Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of children in Calais who are waiting to be reunited with their families in the UK.

James Brokenshire

There is no official estimate of the number of children in Calais, this is primarily a matter for the French authorities. It is only possible to assess whether an individual has links to the UK that could enable a transfer on family unity grounds once they make an application for asylum in France.

Once an asylum claim is lodged in France the Dublin Regulation procedure requesting the UK to take charge of a child on family unity grounds takes place very quickly, often in a matter of weeks, subject to consideration of the evidence in each individual case. An average time is not available for each of the last three years.

Since February 2016 the UK has accepted 30 family reunification applications from minors in France of which 23 have already been transferred to the UK.