About 200 asylum-seeking children have gone missing, says minister

About 200 children, mostly Albanian teenage boys, stay missing from hotels lodging asylum seekers, the migration curate has said.

Robert Jenrick told MPs that of 4,600 kid asylum seekers who had arrived successful the UK since 2021, 440 had gone missing and lone fractional had returned.

He said it was "extremely concerning" but added helium had not seen grounds the children were being abducted.

Labour's Yvette Cooper accused ministers of a "dereliction of duty".

The shadiness location caput said determination was "a transgression web involved" successful taking the children distant from their accommodation and that the authorities was "completely failing to halt them".

"They are letting these gangs tally amuck."

She urged the authorities to ace down connected the gangs and extremity its contracts with hotels from wherever children had gone missing.

She besides expressed interest astir the deficiency of clarity implicit whether the Home Office oregon section councils were legally liable for the children.

Mr Jenrick said helium had not been presented with grounds that children were being abducted but would proceed to marque enquiries adding: "I americium not going to fto this substance drop."

He acknowledged determination was "a challenge" astir the presumption of the section authorities successful this country but said the government's wide nonsubjective was to guarantee young radical were lone kept successful the hotels "for a precise abbreviated play of time".

He told MPs that 88% of the children who had gone missing were Albanian; 13 of the children were nether 16; and 1 of them is female.

He said the authorities had nary powerfulness to detain unaccompanied asylum-seeking children but the constabulary and section authorization were "mobilised" to find missing children to guarantee their safety.

Caroline Lucas - a Green MP successful Brighton wherever immoderate of the children are thought to person gone missing - accused the Home Office of "staggering complacency and incompetence".

"This feels similar the plight of girls successful Rotherham who were treated similar they didn't matter," she said, in notation to the wide kid enactment maltreatment successful the Yorkshire town.

Ms Lucas raised the substance successful Parliament pursuing a study in the Observer that children had been kidnapped from a edifice successful Brighton and Hove.

Another section MP - Labour's Peter Kyle - said the missing children were being "coerced into crime", adding: "Just past twelvemonth Sussex Police pursued a car that had collected 2 children from extracurricular this hotel.

"When they managed to get the car to information they released 2 kid migrants and they arrested 1 of the members who was driving it - who was a pack person who was determination to coerce the children into crime."

The authorities has travel nether unit precocious to trim the fig of asylum seekers staying successful hotels.

Asylum seekers are often accommodated successful hotels portion the Home Office decides whether they tin enactment successful the country.

This is simply a lengthy process, and caller delays successful determination making, arsenic good arsenic a large emergence successful the numbers arriving successful the UK, has caused a emergence successful the numbers kept successful hotels.