The government needs to urgently act on the “unacceptable crisis” of lone asylum-seeking children being held in hotels, councils in England and Wales have said.
Thousands of unaccompanied children are believed to be housed in temporary hotel accommodation by the Home Office.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils across England and Wales, said an “urgent plan” was needed to tackle this crisis.
In 2021, there were more than 3,000 children residing in hotels, including 725 under-16s. This is separate from the number of age-disputed children who have wrongly found themselves in hotels for adults.
During July and September this year, 1,322 lone children were housed by the Home Office in hotels – with the average stay lasting 16 days.
“It is deeply concerning and unacceptable that these hotels, which were introduced as a short-term emergency measure, remain in use, especially as the number of children going missing from them continues to grow,” councillor Louise Gittins, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said.
The LGA is calling on the government to establish a foster care recruitment campaign for unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum. They have suggested calling on volunteers who came forward for the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
The Home Office has previously admitted that housing unaccompanied child asylum seekers in hotels is illegal but said that it had no concrete plans to end the practice, according to the borders watchdog.
The government identified over a year ago that the policy amounted to the creation of unregulated children’s homes, which ministers banned in February 2021.
There have also been recent reports of more than 220 children going missing from these hotels, with the government admitting that they have no idea of their whereabouts.
Demands for help are also increasing. Councils in England and Wales were able to find suitable placements for 597 children in the past six months, compared to 136 in the same period the previous year.
Councils need help from government to establish good reception centres and care services for young children, the LGA said.
Ms Gittins said that councils are having to deal with mounting challenges, including “a lack of placements, an underfunded system, significant workforce shortages and challenges with age assessment”.
The mounting pressures come amidst another “humanitarian crisis” at Manston short-stay processing centre in Kent.
Unaccompanied child asylum seekers have spoken of being left without food, sleeping on cardboard boxes on the floor, and developing scabies while in the centre.
Some of these children are now in adult hotel accommodation and in the past month, the Humans for Rights Network (HFRN) have been contacted by 74 children in this situation, most of whom have been through Manston.
“Children are placed in these hotels and treated as adults, with no assistance provided to them to challenge their ages and access local authority care and accommodation ” Maddie Harris, director of HFRN said.
“We’ve had a number of situations where local authorities say they will help a child we have been supporting, but then say they haven’t got anywhere for them to go. Children are spending months in this adult accommodation.
“It’s hard to express just how scared a lot of these children are. The hotels that they are living in are not places for children.”
A government spokesperson said that an “unprecedented rise” in Channel crossings was putting “extreme pressure on our asylum system”.
They continued: “This has meant we have had no alternative but to temporarily use hotels to give children a roof over their heads whilst long-term accommodation is found.
“On average, unaccompanied children seeking asylum are moved to long-term care within 15 days of arriving in a hotel, but we know more needs to be done.
"That is why we are working closely with local authorities to increase the number of placements available and offer councils £6,000 for every child in a hotel which they can provide accommodation for.”
