Illegal Migration Bill

I am now concerned as to what the legality has been to date. I take entirely the Minister’s point that he wants any Home Office responsibility for these children to be absolutely minimal, from when they have just come on the boat until they can be dispersed to a local authority; I hear him, and that seems quite right to me. But what is the current legal basis for what has been happening to date? There are children who have been housed in hotels and have gone missing from those hotels—what was the legal basis for putting them in the hotels? Who was responsible and under what statutory provision were they acting? It may just be that it is 4 am, but I am now really concerned about the legal basis for what has gone on. They have disappeared and someone has been grossly negligent. This will no doubt all be resolved at some point in the future, but what was the purported legal basis for putting those unaccompanied children in hotels?