Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to ensure that child asylum applicants admitted to the UK are not moved to areas where specialist legal advice on immigration matters is unavailable.

The Government responded to the European Union Committee’s report on 1 November. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) are looked after by local authorities, in keeping with arrangements for other children. They are provided with a social worker and an independent reviewing officer to oversee their care arrangements, as well as access to an independent advocate and an independent visitor. We are working with the Legal Aid Agency and local authorities to ensure that UASC get the legal advice they need.

Children are not eligible to sponsor relatives for family reunion under the Immigration Rules. Allowing them to do so would create perverse incentives for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and risk dangerous journeys to the UK rather than stay with their family and seek protection in the first safe country they reach.