Unaccompanied asylum seeking children in hotels - not looked after, but overlooked

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a report into the use of hotels to accommodate Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. The full report may be found here.

The use of hotels to provide short term accommodation was mandated by the Home Office in the Summer of 2021, after Kent County Council confirmed that they were not longer able to accommodate any more children arriving in the Kent Intake Unit in Dover.

Kent Council Council had been placed under significant pressure, it seems due to a combination of a funding shortfall and an ineffective National Transfer Scheme, which had sought to move children to different local authorities which had the resources to support them. Whilst the NTS has now been made mandatory (temporarily) the use of hotels to accommodate children and young people continues.

The report published this week found that 1,281 children were accommodated in hotels between July 2021 and February 2022. Although most of the children were teenagers over the age of 15, there were a significant proportion of younger children, and one baby, whose mother was also under the age of 18. 31 young people went missing from hotels in this period, of which 6 remain missing. The report outlines the challenges of a Home Office run system accommodating the complex needs of the children and young people accommodated in the hotels, and identifies significant safeguarding, structural and operational issues. In particular, it was noted that children and young people on occasion would spend a significant length of time accommodated in hotels (more than 30 days during some periods). There was no mental health support provided to children during this time. The report noted:

‘Questions asked of young people which might reveal mental health concerns were constructed in such a way as to avoid close examination. While this reflects a best practice approach that uncovering and exploring trauma should be undertaken while a young person is settled in a more permanent placement, it became problematic for young people who were not placed promptly, or whose trauma required addressing more immediately’ [para 4.8 of the report]

The children and young people accommodated in hotels are not ‘looked after’ by a local authority. Similarly, the Home Office has not assumed a statutory responsibility for them. They are therefore in a situation where they are present in the UK, without any person exercising parental responsibility for them or any form of parental care. They are also in a lacuna where there is no state responsibility for their welfare. Whilst the use of hotels was intended to be a short term measure before children could be appropriately accommodated in a local authority, it is clear that hotels are no longer operating as an emergency form of ‘care’, and the lack of state responsibility for these children is worrying.

The lack of state responsibility for children in these situations is extremely concerning, and makes me think about the way that Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children may be treated like adults in these situations – notwithstanding the complexities of their needs, the trauma they have suffered in their home countries and through making perilous journeys. Does the very fact that they are unaccompanied mean that the state treats them as adults? And how can we say that we are a state which complies with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child without a need for implementing legislation in these circumstances?