Brighton City Council urges action on 'dangerous' use of migrant hotels

Figures for migrants crossing the Channel in small boats have risen steadily

The government needs to do more to end the use of hotels for child asylum seekers, Brighton & Hove City Council has said.

Deputy council leader Hannah Allbrooke told the BBC the policy was "really dangerous" and "not appropriate".

Her comments follow a report children were being abducted from a Brighton hotel, a claim denied by the government.

It said the wellbeing of children in its care was an "absolute priority".

Speaking to Politics South East, Ms Allbrooke said hotels were "really dangerous and they are not appropriate places to have young asylum seekers".

But she said there had been 1,600 children who had gone through hotels in Hove alone, an "impossible" number to take into the local care system.

"It would overwhelm us," she said.

'A lot of trauma'

In January, the council wrote to Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and told him the Home Office had "failed in its duty of care" to asylum seeking children.

About 200 children, mostly Albanian teenage boys, remain missing from hotels housing asylum seekers, the immigration minister has said.

Ms Allbrooke said that when asylum seekers arrive in this country, there is "a lot of trauma and what they need is support and care. These hotels are not providing that".

She added: "Sadly there are local authorities, including some in the south east, who do not take asylum seeker children into care and that is what is meaning that there are large numbers of children still in hotels."

She called on the government to "sort out the lack of placements in children's social care [and] sort out the recruitment crisis in social workers, then it will be easier for local authorities to take these asylum seekers."

A government spokesman said: "Robust safeguarding procedures are in place to ensure all children are safe and supported as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.

"We are determined to stop the use of hotels for all children and minors. To achieve this goal, we are providing local authorities with £15,000 for every unaccompanied child they take into their care."

He added that the National Transfer Scheme had seen 3,148 children transferred to local authorities between 1 July, 2021 and 30 September, 2022, compared to 739 in the same time frame in the previous year.

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