More than 70 children disappear from Hove hotels housing asylum-seekers

More than 70 children have disappeared from hotels in Hove where asylum-seekers are being housed by the Home Office.

And 30 of the children have gone missing from just one hotel since April, according to Sussex Police.

Hove MP Peter Kyle said that it was “an outrage”, adding: “Hotels are not a place for unaccompanied children. They are illegal and should be closed and the money spent on foster homes instead.

“One child missing is too many – over 70 is an outrage which I’m trying to get people angry about.

“We should be angry. The Home Office is failing those children, exposing them to risk and needs to work properly with councils like Brighton and Hove.”

The number of missing children is equivalent to more than an entire year group at an average local primary school disappearing in just 18 months.

Brighton and Hove City Council, which has a legal duty of care for children in the area, is due to debate the issue on Thursday (15 December).

Labour councillor Amanda Grimshaw is expected to ask officials to clarify whether the Home Office is breaking the law at a meeting of the full council at Hove Town Hall.

She said: “There have also been worrying reports that the Home Office has provided new dates of birth to unaccompanied children in order to place them in adult accommodation.”

Her questions come as staff at a local doctors’ surgery where several asylum-seekers are registered said privately that they were “extremely concerned for the children’s welfare”.

Mr Kyle asked the police about 12 “unaccompanied asylum-seeking children” who went missing from Langfords, in Third Avenue, Hove, and other disappearances.

In reply to the Labour MP, Sussex Police said: “Since April 2022, 30 unaccompanied asylum-seekers being housed at the Langfords Hotel, in Hove, have been reported missing to Sussex Police.

“The vast majority of these individuals have no known links to anybody in the country, very little money and in some cases no mobile phones, meaning there are very few lines of inquiry available when trying to locate them.

“In each instance a full and thorough investigation has been carried out or is ongoing – alongside our partners in the community and other forces.

“These investigations are in line with our standard procedures for locating missing people, with safeguarding assessments and measures put in place in partnership with the Home Office.

“Of the 30 missing, nine have been located and a further 19 are currently under active investigation, with extensive inquiries ongoing.

“One investigation has been transferred to the Metropolitan Police, as they are believed to be within their jurisdiction, and one has been filed as inactive due to all proportionate inquiries having been completed.

“We continue to work with the Home Office to help put prevention measures in place and ensure that, when people are reported missing, we have the best opportunity to locate them.”

Langfords is one of three Hove hotels being used to house asylum-seekers. The other two are the Imperial, in First Avenue, and the Albany, in The Drive. On average, they house 60 people each.

Unaccompanied children are put up at Langfords, placed by Kent County Council, while families are housed at the Imperial and single men at the Albany under a Home Office contract with an Essex company called Clearsprings.

All three hotels are owned by the family of Nicholas Hoogstraten and the placements have been estimated to be worth the equivalent of £2 million a year of taxpayers’ money.

This is dwarfed by the bill nationally, with the cost of hotels for asylum-seekers estimated to be running at about £7 million a day.

In the past year, Mr Kyle has raised concerns with the Home Office about the suitability of Nicholas Hoogstraten’s involvement in housing vulnerable children and young people, given his criminal past.

In May, Mr Kyle persuaded the Home Office to investigate fire safety at Langfords as well as suitable play areas and suitable food. And at the Imperial, he has intervened to ensure that pregnant women received suitable medical help.

Green councillor Hannah Allbrooke, the deputy leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, has also spoken out about the safety and protection of vulnerable children in local hotels.

Last month she wrote: “The Home Office is quite clearly in meltdown. There is a huge backlog of asylum-seeker claims which is leaving many refugees and asylum-seekers in insecure hotel accommodation or in terrifying conditions at Manston (in Kent).

“At present in Brighton and Hove, we have three hotels housing asylum-seekers, one of which is supporting unaccompanied refugee children.

“These hotels are costing the public purse millions of pounds, all while private companies make a huge profit.

“Clearsprings, the company that was commissioned to provide these hotels, including in Brighton and Hove, reported profits up more than sixfold last year. The business gave its directors dividends of almost £28 million.

“We also know that the accommodation being used in Brighton and Hove is owned by convicted criminal and infamous landlord Nicholas Hoogstraten – and this was challenged by MP Peter Kyle earlier this year.

“Calling them hotels does the people in them a disservice. They are not places anyone would choose to stay.

“I have heard terrible stories from people who have been in the hotels that we have had in the city over the past year. I will do everything in my limited power to campaign for their end.”

On Thursday, Councillor Grimshaw has put down a motion for debate. It asks the council to note: “In July 2021 the Home Office began contracting with hotel owners in Brighton and Hove and elsewhere to house asylum-seeking children.

“(There are) alarming reports that at least 222 unaccompanied children placed by the Home Office in hotels nationally – many in Brighton and Hove – have gone missing.

“The Home Office has a mandatory statutory duty under section 55 of the Borders Act 2009 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK.

“Local authorities have mandatory statutory duties under the Children Act 1989 and 2004 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need within their area.

“The mandatory ‘National Transfer Scheme’ is intended to promptly transfer unaccompanied children, on their arrival in the UK, to statutory local authority care.”

Councillor Grimshaw intends to ask that “the chief executive writes to the Home Secretary asking for an explanation of the legal basis upon which they are moving unaccompanied asylum-seeking children outside of the local authority area of their arrival in the UK into hotels in Brighton and Hove being used as ‘intake centres’ – and to provide legal clarity about whether the Home Office accepts the responsibility of ‘corporate parent’ for the children placed in those ‘intake centres’”.

She also wants “an urgent meeting with the Home Office to discuss the welfare needs of and adequate funding for unaccompanied children”.

Her motion calls for “a report or briefing to the next Children, Young People and Skills Committee meeting to clarify at what point in the process Brighton and Hove City Council is informed by the Home Office that a child is being transferred out of area to a hotel or ‘extension of an intake centre’ located by the Home Office in Brighton and Hove”.

She also wants the report to explain “what specific steps are being taken to safeguard children once officers are made aware of their arrival”.

Councillor Grimshaw cited a report by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration after an official inspection of the use of hotels for housing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

It said: “The position the Home Office finds itself in, running unregistered children’s homes, is one that staff and stakeholders alike have found uncomfortable. This is clearly not a space the Home Office wants, or should be operating in.”

She urged the Home Office to improve its performance and called for “clarity around legal responsibility, powers and statutory duties around the welfare of children”.

She said that this “would help the council to be pro-active in monitoring the safeguarding of them in terms of child safety, wellbeing and environmental and public health”.

Councillor Grimshaw added: “It’s not just unaccompanied children who are suffering but accompanied children too – a single hotel room is not an appropriate place to keep a family of three or four people for more than a year.

“Children cannot thrive in such an environment and their mental and physical health is being damaged by this.

“The Home Office urgently needs to speed up both the interview process and the move-on/full dispersal process into more suitable accommodation.”