Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I tabled Amendment 35 in this group, which is broadly similar to Amendment 34 in that it is concerned with relying on age assessments of children, and those who end up in Rwanda—even though the Bill claims that they will not end up in Rwanda.

I thank the Minister for his letter, which I received by email just before Report started on Monday. I did not think that I needed to check with the other people I was told it would be cc’d to, but a large number of them have not received it. I wonder whether the Minister would mind forwarding it on to them, even though they are all named.

I agree with everything that has been said by the previous speakers, and from these Benches we will support the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, if she wishes to test the opinion of the House.

Regarding the letter about age assessment, I note that the SI for immigration age assessments went through on the 9 January and came into force on the 10 January. I also note that the Home Office has not let launched the process but is beginning to plan how to do so. I asked my question because the detailed report by the specialist committee, the AESAC, was always concerned that there is no infallible method for gauging age—and the letter from the Minister says that the AESAC acknowledges that

“there is no infallible method for either biological or social-worker led age assessment”,

and that

“the committee acknowledge that there is uncertainty in the data used to predict the maturation points of the teeth and bones particularly”.

So, despite three pages of trying to persuade me that age assessment is okay, the principal concerns of this specialist committee are that it is not something that can be relied on scientifically.

On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, will test the opinion of the House later.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose this group of amendments on two grounds. I too want to promote the best interests of the child, but it is not in the interests of the child to be sent on dangerous journeys by land and sea, and in small boats, or to be removed from the care of family, relatives, friends, and a familiar home, to a distant country, to be brought up in care by strangers, where public authorities are stretched to the limit looking after their own children. I hope that the deterrent effect will be taken seriously by parents contemplating sending young children.

Many of the children are discovered, after scientific age assessment, not to be minors. I will not discuss the findings, and there are many different views about the validity of age assessments in this country. But I will take an impartial view from a neighbouring G7 country: that age determination tests have been used and have revealed that many who claim in a sample—I think one of the samples was for 2019—were not so. I draw attention to the analysis of age based on bone age, where radio- graphical evidence suggested that 55% of those claiming to be minors were over the age of 18. In fact, the average age of that 55% was found to be 29.

So, for two reasons, I oppose any change to the Bill, which will weaken the deterrent effect, as these amendments would. First, it is not in the interests of the child to be removed from their family, and not in the interests of the parents. I agree that nobody in this Chamber would probably contemplate doing it, and I do not think we should encourage parents overseas to contemplate doing it. Secondly, without tough conditions on age assessment, people might be encouraged to make false claims.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, makes an important point that provokes in me a question. I understand why the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and others—all of us, I hope—have the interests of children at heart. I answer her question, “Would we send our child to Rwanda?” by asking her, “Would she send a child in a boat from France, a safe country, to the United Kingdom?” I hope she will answer that before the end of this section. I do not think she would.

In this Bill, we are trying to deter them from coming. I understand the collective view of the Bench of Bishops is that we should not deter but prevent them; we should make prevention—the actions taken by the French police force, the interruption of the people smugglers and so on—effective. If that is the case, will she confirm that it is the policy of the bishops to stop any children getting to this country? If prevention is made effective, they will not be able to—and nor will gay people or pregnant women or the other groups we are concerned about. They will all be prevented. Is that the view she is espousing?

--- Later in debate ---

Clearly, the Government first breaching a convention and, secondly, not following their own internal guidance is something that Home Office officials must have warned Ministers about. I would be grateful to know what advice officials gave to Ministers before they decided not to follow the internal rules of the Government.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to echo the request to my noble and learned friend for greater transparency and clarity on this very important question of whether the Bill is compatible with the Windsor Framework requirements. This has come up on other occasions, including during a discussion on the CPTPP enabling Bill, where, in the explanation of the extent of the Act, it was stated that it extended to Northern Ireland but did not apply to it—yet that was not even on the face of the Bill.

I hope that, on this matter, where deterrence is one of the aims of the Bill, we do not leave the sort of loophole that will lead to us having case law after case law in the Belfast High Court, making a laughing stock of this measure.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has once again asked the Government to explain the apparent contradiction between provisions in this Bill and Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. We believe that this is an important issue, and I can understand why the noble Lord believes that the Government did not fully respond to him or to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, in Committee, especially given the concerns raised by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and others on potential contradictions.

On Monday, this House strongly expressed its opinion that this Bill must be compliant with existing law. It is not unreasonable for the Minister now to fully respond to the questions of compliance. So we support the noble Lord in asking these questions, although we would not support the amendment if he were to press it to a vote.

I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, made some important points about some of the amendments that have already been passed at this Report stage, which may reduce some of the anomalies that seem to be apparent in Northern Ireland. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that point.

My noble friend Lord Dubs raised the issue of Guernsey. There is another amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, about Jersey. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who said that the point really applies to all Crown dependencies. I would be interested to hear the noble and learned Lord’s response as to why the Crown dependencies were not consulted on provisions in this Bill.