Home Office ‘ignoring offers to give homes to child refugees’
Lord Dubs calls response ‘miserable’ amid claims 1,400 offers from councils spurned
The Home Office has been accused of ignoring more than 1,400 offers from local councils to house child refugees, prompting criticism that Boris Johnson’s government is defying its obligations to offer sanctuary to vulnerable minors. Councils across the UK have volunteered to take hundreds of unaccompanied children from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. However, numbers of arrivals are said to be “pitifully low to nonexistent”.
Wiltshire, Leicestershire, Brighton and Hove, along with the London boroughs of Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Lewisham have each pledged to take at least 100 children, according to charity Safe Passage.