Alison McGovern – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison McGovern on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the number of unaccompanied child refugees in Calais who have family in the UK; and when that assessment was carried out.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The management of asylum claims and the protection of unaccompanied children in Calais is primarily a matter for the French authorities. A French non-government organisation, France Terre D’Asile (FDTA) has been charged with identifying isolated children with UK links. Both Governments are clear that unaccompanied children in Calais in need of protection should claim asylum in France. The UK will consider requests to take responsibility of an asylum application made in France, when lodged by a minor with close family connections in the UK, and both Governments are committed to ensuring such cases are prioritised. There has been intense cooperation between the UK and French authorities to improve the operation of the Dublin process. We have established a permanent official level contact group and we will shortly be seconding another UK expert to the French Interior Ministry. We have already made significant progress in speeding up the Dublin process. Since the beginning of the year over 120 children have been accepted for transfer from Europe under the family reunion provisions of Dublin, over 70 of whom were from France.