Helen Waite, a director of children\u2019s social care at the Department for Education, told the committee in June that 472 children had gone missing in total and 432 had since been located.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuidance was issued to police from the Home Office<\/a>, to be shared with local networks, to ensure that we continue to look for those children and that we can surface whether they have been found, and information can be updated to provide more reassurance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The high court ruled in 2023 that the Home Office\u2019s routine use of hotels to house lone child asylum seekers was unlawful. At the time, the Conservative government said: \u201cDue to the unsustainable rise in illegal Channel crossings, the government has had no option but to accommodate young people in hotels on a temporary basis while placements with local authorities are urgently found.\u201d<\/p>\n Angela Eagle, in a letter to the committee last year when she was the border security and asylum minister, said some of those found were \u201clocated in exploitative situations and may have been trafficked or victims of other forms of exploitation\u201d.<\/p>\n The committee, which published a wider report on children\u2019s social care on Thursday, said: \u201cWe welcome the fact that the majority of missing children have now been found. However, we continue to be extremely concerned about the fact that some children who went missing from asylum hotels in previous years remain missing.\u201d<\/p>\n The committee called on the Home Office to \u201cmake clear what specific action is being taken to locate these children, to investigate the causes for them going missing, and to avoid unaccompanied asylum-seeking children going missing in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n It asked the Home Office to provide an update to the committee every three months \u201cwith details of efforts to locate the children who remain missing\u201d.<\/p>\n Patricia Durr, the chief executive of Every Child Protected Against Trafficking UK, said: \u201cThe government cannot allow the disappearance [of children] to fade from public scrutiny. It is a significant child protection failure and we strongly support the committee\u2019s call for regular public reporting and greater transparency about what is being done to find those who remain missing, understand why so many children disappeared, and ensure this can never happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n In a further development, a watchdog on Thursday gave the UK government its lowest ranking for failing to uphold asylum seekers\u2019 rights in line with UN recommendations.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782846071_379_1000.jpg\")
<\/p>\n