Child asylum seekers have gone missing from British hotels – where is the outcry?

Some of the worst crimes happen not under the cover of darkness, but in broad daylight.

In Hove, next to my Brighton Pavilion constituency, the Home Office has put vulnerable, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at risk by placing them in hotels.

Not only have scores gone missing – but in Sunday’s Observer, a whistle-blower revealed that some may have been abducted, kidnapped and trafficked.

It has since been confirmed that about 200 asylum-seeking children are missing in total, of whom 13 are under the age of 16.

This isn’t just happening in Brighton & Hove – it’s happening in several Home Office hotels across the South East.

And yet all the evidence is that the Home Office isn’t dealing with this scandal.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick came to the House of Commons this week, to answer my Urgent Question on the matter but it shouldn’t have taken the anger of MPs to secure this update.

He reiterated the government’s plans to end the hotels policy ‘as soon as possible’ (though put no date on it) and mentioned a scheme to give £15,000 to local authorities who take eligible young people into their care.

There have long been serious concerns about the dangerous practice of using these hotels to house asylum-seeking children.

Brighton and Hove City Council sounded the alarm as long as 18 months ago, while Peter Kyle, the MP for Hove who has worked tirelessly on this issue, has argued it was entirely foreseeable that children in these hotels could be snatched, abducted and coerced by criminals.

The number of asylum seekers being placed in hotels has been rising, and all through that rise ministers should have proactively been telling Parliament what action they’ve been taking to keep these children safe and remove the risks as well as answering our questions on the issue.

These missing children need to be found as soon as possible and their safety guaranteed.

Local police services can direct extra resources to missing persons’ teams, but they need dedicated Home Office funding so they can do what’s required to ensure every child can be accounted for.

The other immediate step the Home Office should take is to confirm exactly who is responsible for these vulnerable, at-risk children.

Local authorities act as the ‘corporate parent’ for those asylum seekers who enter the foster care system, but there is a lack of clarity over who has the legal responsibility for those in hotels.

Right now they are in legal limbo and Minister Robert Jenrick has said the Home Office is still apparently considering its legal responsibility – that’s not good enough.

We need clarity now so that every single child gets the protection and support they deserve.

We need real action to prevent more emergencies of this kind in the future.

The Government’s solution is to offer £15,000 to local authorities to help take eligible unaccompanied, asylum-seeking, young people into care.

But for that system to work, you need foster care places – and capacity is in seriously short supply.

Back in 2021, a report found that England faces a shortfall of 25,000 foster families – and a small cash injection now isn’t going to solve systemic issues.

There are still so many other questions that the Home Office is yet to answer.

For one, Why isn’t OFSTED, which maintains standards and good practice in children’s services, inspecting these hotels on a regular basis?

We also need ministers to guarantee that everyone contracted through private companies to act as security in the hotels has been DBS background checked – which the Migration Watchdog suggested last October was not the case.

Have ministers taken up offers of help from charities working with children – and if not, why not?

But the crucial point here is that the hotel model isn’t safe.

Let’s not forget – the widespread use of hotels only began in the first place due to a lack of a coherent asylum policy, the result of successive Home Secretaries’ incompetent and inhumane approaches, and their failure to set up safe routes for refugees.

I believe our current system fails to treat refugees with dignity and certainly doesn’t treat children like their lives matter.

We need an urgent investigation into how so many children have been allowed to go missing on Suella Braverman’s watch, and we need workable alternatives to parking unaccompanied children in hotels, not the sticking plasters and wishful thinking we are currently getting from ministers.

The backlog of asylum and visa applications grows bigger by the day. Safe routes for refugees from many countries are still yet to be set up.

The threat of the Rwanda deportation policy looms large, with reports even suggesting the threat of being sent to Rwanda is being exploited by the criminals abducting and trafficking children who’ve reached British soil.

This can’t go on.

My message to the Home Office is crystal clear: every child matters and we need an end to their vile asylum policy before any more go missing.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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