Illegal Migration Bill

Lord German Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, most of what I wished to say has been said by others. I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Viscount and my noble and learned friend Lord Hope for what they have said, and I support the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham.

I will simply say this: it is a matter of fairness. In its scrutiny of the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights remained unconvinced by this approach and believes that any penalisation for refusing to undergo some form of age assessment should be challengeable in the courts, which remains not the case at the moment. Removing a young person’s right of appeal against an age assessment which may have been carried out on appearance only, or by any other means, is, as my noble and learned Friend, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, cruel and demeaning.

It is all the more disgraceful if that young person has been tortured or abused and is terrified of being touched by strangers when there is a scientific assessment. It is all the more disturbing given that the so-called scientific methods for age assessment are widely questioned by the scientific community, especially those who have particular expertise, such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I chair two hospitals, as noted in my interests set out in the register. I have never met a doctor or any other health professional who supports these so-called scientific age assessment methods, yet I have met several asylum-seeking young people who have been tortured and abused and are terrified of being touched. If they refuse, they can be penalised and treated as adults. This is a matter of fact. Any young person should have the right of appeal.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I note my interests in the register. I shall speak to the amendments in this group proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, because I think they are a package, and we see them as being important together. I believe that age assessment is an art rather than a science, because it is absolutely the case that mistakes can be made and there is no absolutely right way of assessing the age of a person.

I recently had an experience like that of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. As part of the Learn with the Lords programme, I was talking to group of sixth-formers in a school in England, and one of them had a beard. It was quite surprising but natural. We must not jump to the assumption that if someone has a beard, they are an adult. The rules of this sixth form are that they are allowed to grow their hair longer if they wish to.

I want to look at one area of this work which has not yet been probed by those who have spoken, which is the relationship with other European countries. The Minister repeatedly prays in aid the practice in some European countries, but the European Asylum Support Office, which provides formal guidance for member states of the European Union, has a different view from that which has been expressed by the Minister. Importantly, the safeguards in its guidance contrast with what is in this Bill and what we discovered last night in the child’s rights impact assessment.

Once again I say that the child’s rights impact assessment arrived at virtually the last moment when we are able to discuss anything which impacts unaccompanied children or children in general. It states that,

“until the Home Secretary determines the science and analysis is sufficient to support providing for an automatic assumption of adulthood, which would bring the UK closer to several European countries like Luxembourg and the Netherlands”.

However, the European guidance to all member states says on age assessment:

“In applying benefit of the doubt”—


that is the important phase—

“the applicant shall be considered to be below 18 years and, if unaccompanied, a guardian/representative shall be immediately appointed … The BIC—

best interests of the child—

“shall be observed from this point onwards until conclusive results point out that the applicant is an adult”.

It is evident from this Bill’s Explanatory Notes and the child’s rights impact assessment, which was just received, that this Government do not plan to do either.

The child’s rights impact assessment appeared only in the middle of last night, so it would have been difficult for people to have read it. I shall therefore quote the relevant paragraph. On page 13, it says that:

“The bill includes a regulation making power to make an automatic assumption that a person is an adult if they refuse to undergo scientific methods”—


I repeat, “scientific methods”—

“of age assessment without good reason.”

How does that equate with the guidance to European member states that the benefit of the doubt should be given and the best interests of the child should be provided? It does not. By contrast, the European guidance says on page 42:

“The refusal to undergo the assessment should not imply an automatic consideration of age of majority”.

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[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, the will of the people often gets quoted—for instance, by the noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell and Lady Lawlor. Many of us work on the ground with refugees and people who support refugees. The will of the people is to be a compassionate, welcoming nation to refugees and asylum seekers, as we have seen demonstrated by the welcome to Ukrainians and Afghans, and as I see demonstrated regularly. The will of the people is also that we find ways of stopping the boats—I agree. That is exactly why we need to get on with doing a 10-year strategy. It is about trying to bring all those people together, who can be compassionate and want to stop the boats at the same time. This is the right and proper time to do that, off the back of the Bill, so that we move forward with a 10-year strategy. I think that what the people want is for us to get the refugee thing out of party-political toing and froing and find a way forward together.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate, because this amendment gives us an opportunity to look beyond the Bill. It is clear from the days and days that we have been debating the Bill that there are severe doubts about whether it will achieve its aims and severe doubts about the way that it is doing it. But we need to look beyond that if we are trying to find something that will beat the situation that we are all going to face in the years and decades to come.

We support this amendment because it sets out a different approach in responding to the global challenges of refugees and trafficking. Global challenges—that is what they are—require global solutions. We just cannot be isolationists. We need to recognise and take responsibility for the impact of our responses in an interconnected global community. We have to work with our European neighbours and global partners, building on frameworks and building new partnerships that should be broad and inclusive, with the active engagement of refugees and victims of trafficking, who can contribute from their lived experience.

In the UK, there needs to be a cross-departmental approach involving real consultation with a range of stakeholders, including local government, our devolved Governments, civil society organisations and international partners, which deliver some of the resettlement and humanitarian responses we have to deal with in this country. Any strategy should include a diversity of routes to safety and a harmonised approach to entitlements and protection once in the United Kingdom, particularly access to integration support. Partnerships with faith groups and their diasporas should be forged to secure good integration outcomes, and refugee family reunion should underpin all the offers of protection that the strategy outlines.

This amendment speaks to a sensible conversation because that is what it is intended to do: to start us on that route of a journey of thinking. There are great people in this House and great wisdom is expressed in a multitude of views, but in the end we are a humane and compassionate country and I would like to see us start on that journey. I recommend the amendment put forward by the most reverend Primate as a way to begin that sensible conversation .

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to open by addressing the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. To summarise what she said, one can have a strategy only when one has people’s trust, and this Bill is about stopping the boats; I think that was the gist of her argument. My argument, and the other argument I have heard in this debate, is that even if this Bill achieves its end completely, the most reverend Primate’s amendment would still be appropriate because we still need a strategy as the situation develops over the next 10 years. I think that addresses the point the noble Baroness made.

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Moved by

[Lord German]

168AB: Clause 67, page 68, line 6, leave out “(3) and” and insert “(2A) to”

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, in the name of my noble friend Lord Paddick, I shall say a few words about Amendment 168BA and the consequential amendment that is at the rear end of this debate. Essentially, these amendments represent a protection for the Government. The purpose of the Bill is to use removal as a deterrent to people arriving on irregular routes. Without a place to remove people who claim asylum, the intended deterrent is absent, and that applies to a third country to which people can be removed. Therefore, by the Government’s logic, without a third country to remove people to, this legislation will, for the greater part, not work.

Once the Government’s plans come into force, they will be unable to process asylum claims. All that they will be doing is detaining people. After 28 days, once the individual is able to apply for immigration bail, they will remain in limbo until such time as there is a removal agreement. That may well all be solved by the Supreme Court making its judgment, but in the meantime—and I hope that somebody who has a legal background can explain roughly how long the Supreme Court will take in dealing with the matter—if we have more and more people coming here, all of whom will first be detained and then will be in some form of detention, that will spell disaster.

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[Lord German (LD)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 168AB withdrawn.