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24 November 2003

I understand from Press reports that in the Queen's Speech, the government will be announcing that they will be bringing forward new legislation concerning asylum seekers. I further understand that part of the provisions of that legislation will be that parents whose claims for asylum have been rejected will be offered a choice, either to take a voluntary airline flight back to their native country, paid for by the UK, or alternatively lose all their benefits in the UK and have their children taken into care.

This proposals raises new and serious issues about the financial burden that will fall on Oxfordshire County Council if the government proceeds with its plan for an accommodation centre for 750 asylum seekers at any one time on the outskirts of Bicester. We know from statements that you and other Ministers have made that a significant number of the asylum seekers that will be accommodated at Bicester will be families with children.

There is no reason to believe that statistically those refused asylum will be any different at the accommodation centre at Bicester. Therefore the overwhelming majority of families with children, on present statistics, are likely to be found to have no valid claim to asylum.

There must therefore be a strong possibility that children of asylum seekers are going to need to be taken into care by Oxfordshire County Council. I don't know what, if any, detailed discussions the Home Office has had with Oxfordshire County Council with regards to this proposal, but you will know that the costs of taking any individual child into care are not inconsiderable. Moreover, this will be a cumulative financial obligation with 750 asylum seekers being processed every six months and any child taken into care being the responsibility of Oxfordshire County Council until they are 18, it means, for example, any baby taken into care would be the financial responsibility of the County Council until they were 18. The cumulative costs of these proposals and the cumulative financial burden upon the County Council could be very substantial indeed.

I understand that at present, the very least this would cost would be £16,900 per child, and with some Special Needs children, Oxfordshire is paying as much as £91,624 per child to be in care.

Is the Home Office willing to give an undertaking that it will underwrite the costs incurred by Oxfordshire County Council of having to take into care any asylum children under the government's forthcoming proposals, or is this an extra financial burden that the government are expecting Council Tax payers of Oxfordshire to pick up uncompensated.

Tony Baldry