Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Neuberger

Report stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 57, to which I have added my name. I too thank the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for all the help that it has given us. I also support Amendment 27.

For very good reason, and not for the first time, Amendment 57 would introduce statutory safeguards for individuals whose age is disputed. To the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I say: we do not suggest that we should prohibit visual assessments at the border. What Amendment 57 would ensure is that those assessments comply with child protection principles, especially the benefit of the doubt standard established in case law and international guidance. This principle requires that where age is uncertain, the individual should be treated as a child unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary. That is the principle which I believe we should stick to.

The amendments align with recommendations by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has already said. Crucially, the amendment also addresses the Government’s proposal to use AI-based facial age estimation. I feel that I am a broken record on the subject of facial age estimation, and indeed on age estimation in general. We have had to contend with the proposal to use X-ray systems to determine age, and time after time we have argued that not only is it inaccurate—a point made clearly by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—to use teeth or wrists for X-rays but it is unethical to expose people to unnecessary radiation and that X-rays should be used only for the benefit of the people concerned. We are delighted that the present Government are not proposing X-rays among their scientific methods, and we are also immensely grateful to the Minister for having conversations with us on this subject.

However, the AI systems suggested are not foolproof either. Indeed, independent evaluations show that these systems have error margins of between two and four years, as the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said, and they exhibit demographic bias, which is exactly what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said—particularly, it turns out, for younger ages and minority ethnic groups. Academic research confirms that children’s faces are harder to assess accurately and that claims of near-perfect accuracy remain unverified. Overreliance on such technology risks replicating systematic errors rather than fixing them, so we will be replacing human error with machine error.

We all recognise that age assessment is complex and cannot be solved by one measure, but we believe that the Government need to listen to experts and adopt safeguards that make the system safer for children. Amendment 57 offers a practical, rights-based solution. It would preserve operational flexibility at the border, reinforce compliance with children’s legislation, and ensure transparency and accountability in the use of technology. I hope the Minister can give us some more details about how the trial of this AI technology will work, and indeed that he can reassure us that it will not be relied on unless it is truly accurate—but it looks as if we are a long way from that.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I was too late to put my name down to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I am sure she will understand that the points that have been made on the second amendment in this group largely apply to hers as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Harper, tells us that adults game the system. I agree, but safeguarding applies both ways, both if someone is assessed as a child when he is an adult—it is usually a he—and if he is assessed as an adult when in fact he is a child. The question that we have is: where do you start from? How do you approach this: that claimants are fraudulent, or that claimants should be believed until the contrary is shown—the benefit of the doubt, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, has said? Where is the greatest danger? It will be obvious from my signature to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, where I believe it is.

I think, too—I will accuse myself of this; I do not want to accuse others of it—that there is a cultural bias. I say that even though I have a lot of Middle Eastern blood in me, so I should not be as biased as someone who is an ancient Briton, but I have detected it in myself.

I accept that this is a hugely difficult area and that technology is advancing almost as fast as we can draft amendments, which makes it all the more difficult. I am sure it has advanced a long way since the time I was stopped at the Gare du Nord because I seemed not to be the same as the person shown in the photograph in my passport because I was wearing earrings, which meant that the distance between my ears was not the real one.

I asked a couple of Questions for Written Answer recently. On the first one I got generalised assurance, so I asked some very specific questions, which inevitably got an Answer about the Home Office providing further updates regarding testing “in due course”. In a way, the thrust of my question today is to ask the Minister how and when Parliament is to be updated on what is going on—not just Parliament but all the stakeholders. It is not word I particularly like but it describes the variety of people concerned with this.

The Answer to my Question of 6 October included:

“If and when this technology is used in live cases, full information and guidance will be available to those undergoing”


facial age estimation

“as well as to staff involved in the process”.


That suggests that the Home Office will stay in its silo looking at the issues and at the process, without involving all those stakeholders who need to be included—social workers, for instance. In the case of the second amendment it is social workers in local authorities, because it the local authorities that have to carry the can and look after children under 18.

I accept that the figures reported on GOV.UK are only up to quarter 2 of 2024, so I am making the point as a general one for all of us and not accusing the Government of anything, but they show that in three of the quarters the issue was resolved with the claimant being over 18. In fact, the numbers show that there was very little difference between those under and those over 18 in the particular quarters, but in the other five quarters considerably more were found to be less than 18, including 240 at less than 18 compared to 18 plus, 744 at less than 18—I am fudging my figures. I do not mean to fudge them; I am just making a mess off them because I have not written them out properly. But the differences in the numbers at less than 18 were considerably more than those found to be over 18.

The inspector made a number of recommendations. The formal response is that the Government have accepted them all. That is then followed by an explanation which, again, does not seem to be as precise as I, for one, would like it to be. I hope, in particular, where the Home Office has said in response to the inspector that the date of implementation will be December 2025—next month—that the Minister will agree to report on those various points very soon, perhaps in February, because December is not very far away. If things are going to happen in December, and I can see he is checking this, it would be very helpful for the House to know that a system is in place for reporting on what is going on.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Neuberger

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

As the substitute for the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I would like to make a point about AI. It is important that the Home Office and others use AI only where it is appropriate and safe. Quite a lot of work has been done across the piece in Parliament about the reliability or otherwise of facial recognition—because that is what this is— including by a Select Committee which I chaired. I have not been satisfied by any comments from the Government Benches since, including on the need for regulation and oversight. That must apply here. I would be deeply worried if we were to go ahead with using AI as a substitute for the human brain without the proper regulation in effect.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I echo totally what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has just said. In my speech, I asked the Minister whether Parliament would have the chance to look at whether AI is used. Will he reply to that?

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Neuberger

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, shall I move on to Amendment 150? In fact, it takes us back to the previous group; I have no idea why it comes into this group. It would provide that the Act should not come into force until at least 28 days—I propose—after the Secretary of State has published a statement confirming the number of persons who, for a period of six months or more, have been awaiting final determination of their claim for asylum; and that, for not less than six months, that number has been not more than 20,000.

That may be a little circular and rambling but, basically, it proposes that we should get to a steady state in dealing with asylum applications. The periods may not be ones that noble Lords agree with, but I propose a figure of 20,000 people, which is not a negligible number of people. This amendment seeks to be realistic and provide a bit of—to our minds—common sense to the context of what we are debating.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, and my noble friend Lord Paddick—who probably had no option but to sign it. This is a serious amendment that follows on from the serious points made about the operations of the Home Office. It is the backlog that is the problem. So much of this debate has suggested, implicitly or explicitly, that the position that we are in is somehow the fault of those who are seeking asylum, which is not an easy thing to take on.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 150, to which I have added my name, and indeed to all the amendments in this group—I will be very brief.

Of course it is right that we should get the backlog down, and of course it is right that we should have a steady state, if you like, and be able to operate an asylum system that is humane, speedy and efficient. It is none of those things at present and we do not show any great signs of getting there any time soon. That is one reason why we suggest that the provisions of this Bill should not come into force until that has been achieved.

I am, along with my noble friend Lord Carlile, a member of the Woolf Institute’s Commission on the Integration of Refugees. I am also Rabbi Emerita of the West London Synagogue, which runs a drop-in for asylum seekers on a regular basis and has done for more than 10 years. I also chair a small family charity that provides scholarships for young asylum seekers to access education, which they otherwise could not do because they cannot get student loans. The reason I raise those things is that they mean that I talk to quite a lot of asylum seekers, for a variety of different reasons. I have never yet met an asylum seeker who has managed to get to this country who does not want to work or is not willing to work. Most of them are in fact very talented; the students we support are unbelievably talented and have been through absolute hell, but nevertheless show incredible determination and eventually get serious professional qualifications and very good degrees.

It seems to me that what we need to do in this House is look seriously at what we want to achieve by an asylum system. Surely we want to achieve the allowing in of those who are genuinely in fear of persecution, as well as all the other reasons that we allow asylum seekers in, and create a refugee system. In so doing, however, we want to treat people humanely, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said; his was a very impressive speech. We want to have coming here people who want to be here and make a contribution. We need to think quite hard about what we are trying to do. There is no pull factor, really—it just is not evidenced—but there is a very large number of desperate people seeking asylum in this country. Those who are genuine and can prove it should be treated humanely, accepted and allowed to work even if their full refugee status has not yet been achieved.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Neuberger

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, strongly support this amendment. I will speak briefly because much of what I wanted to say has already been said, and said very eloquently.

This is enormously important. As many noble Lords know, we run a drop-in for asylum-seeker families at my synagogue. In talking to some of the women, many of them pregnant, who visit with their small children, one thing that comes out time and time again is how they worry that the situation in which they are living—they are not detained—is so insecure that some of that insecurity may be transmitted to their unborn children. Of course, we know a great deal now about the transmission of anxiety and trauma to unborn children. If we extrapolate from that and from those women talking about it to women detained for what seem to be not very good reasons, it is really important that we have an absolute exclusion on pregnant women being detained. I hope that people will look at the evidence given by the Royal College of Midwives. That made it absolutely clear that unborn children may well be traumatised by the experience. I do not believe that we in this House would wish to take responsibility for that.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, from these Benches I support this amendment very warmly. In the previous stage of the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, we had an amendment dealing with vulnerable people but it was debated alongside and really overshadowed by the amendment on a time limit to detention. The amendment provided that detention should take place only in exceptional circumstances determined by the First-tier Tribunal.

After the amendment was tabled, I was quite embarrassed by the opposition to or considerable doubts about it expressed by a number of organisations for which I have the greatest respect. They told me that we had got it wrong and that we should not provide for any exceptional circumstances in the case of pregnant women. I explained to them that the amendment was expressed as it was because we were trying to approach the Government with an offer of compromise. We hoped that the Government would meet us halfway by agreeing to not a complete exception but the one we expressed in that amendment. The list of vulnerable people was taken from Stephen Shaw’s report, in which—no ifs, no buts—pregnancy means vulnerability. As the noble Baroness said, and I will see if I can get it out without tripping over the word, he spoke of the,

“incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children”.

His Recommendation 10 was that they should be excluded.

The Government have added what is now Clause 62 to the Bill and there will be guidance; I acknowledge that that will come to Parliament. However, it will be through the negative procedure, and this is another of those examples where we can talk to our hearts’ content but will not be able to alter what is proposed. I was worried when I saw that new clause in the last stage and I worry now about the expression “particularly vulnerable”. I say again: there should be no ifs, no buts.

The Government proposed the adults-at-risk approach that has been referred to. I thank the Minister for his letter, in which he describes the Government’s concern about allowing all pregnant women access to the UK regardless of their immigration status, and therefore access to maternity services. The noble Earl will recall the debates that led up to the health charge being imposed—I suppose it is two years ago now—and that was one of the concerns which was expressed. We now have the health charge.

The letter from the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, explained:

“The higher the level of risk (and pregnant women will be regarded as being at the highest level of risk), the less likely it is that an individual will be detained”.

He added that the Government’s view,

“is that the best approach is a considered, case by case one which is represented by the adults at risk policy”.

I find it difficult to reconcile the two parts of that—that this is the “highest level of risk” but that there will be a “considered, case by case” approach. I do not think that the Minister can be surprised at the anxiety expressed by the very considerable number of well-respected organisations which are anxious about the policy given their experience of the current policy.

The noble Baroness referred to the all-party group inquiry, of which she and I were members. I turned it up this morning to find the comments that we made then about pregnant women. They included the evidence of Hindpal Singh Bhui, a team inspector at HM Prisons Inspectorate, who said that,

“pregnant women are only meant to be detained in the most exceptional circumstances. And again, we look for evidence of this”.

Of course, I am talking about the historical position. The inspector continued:

“And on the last couple of occasions that we’ve looked, we haven’t found those exceptional circumstances in the paperwork to justify their detention in the first place”.

Our report went on to say:

“We were also told of pregnant women being forced to travel long distances, sometimes over several days, when initially being detained, and failures in receiving test results and obstetric records. In one case, we were told that an immigration interview was prioritised over a 20-week … scan”.

The report continued:

“We are disappointed that the Home Office does not appear to be complying with its own policy of only detaining pregnant women in exceptional circumstances. We recommend that pregnant women are never detained for immigration purposes”.

I see no reason to depart from that but every reason to support it and the amendment.