LONDON (Reuters) -Britain has been unlawfully accommodating unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels on a “systematic and routine” basis for at least 18 months, London’s High Court ruled on Thursday.
Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) took legal action against Britain’s Home Office, or interior ministry, over the accommodation of unaccompanied children seeking asylum, many of whom have crossed the Channel in small boats.
ECPAT said the Home Office was unlawfully housing children in hotels and had unlawfully agreed that Kent County Council, the local authority in which most asylum seekers arrive, would only accept a limited number of children.
The Home Office and Kent County Council had agreed in September that Kent would accept a limited number of children.
Judge Martin Chamberlain said in a written judgment that more than 5,400 children have been accommodated in hotels since, of whom nearly one-third were under 16.
He said that asylum-seeking children can be accommodated in hotels for “very short periods in true emergency situations”, but ruled that the “systematic and routine” use of hotels from at least December 2021 was unlawful.
A Home Office spokesperson said in a statement: “We have always maintained that the best place for unaccompanied children to be accommodated is within a local authority.
“However, due to the unsustainable rise in illegal Channel crossings, the government has had no option but to accommodate young people in hotels on a temporary basis while placements with local authorities are urgently found.”
They added that the Home Office: “will continue to work with Kent County Council and local authorities across the UK to ensure suitable local authority placements are provided for unaccompanied children”.
ECPAT’s CEO Patricia Durr said in a statement that the ruling: “serves as a clear and timely reminder that neither central nor local government departments can depart from the statutory child welfare framework and the duties towards all children”.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Hugh Lawson)