Yesterday the CYPN set out a document entitled Local authorities urged to fulfil Children Act duties to child asylum seekers which can be obtained from here and one of the elements they have focused on was the criticism from Justice Chamberlain who “ruled in July that Home Secretary Suella Braverman acted unlawfully by routinely accommodating newly arrived unaccompanied children in Home Office-run hotels.” The article has also suggested that “The judgment also ruled that KCC had acted in breach of the Children Act 1989 by failing to accommodate all unaccompanied children seeking asylum upon notification of their arrival.” What is very disturbing is that along with the incompetence from Suella Braverman, that the Chichester MP Gillian Keegan has supported the action from the Kent County Council on the focus of the children. She was quoted that “The concentration of arrivals by small boat across the English Channel places by far the greatest expectations on KCC.” and CYPN suggests she According to the article

Applauding Kent for its ongoing commitment to supporting a number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at or above the National Transfer Scheme (NTS) threshold level, in addition to their immediate response to the High Court judgment and engagement with the government on the required action to enable the council to accommodate all children arriving within its area, Keegan said all authorities need to comply with the terms of the mandated NTS.

Many of us would argue that the Government should work to assist the people and children’s that come from other nations when they are frightened of their premises. The Government should be assisting Kent County Council by enabling the children and the other people to be spread across the UK and this would then remove some of the challenges faced by the Kent. However if our Government endorses the behaviour of Kent and refuses to assist the children and families, they are behaving very badly and the comments from Justice Chamberlain is very positive.