Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Harper

Report stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this group speaks to an incredibly important issue in the current asylum system. As it stands, there is no standardised method for verifying the age or identity of those who enter the country illegally. These amendments seek to correct that and give the relevant authorities the power to mandate an age test where they consider it necessary. It cannot be right that a person is automatically assumed to be a child if their age is doubted or they lack documentary evidence. We currently exist within a system that grants people claiming asylum innumerable privileges once their applications are processed. People are given a roof over their head, food, electronic devices and many other amenities. Social activities are often offered. Those who need it have access to healthcare. Children are put into schools. Surely the least we should aim for is ensuring that these privileges are not overprescribed to people who should not qualify for them.

The current process does not, unfortunately, provide for this. If the authorities doubt whether someone is of the age they claim to be, there is no lawful way demonstrably to prove the truth. They must give the benefit of the doubt to the age-disputed person, while the same person can avoid taking a definitive scientific age assessment by denying consent. What is worse, incentives exist for people to lie and game the system. It is well documented that asylum NGOs advise that applying as a child offers a better chance of being accepted. A GB News investigation demonstrated a spike in asylum applications, across all nationalities, of people claiming to be 16 or 17. This is what happens when we offer asylum to children and do not include the necessary safeguards.

The result of this system is that many adults are incentivised to masquerade as children, giving themselves a higher chance of being accepted. The state, in contrast, has no way to challenge these people. The prerequisite of consent essentially gives the age-disputed person control over whether they are found to be lying. The consequences have been dire. Take Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, a proclaimed 14-year-old Afghan who, unbeknown to the state, had shot and killed two men in Serbia on his way to claim asylum in Britain. He was placed in a secondary school and was moved to another school after being found with a knife, there injuring a pupil. Then, two years after arriving in the country, he fatally murdered aspiring marine Tom Roberts in a knife attack. Abdulrahimzai was actually 19 when he entered the country. I understand that this is an extreme case, but it highlights the importance we must give to verifying the identity of those who illegally enter the country. If someone is willing to lie at the very first hurdle, who is to say we can trust them in society afterwards?

Verifying the person’s age is the first step to solving this. It prevents adults being placed in schools among children and highlights potentially illegitimate claims from those attempting to game our generosity. Amendments 63 and 64 achieve this balance. Those claiming asylum would still be given the opportunity to state their age and would not automatically be required to take an age assessment. However, the discretion would ultimately lie with the relevant authorities. If the age of a person is doubted, powers would exist to scientifically test their age without being obstructed by consent claims. This is the bare minimum we should expect from a system that is being perpetually defrauded. Removing the requirement for consent takes the process out of the hands of the asylum seeker, encourages honesty and trust, and disincentivises fraud. That is what an asylum system should aim for.

I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say about this. In the meantime, I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support my noble friend Lord Davies. I will also acquaint your Lordships with the information the Government set out in July when the Minister for Border Security and Asylum said what the Government were doing on some of the technology. We discussed in a previous group the potential for artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to make a big change in this area, and I argued that we should leave open that opportunity. The Minister in a Statement earlier this year confirmed that testing was under way, and said that,

“subject to the results of further testing and assurance … Facial Age Estimation could be fully integrated into the current age assessment system over the course of 2026”.

I do not think the Government’s current position on setting out regulations is that far away from my noble friend’s.

There is a potentially big advantage of this technology, in that previously available scientific tests were not particularly accurate and were medical or invasive in nature, involving MRI scans or X-rays, for example. There are some legitimate reasons why you would not want somebody to be forced to undergo that sort of procedure, and their refusal to undertake such might not be held to be unreasonable. With artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, there seems to be a very weak case, if any, for refusing to undergo such a test. Subject to the testing being in order, I hope that, if the Government bring it in, they will not give people the opportunity to refuse to undergo it; I see no legitimate case for that. If testing gives Ministers accurate information about somebody’s age, I hope that they will make it mandatory and that if someone refuses to take the test, the presumption of their being a child can be overturned and they will suffer a consequence for not using that technology. So I hope the Minister can update us on how that testing is going and on whether the timeframe the Borders Minister set out earlier this year, hoping that this technology could be rolled out next year, is still on track.

I very strongly support my noble friend’s two amendments.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his attempt to adjudicate between me and my noble friend Lord Jackson. He makes a good point. This is where the state needs to get much better at using data to make policy decisions—by the way, this is not a criticism of the current Government; we had our challenges in office as well—and operational decisions, deal with threats and be nimble enough to recognise that those threats do not remain static but change. The state has to be much better at altering its focus to deal with the threats as they face us today.

I regret that I disagree with my noble friend, as I try not to do so, but I strongly support my noble friend Lord Swire’s amendments, and I hope that they will get a fair hearing from the Government. Even if the Government do not like the way they are drafted or whatever, I hope they will take them away and have a think about whether my noble friend’s amendments make a good point and could be incorporated into the Bill in due course.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling these amendments relating to the provision of biometric information by those seeking entry into the United Kingdom. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Harper and Lord Jackson for that interesting duel, which contributed greatly to this debate.

Amendment 102 would extend the powers under Section 141 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 by mandating the collection of biometric information from those awaiting deportation, those who have been arrested for an immigration offence and asylum seekers. Currently, the ability to collect fingerprints from such people is optional, and therefore we cannot be certain that immigration officers are collecting enough information to enable sufficient protection of our borders. My noble friend’s amendment goes further and would require the fingerprinting of everyone who is not a British citizen who seeks to enter the country. My noble friend has raised this issue on numerous occasions, and he is right to do so. If we do not know who has entered our country, and indeed who is already here, we cannot take adequate measures to prosecute crimes and deport those with no right to be here.

Importantly, my noble friend is proposing that we use biometric information primarily in cases where the person in question has failed to provide us with any other form of identification that would show who they are, where they came from and why they wished to enter the UK. These are not needlessly intrusive questions. Noble Lords who are lucky enough to travel abroad this summer will be asked exactly those questions, and rightly so. Every nation has to understand who is coming in. As I have mentioned before, the consequences of not knowing can be dire. I remind noble Lords that the massive Iranian terror attack, which was only just intercepted, was plotted by those who arrived without paperwork on small boats and in the back of lorries.

It is a matter of national security that we know who is entering the UK. My noble friend Lord Swire has proposed a sensible amendment to this Bill, which would give our law enforcement agencies the information they need to begin to build up this picture.

Amendment 149 is also built on this principle and seeks to introduce robust powers, allowing immigration officers to search for, seize, retain and make use of identity documents for certain categories of non-British nationals and to issue biometric registration cards in their place. This amendment once again speaks to the fundamental principle of border security: that we must know who is trying to enter the UK and where they are from, and try to determine why. The amendment has clear provision for returning all documents once the relevant period is passed and is a sensible proposal designed to ensure that our immigration officers have access to as much information as possible when making the decisions needed to safeguard our borders.