Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Tunnicliffe

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 17th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I will comment briefly on this issue. It is a very important one, but there are some difficulties. Before I get on to those, I hope that the noble Lord will support my amendment later this evening about unaccompanied child refugees in Northern Ireland. At the moment, because Stormont is not in action, it is impossible for unaccompanied child refugees to be referred to Northern Ireland, although I know the very hospitable people there would like to see this happen. There is a blockage at the moment because of the impasse at Stormont.

Having said that, I will turn to the substance of the argument about guardians. I talk not only about young people who have been trafficked and exploited but about child refugees generally. The idea of a guardian is a good one, because these people face a whole range of issues, having gone through appalling experiences, and nobody is there to pull everything together. Social workers may do some of this, but the range of issues is wider than might be susceptible to social worker intervention. That is where guardians come in, who take a holistic approach to the needs of the individual young person and can then intervene, help and mobilise other agencies. So I think it is a good idea.

The difficulty is this. As I understand it, there are some guardians in Northern Ireland and some in Scotland. They tend to be social workers with at least five years’ professional experience. These people are pretty hard to come by. I have talked to local authority leaders in London, who say they would love to do this, but they do not have enough qualified social workers with the right experience to take on that responsibility. I am aware of the difficulty. It is a good idea. If we can find a way of dealing with resourcing difficulties, fine. We could start with young people about whom there is evidence that they have been trafficked or exploited more than most child refugees. I would like the Minister to be positive about child refugees in Northern Ireland generally later on.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an example of the fact that a number of things which would normally be dealt with by the Executive have become sufficiently urgent to be considered. This seems to be a sensible idea—and, as I understand it, the Minister is going to produce appropriate warm words.