Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they made of the willingness of families, churches and rotary groups to sponsor and care for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children when they announced in April 2017 that they UK would take 480 children from Europe.

Under the Children Act 1989, and relevant legislation in the devolved nations, local authorities have a responsibility to look after children in need in their jurisdiction. In accordance with section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, we consulted with local authorities on their capacity to care for unaccompanied children before announcing the specified number of 480. This is in addition to the over 4,500 unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC), already in local authority care in the UK. In light of this statutory duty, we have no plans to extend caring responsibilities for unaccompanied asylum seeking children in this way.

A scheme to allow community groups to directly sponsor a resettled refugee family was launched by the then Home Secretary and Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace on 19 July 2016. The Full Community Sponsorship scheme enables community groups including charities, faith groups, churches and businesses, to take on the role of supporting resettled refugees in the UK. A ‘Help Refugees in the UK’ webpage has also been developed on GOV.UK to make it easier for the public to support refugees in the UK and allow local authorities to focus support on the goods and services that refugees need.