People do come here directly from places of danger. The hon. Lady is incorrect. We have long-standing arrangements for those people who transit through other countries to come here, so her point is wrong.
The wider issue, which she and I have debated on many occasions, is that we have heard continuously from her and her SNP colleagues a kind of humanitarian nimbyism. They come to this Chamber to say how concerned they are for those in danger around the world, yet they take disproportionately fewer of those very people into their care in Scotland.
Let me turn to the serious questions that have been raised about children. We approach these issues with the seriousness that they deserve and from the point of view that the UK should be caring and compassionate to any minor who steps foot on these shores. These are not easy choices, but the challenge we face today is that large numbers of minors are coming to the United Kingdom at the behest of human traffickers or people smugglers, and we have to deter that. We must break the cycle of that business model.
Since 2019, the number of unaccompanied minors coming to the UK has quadrupled, meaning that thousands of unaccompanied minors have been placed in grave danger in dinghies and then brought to the UK, in some cases to enter the black economy and in others for even more pernicious reasons. I have met those children. I have seen them at Western Jet Foil, and I can tell the House that there is no dignity in that situation. As a parent, seeing children in dinghies risking their lives is one of the most appalling things one could see. I want to stop that. The measures we are bringing forward today intend to stop that.
We are going to do this in the most sensitive manner we can, and the powers that we are bringing forward under the Bill do just that. The duty to make arrangements
for removal does not apply to unaccompanied children until they become adults. There is a power, not a duty, to remove unaccompanied children. As a matter of policy, the power to remove will be exercised only in very limited circumstances, such as for the purposes of family reunion, or if they are nationals of a safe country identified in clause 50 and can be safely returned to their home country. It is important to stress at this point that that power is already in law and is used on occasion when an unaccompanied child arrives and we are able to establish arrangements for their safe return. The Illegal Migration Bill simply expands the number of countries deemed safe for that removal.