Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2016-05-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that unaccompanied child refugees have access to information in a form and language appropriate to their age and language on their rights to apply for asylum or family reunion which includes information on the criteria used in and estimated timescales for determining applications.

James Brokenshire

Unaccompanied asylum seeking children who have arrived in the UK are referred to local authority children’s services as soon as possible.

As well as social work support, they have access to publicly-funded legal advice in relation to their asylum claim, to advice and guidance on the asylum process from the Refugee Council Children’s Panel, and to an interpreter if English is not their first language.