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Motion #C01
Currently there are at least 5 hotels housing refugee children in England. Alone, in an unfamiliar place, with little support. This motion seeks to address the failure in Government and local council policy to provide the right support to these young children
The Green Party of England and Wales believe that it is vital unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) get support immediately when they arrive on our shores (RA 603).
Yet many child refugees are being held in hotels and intake centres across the south coast, waiting for a council to accept them into care through the national transfer scheme.
We applaud the small number of councils who, despite mass cuts to their budgets and the lack of available placements for children in care, do everything in their power to welcome child refugees into their area - and are exceeding the target set by Government. This includes Green-led Brighton and Hove and Solihull, where Greens are a powerful opposition.
But many local councils, often where Conservatives are in power, are failing to provide a warm, safe home for child refugees.
We welcomed moves from the Government to use their powers to make it mandatory that councils take UASC in November. However, we are dismayed that this action was only temporary.
We therefore call on the Government to:
• make the mandatory rota through the national transfer scheme permanent, with no exceptions allowing councils to opt out
• ensure that the national transfer scheme takes account of UASC best interests and wishes, and that the prescribed 0.07% quota should be a minimum not a maximum for councils supporting UASC in their area
• fund councils adequately to enable them to provide support to UASC in care and care leavers
• introduce schemes which reunite unaccompanied child refugees with their families
• address the lack of placements for all children in care, by funding councils to develop in house provision and end the practice of profit-making private residential homes and foster agencies
• over the long term, work with other governments to address the underlying causes of unaccompanied child refugees arriving on our shores