Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Alton of Liverpool

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I have only two questions to put to the Minister. I reinforce the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord German.

First, I ask the Minister directly about the issue of capacity. I also want to ask him about the role of the Independent Family Returns Panel. Dr Peter Walsh says that the current detention estate has capacity for about 2,500 individuals, yet we all know that last year 45,000 people arrived on our shores. In addition, there are 160,000 asylum seekers still awaiting decisions. If we take those numbers together, how do they square with the capacity that is planned for the estate? I was also struck by the Taskforce on Victims of Trafficking in Immigration Detention saying:

“We expect that tens of thousands of individuals will be indefinitely detained in immigration detention facilities, with the current already overstretched detention estate being unable to hold anywhere near the numbers anticipated”.


My second question is brief. I am concerned about the disapplication of the duty currently placed on the Secretary of State to consult with the Independent Family Returns Panel in every family returns case, particularly where the family involves children. Has the Minister seen the statement from the UK Committee for UNICEF, which has described this decision for disapplication as “regrettable”? Is that something he might give further thought to?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make two quite separate points. I pick up on what the noble Lord just said; have the Government looked at what is really happening on the ground, the numbers of people currently waiting to be removed—that is a very large number—and the numbers coming in? How on earth are they going to get people away? Where they are going and what is going to happen was set out in much greater detail on an earlier amendment.

What worries me as I have sat listening, today in particular but really throughout the debates on the Bill, is that I do not think the Government have yet put their mind to the problems of numbers and how on earth they are going to get rid of these people, if I may put it rather bluntly.

The second point, which is so much more important, relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, just said, and I not only support him but admire him enormously for saying it. As I said on another Bill some time ago, I remind the Government that the Home Secretary is not a corporate parent, nor indeed at the moment is the Secretary of State for Education. The concept of the corporate parent is to be found in the Children Act 1989, as a local authority. Currently, the Government are expecting to deal with sometimes quite young children. I think they are concentrating on the 16 and 17-year-olds who are coming through and are not looking at a minority—but probably a relatively substantial minority—of children who are much younger. They have to be looked after. I do not want to repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, but it is crucial that they be looked after. The only corporate parent who can care for them is in fact the local authority where the children are. It is about time the Government started to look at not just the best interests of the children, which is so obvious—it worries me that I keep having to talk about that—but the points that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, made, which really should strike home.