Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:50 pm on 19 June 2018.
Thank you for that series of questions. I don't have the exact number here, so I'll write to the Member about the exact number of children who were under the Dubs scheme. But there were some serious issues around why we weren't able to take as many as we would like and I'll make sure that the Member has a communication about the exact number.
We have worked extremely hard to make sure that we work together with our stakeholders to ensure that we have as integrated a set of responses as possible. We've delivered on the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee inquiry recommendation to train social workers, for example, in the age assessment of children and young people, and, earlier this year, five sessions were held across Wales and nearly 100 social workers and advocates have been trained. There's a toolkit that accompanied the training, which has been revised and will be published soon, as a result of our engagement with stakeholders as we work very hard to make sure that we have as much as possible a seamless response.
We also work very hard to make sure that we do integrate learning from the modern slavery action plan, and of course Wales has been at the forefront of having the modern slavery co-ordinator, and we have our regional co-ordinators working hard as well to ensure that we have as up-to-date a stakeholder plan as possible. But in the end, migration and asylum policy is not devolved to the Welsh Government. Many of the solutions to many of the difficulties faced by asylum seekers and refugees have to be found by the Home Office. The real issue for us is how to reduce the impact and prevalence of destitution, the non-devolved welfare system and asylum decisions and eligibility for funding, all of which are real driving factors behind those living in this situation.
We're very disappointed at the lack of co-operation on the new accommodation contract, for example. Just very recently, we've been having to lobby the UK Government yet again, along with Scotland, because the UK Government has not wanted us to set up a panel of experts to help inform decisions on the accommodation strategy, Deputy Presiding Officer. So, we are very disappointed with that because we think that saying it's commercially confidential is clearly not the right way forward for that. One of the big issues with integration is ensuring that asylum seekers and refugees are placed in accommodation in the right communities with the right support around them.
The Member did raise why there is patchy take-up in the stats that he quoted, but, of course, they're not the ongoing stats. Neath Port Talbot, for example, has taken a large number of people in the past. And there are issues around the funding as well, because only around 55 per cent of the funding is available and there's a big issue with the Barnett formula and the way that some of the schemes have been put together so that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland don't access some of the funding that is available. So, we have worked very hard to make sure that the UK Government understands that, sometimes, the juxtaposition of several policies has unintended consequences for people in this category.