Shabana Mahmood, the recently appointed home secretary now calling for reforms to the European Convention to Human Rights to ease deportation, has strongly supported family reunion and the welfare of unaccompanied child refugees in the past. On her own website in January 2017, she described her “long-standing work supporting vulnerable refugees”.

Here is the letter she wrote to the then Minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, in 2017, which appeared on Facebook on 19th January 2017:

“Dear Edward Timpson MP,

I am writing to ask the Government to take further action in relation to unaccompanied child refugee. In 2015 88,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in the EU; over 3,000 of these applications were made in the UK. These children are hugely vulnerable to the actions of smugglers and human traffickers and I am deeply concerned that their wellbeing is not being sufficiently protected by the current legislative framework.

I would like the Minister to consider the following two proposals to help protect unaccompanied child refugees.

  1. Appointing independent guardians for all unaccompanied migrant children. These guardians should be independent, have statuary powers and be able to work across all areas that affect an unaccompanied child’s life. I do not believe the current framework of social workers, Independent Reviewing Officers and representatives from the Refugee Council’s children panel are able sufficiently to take on this role. The Government clearly accepts that independent guardians can be valuable as they already exist to support children who have been trafficked . This role should be extended to all unaccompanied children, particularly give the high prevalence of unaccompanied children going missing form care.
  2. Providing refugee children with family reunion rights. As it stands these children, who the Government accepts cannot return home for some time, will be entering an already stretched
  3. care system. Surely it would be far better for that child, and for the care system, to have their parents in the UK to support them. This would bring us into line with all other European Union with the exception of Denmark) countries so would not markedly create a “pull” factor. The UK would simply be coming into line with other EU nations. I look forward to your response. Best wishes, Shabana Mahmood.”