Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-03-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage families in the UK to sponsor, foster or adopt unaccompanied refugee children who reach this country.

Lord Bates

In response to the many generous offers of help, the Home Secretary has announced that we will be establishing a register of people and organisations that can provide support for the settlement of refugees.

We have asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to make an assessment of the number and needs of unaccompanied children in conflict regions and advise on when it is in the best interests of the child to be resettled in the UK. The UNHCR has already been clear that these are likely to be exceptional cases. This is because it is not uncommon in an emergency situation for children to be temporarily separated from their parents or other family members who may be looking for them. Efforts to reunite children with relatives or extended family members, who may be looking for them in the region, should be preferred to premature attempts to organise adoption. Some lone refugee children may come to the UK for temporary care, but overall our support is for them to be reunited with parents or other relatives wherever possible.

More information on what the public can do to help Syrian refugees can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/syria-refugees-what-you-can-do-to-help–2