Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Hanson of Flint on 27 January (HL Deb col 763), whether they will hear evidence from children and young people who are, or whose parents are, in the asylum and immigration system as part of their assessment of the children's right impacts of the asylum and earned settlement proposals.

There were a variety of ways in which the voices of children and young people, or their parents, were included as we considered reform of the asylum and immigration system. The earned settlement model, proposed in A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, announced changes to the mandatory requirements and qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain. The public consultation on the Earned Settlement Proposals closed on 12 February.

In that consultation, we carefully considered the appropriate pathways for dependent children, and we expected a wide range of stakeholders to have contributed.

Separately, we considered the specific pathways for children in care and care leavers without status who were outside the scope of that consultation. We proposed that separate targeted engagement would take place with external stakeholders to understand the challenges and develop a policy solution. As part of that targeted engagement, we explored how we could engage the views of children or young adults with experience of the care system.

Work on pathways for unaccompanied asylum‑seeking children, as part of the asylum reforms, included consideration of how children’s perspectives could be taken into account.

We also considered the appropriate pathways for asylum‑seeking families with children and took into account their needs and vulnerabilities.