Government rejects calls for reforms to young migrant support

The JCHR’s June 2013 report said too often unaccompanied migrant children are treated as immigration cases first and as children second.

Among recommendations made were for the Department for Education to take over control from the Home Office of funding to councils for unaccompanied migrant children's welfare. The committee also questioned whether the Home Office was the best department to make policy surrounding the welfare of such children.

But in its response the government says it has yet to see any evidence that “it would be helpful to move responsibility for particular policies”. This also applied to the transfer of funding to the DfE.

Another recommendation to be rejected was for the creation of an independent advisory group – made up of charities, children’s services and academic experts – to help ministers ensure children’s welfare was prioritised and policy adhered to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The government says it is committed to the convention and already discusses issues surrounding the welfare and human rights of unaccompanied migrant children with experts.

A call to strengthen guidance for immigration staff on the welfare of children was also rejected. The government says the 2009 Immigration Act, which says immigration officials need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, is robust enough.

In addition, a JCHR call to publish official statistics on the number of young claimants whose age is disputed and are treated as adults, was rejected.

But not all the JCHR recommendations were vetoed by ministers. The use of dental X-rays to assess the age of those claiming asylum was criticised by the committee and has now been halted by the government.

In January, the government said it would trial the use of guardians to support victims of child trafficking. This goes part of the way to meeting a JCHR recommendation to allocate such guardians to unaccompanied asylum-seeking and trafficked children.