Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many unaccompanied migrant children from refugee camps in Greece they have committed to allow into the UK since 1 January; when such children will be received in the UK; how many of those children they decided to allow into the UK as a direct result of COVID-19.

The Home Office does not hold detailed information on the location of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children within European Member States.

The Home Office publishes data on the Dublin III Regulation on an annual basis (each February) in the Immigration Statistics This includes data on the number of requests to transfer into and out of the UK and the number acceptances and transfers into and out of, broken down by article. The latest data, covering up to 2019, can be found at:https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#dublin-regulation

Instructions on how to use the data can be found in the ‘Notes’ sheet.

Despite Covid-19 restrictions, the UK remains fully committed to meeting our obligations under the Dublin III Regulation. Arrangements to complete a transfer have always been and still are the responsibility of the sending State who have 6 months to enact transfer after acceptance. We continue to liaise with our counterparts in Member States so that we can effect transfers as soon as it is safe and practical to do so.

The Government remains committed to relocating the specified number of 480 unaccompanied children from Europe to the UK under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 (‘the Dubs amendment’). Over 220 children were transferred to the UK under section 67 when the Calais camp was cleared in late 2016. Since then we have continued to make further progress with participating States including Greece, to move closer to achieving this commitment.