under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, and under section 20 of the Act, every local authority must provide accommodation for any child in need within their area who appears to them to require accommodation. As such the local authority where the child presents themselves must take responsibility for the child and should seek to accommodate them as appropriate in accordance with section 20.