As reported in the past week, we learned that in a shocking example of bad practice, the Home Office placed unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the city overnight, without prior discussion with myself, council officials, or Brighton and Hove’s communities or voluntary groups.
All of the care for these young people is being managed by the Home Office, which is responsible for this move. Nonetheless, we have deep concerns for these young people’s welfare.
Behind the dangerous rhetoric of the Home Secretary about a “hostile environment” is a system that is failing everyone.
We are pressing for assurances that Home Office officials’ ongoing plans for care are up to the job. I have made clear that this divisive, inconsiderate and uncaring approach is completely unacceptable.
Both myself and our lead on children, Councillor Hannah Clare, wrote immediately to Priti Patel, the Home Secretary. In another example of Home Office disdain, we’ve yet to receive a reply, even a holding response.
The hopeless handling of this situation by the Home Office only underlines their failed approach. The backdrop to the placement of vulnerable people in our city overnight is one of a broken system that is failing communities, care services and refugee children.
Kent County Council told government their care services were at breaking point back in August 2020, yet the government failed to respond and continued to place children in the area.
As a result, Kent has announced it will no longer accept refugee children into care until a better system is in place.
Places like Brighton and Hove and Portsmouth are now being treated as “overflow” as the government fails to address the situation.
What’s more, as a result of the government’s actions, Conservative-led Kent County Council is now taking the Conservative government to court over the issue. This clearly shows the system is a farce.
It should sadly come as no surprise that this is the same government that has overseen a decimation of funding for children’s social work services in the past 10 years, with children’s charity Barnardos reporting that funding available for children’s services has fallen by a third per child in England since 2010. Once again, it’s proven that a decade of cuts has consequences.
Councils have emphatically told the government through a recent consultation that the current voluntary scheme for supporting refugees does not work, given that the majority of councils helping unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are concentrated in the south east.
But ministers stopped short of introducing a mandatory rota, the very mechanism that would mean every council around the country plays a part, so none are left with a disproportionate responsibility.
Most importantly, a mandatory rota would mean it is more likely that children and young people get the support they need and deserve, by matching placements to available resources.
Just two weeks ago we campaigned on this very issue – calling on government to ensure that every council is part of the mandatory rota scheme. We’ve also called for adequate funding to ensure proper care can be provided to vulnerable children.
Many of these young people, after all, will be deeply traumatised as a result of war, the effects of climate change and famine in their countries of origin. They will often have made long and unsafe journeys or stayed in dreadfully unsafe conditions.
The government’s ask of councils – to step in and help– not only wasn’t even put to us. It comes without the funding needed to cover the complex help that such vulnerable children require and that councils like ours want to provide.
As a city we are proud to offer sanctuary to refugee children who have arrived in the UK by themselves. We are currently caring for and supporting 38 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children – and take over our quota under the national transfer scheme.
But ultimately, it is both vulnerable children who are let down by the Home Office’s botched approach to asylum – and our communities too.
Placing significant numbers of young people in the city overnight without even discussing it first is not the way to treat a council, a community, or a city. It’s fundamentally not the way to ensure the best care for any young person.
In the same week as we mark the 70th anniversary of the United Nations convention on the rights of refugees, the Home Office is drastically letting down some of the world’s most vulnerable children fleeing brutal conditions.
We will continue to push the Home Office to provide the assistance these young people need. But we also need the vile rhetoric pitting “them” against “us” to stop and adequate support to start. With community and voluntary sector partners, we will not stop demanding a better system.
Councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty is the Green leader of Brighton and Hove City Council.
It is interesting to see where the Government have sent these children. As far as I can tell, the Hotel where many, if not all are housed, had no kitchen or cooking facilities. These children (apparently, according to the residents of the street that they are housed in) rely on takeaway for their sustenance. Takeaway every now and then is OK. Every day for each meal eaten? This not only adds to the cost of keeping these vulnerable children, but it also robs them of vitamins, nutrients and generally healthy ingredients that would be available from a proper kitchen, that takeaway food generally lacks. It shows a complete lack of thought by the government agencies who threw these children into this accommodation which does not offer adequate welfare.