Charities hope agreements at last week’s summit will mean many more children are transferred

Charities working to bring unaccompanied refugee children to safety are optimistic that agreements signed by Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron could lead to hundreds more receiving permission to travel legally to the UK.



Details emerging from last week’s summit show that officials agreed to extend an eligibility deadline so that children fleeing conflict and arriving in Europe before last Friday could be considered under the Dubs amendment, the scheme launched in 2016 under which the government agreed to offer a safe and legal route to refugee children travelling alone.

Previously, refugee children had to have arrived in Europe before March 2016 to be considered for acceptance under the scheme. This deadline meant large numbers of vulnerable young people who had arrived in France, Germany and Italy more recently were not eligible.

Lord Dubs, the Labour peer who forced the government to commit to helping more young refugees in January 2016, welcomed the development. “We hope dozens more will be transferred, but it is crucial that they get a move on. In France they are sleeping under the trees in very bleak conditions.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tents used by refugees near Calais this month. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi/The Guardian

Although the May-Macron agreement focused on France, concerns are growing for the large number of unaccompanied refugee children in Greece where there are currently 3,150 refugee children, travelling without families, and only 1,109 spaces in shelters, according to the charity Safe Passage, which has campaigned to bring more young refugees to the UK. The charity hopes that a further 250 could be brought to safety under the Dubs scheme. The government has committed to accommodating 480 refugee children under the scheme, but has so far only transferred about 220.

Q&A The Calais camp explained Show Hide Why did Calais become a staging post?

Refugees have been gathering in Calais on their way to the UK for decades. Periodically the French authorities attempt to prevent them from coming but asylum seekers continue to arrive. Some pay people-smugglers to get them into lorries parked near the port while those who have no money try to conceal themselves in moving trucks. Who travels to camps on the Channel? Many asylum seekers have relatives or friends in the UK or have some level of English language skills. But the 1,000 or so refugees currently living in Calais and Dunkirk represent a very small proportion of refugees seeking asylum across Europe.

Although the situation in Northern France attracts attention because it is at the UK border, the numbers gathered here are tiny compared with the 100,000- plus who arrived in Europe in 2017, the vast majority of whom intend to claim asylum elsewhere in Europe. What are politicians doing to change the situation? The British government has contributed to a £17m joint Anglo-French package of security measures, including the construction of a 1km-long concrete wall, aimed at preventing asylum seekers from getting close lorries arriving at the port. But charities say extra security does not prevent the arrival of new refugees. They want the British government to make it easier for vulnerable unaccompanied children to travel legally and for France to accept that there will always be some refugees in Calais, and provide dignified reception centres. Photograph: David Levene

Campaigners hope the announcement could reduce the number of young refugees killed on roads outside Calais, after a spike in deaths in recent weeks among asylum seekers attempting to climb on to lorries in order to travel illegally to the UK.

The UK government also agreed to speed up the time it spends considering applications from young refugees for transfer to the UK, committing to providing an answer in 10 days, and to transferring them within 15 days after that. George Gabriel, at Safe Passage, said: “For those who are awaiting family reunion, these changes will mean that there is a much lower incentive to make a dangerous journey to reunite with a loved one.”



The charity Help Refugees has this week been granted permission by the court of appeal to challenge the government’s decision to cap the number of spaces available under the scheme at 480, arguing that this number is far too low and does not represent the UK’s share of the estimated 90,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe.