The Home Office is failing to verify whether child refugees have family members in the UK capable of taking care of them before they are brought here from Calais, the Telegraph has learnt.

Local authorities who are ultimately responsible for the children’s welfare have complained that in some cases minors arrive in London without any proof that their relatives exist.

The job of checking that family members can provide the migrants with a suitable home is left to councils, who often have to place them in the care system after discovering they have no-one here who can take them in.

The row is the latest in a string of controversies raised by the Home Office’s last-minute attempts to re-house residents of the “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais before it is bulldozed by the French authorities next week.