Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will extend the eligibility criteria to enter the UK for child refugees in France to those child refugees currently in Greece and Italy.

In 2016, we welcomed over 900 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to the UK, including more than 750 from France as part of the UK’s support for the Calais camp clearance - almost half of the unaccompanied children who were in the camp at the time of the clearance. Approximately 200 of these children met the criteria for section 67 of the Immigration Act.

More eligible children will be transferred from Europe, in line with the terms of the Immigration Act, in the coming months and we will continue to meet our obligations under the Dublin Regulation. The process and criteria for the transfer of children from Europe under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 will be published in due course.