The government is unlawfully housing child asylum seekers in hotels, leaving them without proper care and at risk of harm and “criminal exploitation”, the High Court has ruled.
A judge said the Home Office was violating one of the “most fundamental duties of any civilised state” in failing to properly care for children arriving alone on small boats, finding the Home Office has been routinely housing them in hotels since December 2021.
A High Court judgment said that by the time of a hearing earlier this month, hundreds had disappeared and 154 children - including a 12-year-old - remained missing.
“Neither Kent County Council nor the home secretary knows where these children are, or whether they are safe or well,” Mr Justice Chamberlain said.
“All these children have travelled long distances. Some have been abused or mistreated in their country of origin or on their journey here.
“Some are victims of human trafficking, many speak little or no English and are ill-equipped to navigate life as an asylum seeker in the UK. They are especially vulnerable.”
A watchdog report released in October said that hotels housing children had been targeted and filmed by far-right activists, including one who was able to enter a premises without being stopped.
Inspectors found that the young asylum seekers were being dressed in “identical outfits” from Primark and Sports Direct, making them easily spotted by criminal gangs and sex predators.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said there was evidence that some of the missing children “have been persuaded to join gangs seeking to exploit them for criminal purposes”.
“These children have been lost and endangered here, in the United Kingdom,” his damning judgment continued.
“They are not children in care who have run away. They are children who, because of how they came to be here, never entered the care system in the first place and so were never ‘looked after’.”
The judge said ensuring the welfare of children was “among the most fundamental duties of any civilised state”, and that young asylum seekers were being “treated less favourably than other children, because of their status”.
Because all intercepted small boats are brought to shore by authorities in Kent, the local council has struggled with the demand and has announced at several points that it cannot take new child asylum seekers.
The move sparked an increase in the Home Office’s use of hotels, which had started in July 2021 but became “systematic and routine” from December that year.
More than 5,400 child asylum seekers have now been housed in hotels, including a third under 16, for as long as two months.
Documents previously published by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration showed the Home Office internally admitting the practice amounted to illegal “unregulated children’s homes”.
An entry on an “risk register” from August 2021 said: “We are running children’s homes and committing a criminal offence but relying on the defence of necessity. The mitigation is to stop doing this … advice is going to ministers.”
Another said: “[If] Home Office continues to run UASC [unaccompanied child asylum seeker hotels without any statutory responsibility .. we will be breaking the law and continuing to run unregulated children’s homes and continuing to expose HO to illegal activity, burnout and trauma.”
The borders inspectorate sent its damning report to then-home secretary Priti Patel in June 2022 but its publication was delayed for months, and a formal recommendation for a “viable and sustainable exit strategy” from hotels was only partially accepted.
The government prohibited the placement of children under 16 in “unregulated settings” in February 2021, and asylum hotels are not subject to statutory oversight by Ofsted.
People gather outside Brighton Town Hall in June in support of Brighton and Hove City Council’s plan to launch legal action against the Home Office for reopening a hotel where more than 100 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing (Anahita Hossein-Pour/PA)— (PA Wire)
The High Court ruled that the government’s power to accommodate children in hotels may only be used “over very short periods in true emergency situations”, but is now used “systematically as a substitute for local authority care”.
It also found that Kent County Council had acted unlawfully by violating its “absolute” duty to children, by refusing to care for asylum seekers.
“The responsibility for this unlawful state of affairs lies as much with the home secretary as with Kent County Council,” Mr Justice Chamberlain said.
“From December 2021 at the latest, the practice of accommodating children in hotels, outside local authority care, was both systematic and routine and had become an established part of the procedure for dealing with UAS children.
“From that point on, the home secretary’s provision of hotel accommodation for UAS children exceeded the proper limits of her powers and was unlawful.”
The case was the result of three crossover legal challenges, one brought by Every Child Protected Against Trafficking against Kent council and the Home Office, and then two separate cases brought by Kent council and Brighton and Hove City Council against the home secretary.
Bella Sankey, the leader of Brighton council, said: “Importantly the High Court also makes clear that the home secretary already has the power to require local authorities across the country to take children into foster care via a statutory rota system called the National Transfer Scheme.
“Suella Braverman must now urgently enforce this system so that the hotels can be emptied and all local authorities can play their part in safeguarding children.”
Patricia Durr, the chief executive of ECPAT, said the case was a “child protection scandal”.
“So many of the most vulnerable children remain missing at risk of significant harm as a consequence of these unlawful actions by the home secretary and Kent County Council,” she added.
A Home Office spokesperson said it had “always maintained that the best place for unaccompanied children to be accommodated is within a local authority”.
“However, due to the unsustainable rise in illegal Channel crossings, the government has had no option but to accommodate young people in hotels on a temporary basis while placements with local authorities are urgently found,” a statement added.
“In light of today’s judgment, we will continue to work with Kent County Council and local authorities across the UK to ensure suitable local authority placements are provided for unaccompanied children, in line with their duties.”
Kent County Council said the National Transfer Scheme “must be operated in a mandatory and effective way” before it can care for all child asylum seekers.
“Kent has long argued that other local authorities must accept their fair share of these vulnerable children into their care within the specified timescales and the Home Office must be prepared to use its powers to force recalcitrant local authorities to participate in the scheme,” a statement added.
“The safety and welfare of all the children referred into our care continues to be an absolute priority.”
