A parliamentary report has revealed that 40 children who went missing from hotels housing asylum seekers in the UK years ago have still not been found. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, in a report published on Thursday, said all but two of the 40 are now adults. The report comes three years after it emerged that more than 440 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children had gone missing from Home Office hotels, some as young as 12.
The cross-party committee has been told by a witness that 40 of the cohort of missing children have still not been located. Helen Waite, a director of children's social care at the Department for Education, told the committee in June that 472 children had gone missing in total and 432 had since been found. Waite said: "Guidance was issued to police from the Home Office, to be shared with local networks, to ensure that we continue to look for those children and that we can surface whether they have been found, and information can be updated to provide more reassurance."
The high court ruled in 2023 that the Home Office's routine use of hotels to house lone child asylum seekers was unlawful. At the time, the Conservative government said: "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."
In a letter to the committee last year, when she was border security and asylum minister, Angela Eagle said some of those found were "located in exploitative situations and may have been trafficked or victims of other forms of exploitation". The committee, in its report, said it was "extremely concerned" about the number of youngsters still missing. It called on the Home Office to "make clear what specific action is being taken to locate these children, to investigate the causes for them going missing, and to avoid unaccompanied asylum-seeking children going missing in the future". The committee also asked the Home Office to provide an update every three months with details of efforts to locate the children who remain missing.
England's Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, described the ongoing disappearances as an "unacceptable failure" and demanded the government set out what it is doing to locate them. Patricia Durr, chief executive of Every Child Protected Against Trafficking UK, said: "The government cannot allow the disappearance [of children] to fade from public scrutiny. It is a significant child protection failure and we strongly support the committee's call for regular public reporting and greater transparency about what is being done to find those who remain missing, understand why so many children disappeared, and ensure this can never happen again."
Separately, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on Thursday gave the UK government its lowest ranking for failing to uphold asylum seekers' rights in line with UN recommendations. The watchdog found "gaps in social security provisions" and "failures to provide protection from poverty and destitution" in how new arrivals were treated. Officials criticised the government's decision to end a programme designed to help refugees with CV writing and interview skills after just two years. The government also revoked its legal duty to support asylum seekers at risk of destitution this year, the watchdog said. Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, the EHRC chair, said: "Everyone in the UK is covered by its human rights framework, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. But our human rights only work when they protect each and every one of us, including migrants and asylum seekers. When the government fail to protect the rights of one group, it puts everyone's rights at risk."
The use of hotels for asylum seekers has long been controversial. The then Conservative government said hotels were necessary due to an "unsustainable" rise in small boat crossings. Their use has continued under Labour, though the party has pledged to stop using asylum hotels completely by the next election. This month it was announced that a further 13 hotels housing asylum seekers had closed. The most recent closures are expected to save taxpayers £51m and bring the total number of asylum hotels below 160, down from a peak of about 400 under the Conservatives.
The Home Office-operated accommodation for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children closed in January 2024. Since then, the vast majority of children reported missing from those settings have subsequently been located, according to officials. A government spokesperson said: "Police forces are responsible for investigating missing children cases and we continue to review our records, share relevant information with them and work closely with local authorities and safeguarding partners to support those investigations."