CAMPAIGNERS’ challenge to the Tory cap on the number of unaccompanied child refugees allowed into Britain opened at the Court of Appeal today.

Help Refugees is fighting the Home Office decision to limit the number of children allowed to seek asylum in Britain under the Dubs amendment, named after Labour peer Alf Dubs, who came to Britain with the Kindertransport in 1939.

In November, the High Court threw out the charity’s attempt to force the Home Office to abandon the cap and reopen its “defective” consultation.

But Help Refugees argue that the current cap of just 480 children does not “accurately reflect the capacity of local authorities” to provide children with places as a result of a “confusing” consultation process.

The group’s QC Nathalie Lieven said children in France who were refused a place in Britain were not even given “short written reasons” as to why they were not accepted.

She said children already found it difficult to challenge a refusal due to “formidable barriers” such as their age, lack of English or French and, in particular, trauma caused by fleeing their home country without their family.

Ms Lieven said: “The obstacles for lone, unrepresented children based overseas seeking judicial review of unlawful decisions become almost insurmountable if they have neither written decisions nor written reasons.”

She quoted from internal Home Office emails, telling the court that they showed “the reason for not giving reasons was that the lawyers had advised that they should not be given because it would open them up to legal challenge.”

Ms Lieven added that the “confusing” consultation process “caused, or at least encouraged” a misunderstanding among Scottish authorities which led to just six places being offered across the whole of Scotland.

The Home Office argues that the High Court’s decision was correct.

Help Refugees CEO Josie Naughton said before the hearing: “The child refugee crisis has not gone away: there are, for example, nearly 4,000 unaccompanied refugee children in Greece right now, two-thirds of whom are living in destitution, exposed to trafficking and other serious abuse.

“The slow pace of relocations has been shocking. There are children disappearing from camps and settlements in mainland Europe while local authority places offered for Dubs children remain unused.”

The hearing continues.