Mystery of the missing migrant children: more than 150 mostly Albanian asylum seekers – the majority registered as teenagers – have disappeared from UK hotels since June and more than 130 have yet to be found

More than 130 migrant children who have disappeared from UK hotels since the summer are still missing six months later, a minister admitted today. 

Immigration delivery minister Tom Pursglove admitted that just 22 of 154 under 18s who absconded in the past six months have been recovered, as he faced MPs today.

In a testy exchange with the Home Affairs Committee he said that of the 132 still at large 88 per cent were Albanian, and suggested they had been picked off by organised crime gangs.

More than 100 of them have turned 18 since they disappeared, he admitted under questioning from SNP MP Alison Thewliss.

But he rejected her ‘outrageous suggestion’ that he and his officials ‘do not care’ what happens to those missing.

It came as the committee was also told that the Bibby Stockholm barge moored off Portland as accommodation for migrants  is cost9ing more than £22million – and that since 2020 just 0.4 per cent of Channel boat arrivals have been returned to their country of origin.

Immigration delivery minister Tom Pursglove admitted that just 22 of 154 under 18s who absconded in the past six months have been recovered, as he faced MPs today.

In a testy exchange with the Home Affairs Committee he said that of the 132 still at large 88 per cent were Albanian, and suggested they had been picked off by organised crime gangs.

More than 100 of them have turned 18 since they disappeared, he admitted under questioning from SNP MP Alison Thewliss.

Mr Pursglove said there were no unaccompanied asylum seeking children in hotels now but 132 were ‘still missing’ and ‘we are working intensively’ with local authorities and police on the issue.

Ms Thewliss told him: ‘You’re not doing a very good job of it if 132 out of 154 are still missing… you don’t care do you?’

Mr Pursglove said that was a ‘pretty outrageous suggestion’.

The committee heard that of those missing, 103 were now adults and 29 were still under 18.

Mr Pursglove, who only took on his new role last week, clashd with the SNP MP again when he raised the fact that 88.6 per cnt of the missing were Albanian,. 

Asked what the relevance was, he added: ‘That very often links into serious criminality and that is often the explanation for why these circumstances arise. 

‘Criminal gangs responsible for the trade across the channel often have a footprint in this way, trying to take advantage of vulnerable children.’

It came as the committee was also told that the Bibby Stockholm barge moored off Portland as accommodation for migrants is cost9ing more than £22million – and that since 2020 just 0.4 per cent of Channel boat arrivals have been returned to their country of origin.

In a letter to MPs, Home Office permanent secretary Sir Matthew Rycroft said the ‘vessel accommodation services’ portion of the Bibby Stockholm contract with CTM, which relates to the barge, was £22,450,772.

He said the assessment of whether the vessel offered value for money was ‘currently being updated’.

The figure emerged days after an asylum seeker was found dead on the vessel.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax described the news as a ‘tragedy born of an impossible situation’ and said he had been told by the Home Office that the man was thought to have taken his own life.

The cost of the accommodation was set out in a letter to the Home Affairs Committee’s chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson.

Mr Pursglove said the cost was ‘undoubtedly’ cheaper than housing asylum seekers in hotels.

Dame Diana said she was ‘just flabbergasted that a value-for-money assessment was not carried out at the time that the contract was let’.

Mr Pursglove told her it was being ‘updated’ and added: ‘This is undoubtedly a more cost-effective way of providing accommodation.’

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