Forty people who disappeared while they were children living in Home Office asylum hotels have still not been located, prompting MPs and peers to demand answers from the Government over efforts to trace them.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has highlighted the unresolved cases in a new report on children's social care, saying the Home Office must explain what specific action is being taken to find those who remain missing.
Official evidence given to the committee shows that 472 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing during the period in which the Home Office used hotels to accommodate them.
Of those, 432 have subsequently been located, leaving 40 people still unaccounted for. Two of the 40 are still under the age of 18.
Forty remain missing after 472 disappeared
The latest figures were provided to the Joint Committee on Human Rights during oral evidence in June.
Helen Waite, a senior Department for Education official, told the committee that 472 children went missing during the period in question and that 432 had since been located.
She said 40 had not been located and confirmed that two of those people remain under 18, while the others have since reached adulthood.
The figures relate to people who disappeared while they were children and should not be interpreted as meaning that all 40 are still children today.
Parliament demands answers from Home Office
In its report published on 27 August, the Joint Committee on Human Rights called for further action over the unresolved cases.
The committee wants the Government to set out the specific steps being taken to locate those who remain missing and to investigate the circumstances in which children disappeared from asylum hotels.
It has also called for regular updates on attempts to trace them and for lessons to be learned to prevent similar safeguarding failures in future.
The intervention puts responsibility on the current Government to explain what is being done now, even though the disappearances themselves took place under the previous Conservative administration.
Hotels were used after pressure on local authorities
The Home Office began using hotels for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in 2021 after Kent County Council said it could no longer accept responsibility for all of the children arriving in the area.
The accommodation was intended as an emergency measure while children waited to be transferred into local authority care through the National Transfer Scheme.
Safeguarding organisations, MPs and the Children's Commissioner repeatedly raised concerns about the arrangements and the number of children disappearing from the hotels.
By January 2023, the Government had acknowledged hundreds of missing occurrences involving unaccompanied children.
Routine hotel accommodation was ruled unlawful
The High Court ruled in 2023 that the Home Office's routine practice of accommodating unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels was unlawful.
All seven hotels used for unaccompanied children were subsequently closed, and the Government says no unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are now held in hotels under that system.
The end of the hotel programme means the 40 unresolved cases are a legacy safeguarding issue rather than evidence that 40 children have recently disappeared from hotels under the current Government.
Concerns over trafficking and exploitation
Parliamentary scrutiny of the hotel system has repeatedly raised concerns that some unaccompanied children may have been vulnerable to trafficking, criminal exploitation or other forms of abuse.
Evidence considered by the committee identified several possible reasons for children going missing, including exploitation and trafficking, attempts to avoid immigration enforcement and efforts to reunite with relatives or friends elsewhere in the country.
Those factors do not establish what happened to each of the 40 people who remain unlocated, and their individual circumstances are not publicly known.
Police guidance remains in place
Officials told the committee that Home Office guidance had been issued to police and local networks to support continuing efforts to locate the missing young people and update records when individuals are found.
The National Police Chiefs' Council also issued guidance in 2023, developed with the Home Office and National Crime Agency, focusing specifically on missing migrant children and the vulnerabilities they can face.
Local authorities and police retain safeguarding and missing-person responsibilities, while the Home Office continues to hold information connected with the historic hotel cases.
Current Government inherits unresolved safeguarding problem
The political responsibility needs to be distinguished from the history of the cases.
The disappearances occurred while the previous Conservative Government was using Home Office hotels for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. They did not occur under Andy Burnham's administration.
However, 40 people remain unlocated today, meaning the present Home Office faces parliamentary pressure to demonstrate that everything possible is being done to establish what happened to them.
The Joint Committee's intervention turns a historic controversy over asylum hotels into a current accountability issue for ministers responsible for safeguarding and immigration policy.