Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-10-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 22 September 2016 to Question HL1788, how many outstanding family reunion applications there are for unaccompanied children from France; what steps are being taken to ensure those applications are processed quickly; and what steps she is taking to ensure that the UK remains in contact with children with outstanding applications in the event that they are moved away from Calais.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Home Office teams have been deployed to France to work with the French Authorities to speed up the identification and transfer of eligible cases under both the Dublin Regulation and Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016.

More children are arriving to join their family in the UK each day. It is therefore not possible to provide an exact number of outstanding family reunion applications.

The UK has made clear that the remaining children, including those who do not qualify for family reunion must be looked after in safe facilities. The UK Government is ready to help fund such facilities and provide resources to aid the decision-making.