Kent council 'days away' from reaching care capacity for migrant children

Kent County Council fears it is just “days away” from being unable to look after more asylum seeking children arriving on its shores.

Council leader Roger Gough said 420 unaccompanied migrant children had arrived in Kent this year, with more than 70 arriving so far this month.

He said arrivals in August could now exceed 100 — a monthly figure not seen since the last major migrant crisis in 2015.

While adult migrants and families landing on Kent’s shores are sent to other parts of the country, Mr Gough said the council retains responsibility for unaccompanied children.

Despite the number of child reception centres in Kent increasing from one at the start of the year to three, they were filling up "very, very fast”, he said.

"One (centre) which we actually emptied last week and which we reopened on Saturday, we are now almost full already," he said.

"So this is the pace at which events are moving. The real question is what we can do to sustain that reception for those young people if the arrivals continue at the rate they do and we are unable to place those children with other local authorities.

"I think we are now potentially days away, depending on the rate of arrivals, from turning around and having to say we cannot deliver all our statutory responsibilities and that is going to be a major step for the council."

The unaccompanied children who arrive in Kent remain in the council’s care system “for quite a number of years”, Mr Gough said, which puts additional pressure on the council’s wider children’s social services, who are also responsible for looking after young people in Kent.

The number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children that have come into the council’s care so far this year was greater than the whole of 2019, with up to 80 arriving every four weeks over the past few months.

More than 4,000 migrants have made it into the UK so far this year after completing the dangerous voyage across the English Channel, with at least 597 arriving between Thursday and Sunday.

It comes days after Boris Johnson said the UK needs to consider changing asylum laws to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel.

The Prime Minister called making the treacherous crossing "very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal".

He said the UK needed to look at "the panoply of laws that an illegal immigrant has at his or her disposal that allow them to stay here".

Speaking to reporters while visiting a school in Essex, Mr Johnson said he hoped to work with the French to deter migrants from making the journey.

He said: "Be in no doubt what’s going on is the activity of cruel and criminal gangs who are risking the lives of these people taking them across the Channel, a pretty dangerous stretch of water in potentially unseaworthy vessels.

“We want to stop that, working with the French, make sure that they understand that this isn’t a good idea, this is a very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do."

Campaigners accused Mr Johnson of using “inflammatory” and "inaccurate" soundbites to describe people "in desperate circumstances".

Lisa Doyle, the Refugee Council’s director of advocacy, said: “It’s incredibly disappointing to hear the Prime Minister using such inaccurate and inflammatory language to describe men, women and children who are desperate enough to make perilous journeys across the busiest shipping channel in the world.

"Seeking asylum is not a crime, and it is legitimate that people have to cross borders to do so."

Additional reporting by the Press Association