Less than half of the 480 unaccompanied child refugees that the government pledged to house in the UK under the Dubs Amendment have actually arrived, the government has confirmed.

In response to a question in the House of Lords from Lord Dubs, the Jewish Czech peer who fled to Britain from the Nazis in the 1930s and who brought the amendment in the first place, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams said the number was "about 200."

 

The government quietly announced in April that it was to close the scheme under which unaccompanied child refugees can be brought to the UK with the number of places capped at 350. It subsequently had to apologise for an “administrative error” after the Home Office failed to count up all of the potential places sent to it by local authorities, and increased the number for 480.

 

A Home Office spokesperson said that the government is assisted in identifying and transferring children by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and that all 480 places would eventually be filled.

 

Liberal Democrat Baroness Sheehan said the "chaotic" demolition of the Jungle camp in Calais in October had led to the dispersal of hundreds of unaccompanied minors who might have been rehomed in the UK to centres around France.

She warned that a large number of children, with legal rights to come to the UK, were now "wandering around France living a hand-to-mouth existence".