Home Office officials warn of risk to child refugees in hotels

Home Office officials have privately warned ministers that the decision to put unaccompanied child refugees in hotels risks exposing them to sex offenders.

The department had resorted to block-booking hotels after becoming overwhelmed by the number of child refugees crossing the Channel in small boats. However, officials have expressed significant concerns over the welfare of children placed in the Stade Court hotel in Hythe, Kent, and the Langfords hotel in Hove, East Sussex.

Next month it will become illegal to house children in hotels but the Home Office has booked the hotels “indefinitely”, suggesting that it is planning to continue doing so.

A source said: “Home Office officials are very worried something is going to go wrong and have warned ministers. They are worried that there’s not sufficient support. Kids are getting very depressed and something could go wrong.

“There is a major risk of a safeguarding incident such as a kid attempting suicide, kids going missing, absconding or disappearing.

“Sex offenders could be operating in these hotels — the Home Office has no oversight. We’ve heard many times before how kids who are placed in inappropriate accommodation are groomed. And this is a seaside town.”

One of the hotels has written to the Home Office asking for extra clothes and activities for the children at the hotel because they are “bored with nothing to do”.

Another source compared the lack of support for children in the hotels to “putting Covid patients in a Nightingale hospital but providing staff with no medical equipment”.

More than 120 unaccompanied children arrived in small boats last month. They were among more than 3,000 migrants who crossed the Channel in July — a third of this year’s total number of crossings so far.

Home Office officials are also said to be urging Priti Patel, the home secretary, to force councils to help look after unaccompanied children. The department took over responsibility for children arriving in small boats after Kent county council declared its social services were full in mid-June.

Patel announced an overhaul of the National Transfer Scheme in June in an effort to persuade other councils to share the burden of looking after unaccompanied child refugees.

She rebuffed calls to make it mandatory and instead attempted to encourage local authorities to “step up and play their part” by offering them a share of £20 million. However, she admitted last month that councils were “reluctant” to come forward.

Out of the 400 unaccompanied child refugees that Kent county council has taken into its care, 42 have been distributed to other local authorities.

Government sources say Patel is under “increasing pressure” from officials within her own department to make the National Transfer Scheme mandatory.

A government spokesman said: “We have had to use temporary accommodation to manage demand but we are determined to end the use of hotels as soon as possible and our Nationality and Borders bill will fix the broken asylum system.

“The Department for Education and Home Office are working closely together to ensure that the needs of newly arriving unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are met and that permanent placements are secured for them at the earliest opportunity.

“We are working with local public health bodies to ensure appropriate health requirements are in place and all hotels have staff on-site 24/7 to keep unaccompanied asylum-seeking children safe