Asylum-seeking children causing council overspends across south
The number of lone asylum-seeking children being cared for in parts of the South is causing huge overspends for many local councils.On average across England, one in every 10 children in council care in 2024 had fled desperate situations abroad, according to Department for Education data.In Wokingham borough, it was one in every four children in care and in Hampshire County Council's area last month it was one in five.The Home Office said it was working with local authorities to support them but the Local Government Association (LGA) has said more "vital" funding was needed.
Across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Dorset, more than 750 lone asylum-seeking children are being looked after by councils, all hoping to be given refugee status.
'I want to say thanks'
Ahmad Othman fled Syria when he was 16. His father had been jailed by the Assad regime and was thought to have died in prison.Efforts to confirm his death have so far failed and Ahmad believes his father's body lies, unidentified, in one of thousands of mass graves."It was scary in my country," he said. "The war, they killed people. Leaving my family was hard but I would be dead if I stayed."Ahmad has been looked after by West Berkshire Council and a youth homelessness charity called Step by Step."I want to say thanks a lot for supporting me. I will be supporting this country in the future," he said.
The number of people claiming asylum in the UK in 2024 reached its highest level since records began in 1979, according to Home Office figures.Among them were 7,380 children who arrived alone in England, up from 5,080 in 2020. The government's National Transfer Scheme (NTS) aims to ensure a "fairer, more equitable distribution" of children arriving in the UK alone, across all local councils in England.Wokingham Borough Council said it had "disproportionately high" numbers because of its "preventative" work to keep local children with their families and the NTS places children from abroad "based on local population sizes". Hampshire County Council said government grants did not cover the significantly higher cost of looking after separated children once they turned 18, despite their "greater needs".As a result, it is facing a £4.2m shortfall in its children's services budget in the financial year ending in March 2025.The LGA said the cost of supporting lone asylum-seeking children often exceeded the grants councils received from the Home Office.
The vast majority of separated children applying for asylum are boys but one in every 25 are girls, like Shula, who is living with a host family in Newbury, Berkshire.Shula - not her real name - was 16 when she fled her Muslim family to avoid being forced into a marriage she did not want.She had renounced her faith and feared her "really strict" family would find her and hurt her, or force her to return, after she escaped on a plane with a sister."Our country is so strict, we thought people might stop us because we were girls alone," she added.Shula is the seventh teenager Beverley and Mark Landreth-Smith have welcomed into their home through a hosting programme run by Step by Step.Mr Landreth-Smith said some of the children they looked after had been subjected to "racist" and "unkind" comments."A lot of people were really nice to me," said Shula. "But also there were people that were racist. I don't want them to feel like I'm a bad person."
Now aged 19, Ahmad is studying at Reading College and plans to give back to the UK by becoming an electrical engineer. The Home Office has granted him five years "leave to remain" in the country as a refugee.He can then apply for permanent residency and, 12 months after that, British citizenship.But Step-by-Step, backed by the EveryYouth network of youth homelessness charities, fears many lone asylum-seeking children could now be denied the right to stay in the UK permanently.The government's new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will bar refugees who enter the UK illegally from ever becoming British citizens.EveryYouth wants separated children to be exempt from this, so they do not face "lifelong legal limbo".The Home Office said the safety and welfare of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children was its "utmost priority"."We are continuing to work with local authorities across the UK to support them to fulfil their statutory duties to accommodate unaccompanied children nationwide," it said.
Additional reporting by the BBC Local Data Team
You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Mail's shocking 'cash for visas' scam expose shows the UK is an 'immigration free for all', Shadow Justice Minister Robert Jenrick warns
Robert Jenrick demanded Labour end the immigration 'free-for-all' yesterday after the Mail revealed how crooked legal advisers run cash for visas scams. The Shadow Justice Secretary hailed our 'crucial' undercover investigation which exposed how companies are charging up to £22,000 per person to provide 'skilled' jobs in the UK for underqualified foreign workers. Our probe discovered range of brazen tricks being used to dupe the Home Office into providing sponsorship licences enabling convenience stores, barbers, warehouses and bars across the country to bring in overseas labour on false pretences. It is so lucrative that many firms have started up just to profit from hiring foreign staff and then exploit them for cheap labour. Immigration advisers working as fixers for the firms coach immigrants how to lie to officials, overstating their levels of education and experience to secure the visa. Mr Jenrick said: 'This crucial Daily Mail investigation shows our immigration system is a free-for-all. 'Scammers are lining their pockets while the public have yet more low-skilled migration forced upon them. 'It's gone on for decades and the public are sick to death of it.' He called for the adviser exposed by the Mail to face the 'toughest possible punishment.' 'The Government will only bring this farce to an end if they radically reduce numbers to historic levels officials can properly control.' Mr Estibeiro told our undercover reporter that he works with businesses in Bradford, Leicester, Northampton and Peterborough, but only takes payment for his services via third party bank accounts to avoid any paper trail linking the firm to his scam Border security minister Dame Angela Eagle launched an urgent investigation into our probe. She also immediately suspended the sponsorship licence of Leicester-based immigration advice firm Flyover International after the Mail revealed its managing partner tricks the Home Office into believing employers need a certificate of sponsorship to take on overseas workers. Joe Estibeiro told our undercover reporter that he works with businesses in Bradford, Leicester, Northampton and Peterborough, but only takes payment for his services via third party bank accounts to avoid any paper trail linking the firm to his scam. He makes it appear that employers can't find any British residents to fill 'skilled' jobs by first advertising the positions in the UK and only recording interviews with the worst candidates to use as evidence if they are investigated by the Home Office. The overseas workers he recruits officially earn around £3000 a month to meet the government's minimum salary requirements for skilled worker visas. But he described how after the money is paid into their account they have to withdraw all but £900 and secretly hand it back to their boss. Mr Estibeiro even claimed the Government didn't care if companies bring in unqualified staff on skilled worker visas, insisting: 'The Home Office is just interested in the money.' More than 131,000 businesses are now on the Home Office's list for licensed sponsors for the permits which includes market traders, dog groomers – listed as 'canine beauticians' - curtain fitters and even scores of kebab shops. Critics warned the open duplicity could sink Sir Keir Starmer's immigration crackdown which made new restrictions on the skilled worker visas a major part of his aim to end the economy's addiction to cheap overseas labour. Dame Angela said: 'Since taking office there have been 40 per cent fewer visa applications, we have removed nearly 30,000 people with no right to be here and arrests from illegal working raids are up 51%. 'We announced in the Immigration White Paper that backs British workers and ends the economy's addiction to cheap overseas labour. 'And under our new Borders legislation, the Immigration Advice Authority will get new powers to immediately suspend registered advisers and organisations suspected of carrying out the most flagrant abuse of the system, bringing them in line with legal regulators.' A Home Office source claimed when Mr Jenrick was immigration minister he had failed clamp down on the criminal gangs fueling illegal immigration. The source added: 'If he needs reminding what the Labour government has done to tackle this, we've introduced a new law to prevent suspected crooks like the one found by the brilliant journalism in the Daily Mail - so the Immigration Advice Authority will get new powers to immediately suspend registered advisers and organisations.' Flyover International is owned by another man who is understood to be taking the matter seriously and investigating and says that Mr Estibeiro was not officially hired to work in the UK end of the business. Mr Estibeiro denied involvement in any 'illegal or unethical' activity and said he was 'solely involved in student recruitment' and insisted he always told anyone who enquired about Certificates of Sponsorship for skilled worker visas that 'we do not deal with such matters.'
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- The Guardian
Home Office may be forced to cut police numbers as result of Treasury deal
The Home Office could still be forced to cut the overall number of police officers after lengthy spending review negotiations with the Treasury. Whitehall sources said the department had been asked to look at all options including limiting officer recruitment, which would mean an overall cut in the headcount. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was the last minister to reach a deal with the Treasury, with reports suggesting greater police spending would mean a squeeze on other areas of her department's budget. A source said that cuts to police numbers remained 'a possibility'. Officials will also be expected to look at reducing the cost of the government's accommodation for asylum seekers, which is expected to rise to £15.3bn. But ministers have few levers to control the rising costs, which have largely been driven by an increase in the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels. The Home Office had argued privately that police numbers must be maintained for the government to deliver its policy commitments on neighbourhood policing. Police chiefs including Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, had publicly lobbied the government for more money in recent weeks. Speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon, the prime minister's official spokesperson said negotiations over the spending review were over. 'The spending review is settled, we will be focused on investing in Britain's renewal so that all working people are better off,' they said. 'The first job of the government was to stabilise the British economy and the public finances, and now we move into a new chapter to deliver the promise and change.' The government has committed to spend 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence from April 2027, with a goal of increasing that to 3% over the next parliament – a timetable which could stretch to 2034. Rachel Reeves's plans will also include an £86bn package for science and technology research and development. Last week the chancellor admitted that she had been forced to turn down requests for funding for projects she wanted to back, amid the Whitehall spending wrangling. Sadiq Khan's office is concerned that Wednesday's announcement will include no new funding or projects for London. The mayor had been looking to secure extensions to the Docklands Light Railway and Bakerloo line on the Underground, along with the power to introduce a tourist levy and a substantial increase in funding for the Met. A source close to the mayor said on Monday that ministers 'must not return to the damaging, anti-London approach of the last government', adding this would harm London's public services and 'jobs and growth across the country'. They said: 'Sadiq will always stand up for London and has been clear it would be unacceptable if there are no major infrastructure projects for London announced in the spending review and the Met doesn't get the funding it needs. 'We need backing for London as a global city that's pro-business, safe and well-connected.'
ITV News
12 hours ago
- ITV News
MPs raise concerns about Jersey's 'backdoor route into the UK'
MPs in the UK have raised concerns about Jersey 's French ID card scheme, saying it opens a "backdoor route into the UK" for potential illegal immigrants. The ID card scheme grants French visitors access to the island for the day without the need for a passport. It was introduced in both Bailiwicks in 2023, after it was found the number of day trippers had fallen post-Brexit - and last week, Jersey's government voted unanimously to extend the scheme on the basis of its success. However, UK MPs are now flagging it as a risk to their own border security. Chris Philp, the UK's Shadow Home Secretary and Conservative MP for Croydon South, says "our concern is that French ID cards are not particularly secure documents - it is possible to forge them relatively easily. "And because the Channel Islands are part of the Common Travel Area, the checks between the Channel Islands and the UK mainland are nothing like as strict as a regular passport control." Whilst no person has been identified to have exploited the scheme in this way in the past two years, Philp argues "concerns about border control are higher now than they ever have been." Citing rising number of immigrants who've made their way to the UK on small boats from Calais, he argues Jersey's scheme leaves a chink in the UK's armour that has the power to "snowball into something much larger" if left unaddressed. "When you have a vulnerability with your border security, what can start off as a very small problem can rapidly grow as illegal immigrants and others exploit vulnerabilities", he says. Philp hasn't raised concerns with members of Jersey's government directly. However, the island's Home Affairs Minister, Deputy Mary le Hegarat, admitted in the Assembly last week that "it is quite clear with correspondence from the Home Office that this is not a project they endorse." She added: "This heightens the risk for us in relation to the Common Travel Area and also potentially us being given a hard border." But Deputy Ian Gorst, Jersey's Minister for External Relations, says suitable checks and balances are in place to ensure the system isn't exploited as a pathway to the mainland. "These arrivals on their ID card have to have a return ticket for the ferry and there have been no incidences of onward travel to other places within the Common Travel Area. "So we can be confident that our border forces are protecting us and yet at the same time bringing this benefit to Jersey's economy." Guernsey is in the process of deciding whether to extend their version of the scheme for another year. A Guernsey Government spokesperson says: "It is the intention in Guernsey to extend the French Identity Card Scheme locally, on the condition it does not place our membership of the Common Travel Area at risk. "Guernsey Border Agency Officers have been in contact with the UK to discuss the matter from a Bailiwick of Guernsey perspective, and will continue to work with UK counterparts around the introduction of ETAs." Want the inside track on the issues that will shape Guernsey's Election this June? Listen to Guernsey Votes, an ITV Channel podcast packed with expert guests, local insight and analysis you can trust...
