Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Finally, I am also given to understand that the use of dental X-rays, techniques and observation is current in the Federal Republic of Germany—

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in this matter in the register. In the event of the Government’s having advice that they proceed with this, whom do they envisage will carry out these dental X-rays? If they are doing so without the consent of the person concerned, will that be a breach of the ethical guidelines? If they are being carried out by non-qualified people, is that not also an offence for those carrying out those X-rays?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

If I may, I will revert to the noble Lord’s point in the course of my submission; the specific questions that he raised will need some detail, which I do not have to hand but hope to be supplied with before I sit down.

I was talking about the use of ionising radiation in these matters. As I have said previously, the use of ionising radiation in the United Kingdom is highly regulated, and we will ensure that methods used comply with all regulatory requirements and standards. The Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee will have been asked to advise on the ethical considerations for the use of medical imaging techniques. As I have said, the Home Office is exploring a number of potential methods that do not involve ionising radiation, but these may require further research and development to support their technical and commercial viability in assessing the ages of age-disputed persons.

It is important to recognise that techniques develop. In the forensic context, for example, it has been the practice when considering child pornography to employ professional persons—paediatricians and others—to make an assessment of the appearance of the unfortunate people recorded in these images, and to assess from appearance alone what age they were, for forensic purposes, in order that the appropriate criminal charges might be brought.

Also in the forensic context, we recognise that scientific techniques move on. When I was called to the Bar and started to look at criminal work, there was no DNA analysis. Blood testing was available, as was blood group analysis, to assist in drawing certain conclusions. It was not nearly as accurate as DNA testing, but it was available and could in some circumstances exclude a person from suspicion or bring a person into suspicion. Thus, although it did not purport to be able to answer questions with the degree of precision and accuracy that DNA analysis has, it was none the less a valuable technique. It may perhaps be useful for your Lordships to look at what the Government propose ultimately in that context, not as something that will provide a comprehensive answer to exclude all others but, rather, as an additional source of information, which might—I repeat, might—assist, or might be considered to have no value.

Amendment 64A calls for the establishment of a committee independent of the Home Office to consider these matters. It is, however, standard practice for the Home Office to convene its own scientific advisory committees as a forum for policy-making. The Home Office has announced the direct appointment of an interim committee of nine independent members, including the chair, to review the scientific methods of age assessment. The interim chair and committee members were appointed by the Home Office’s chief scientific adviser for a period of not more than 12 months. I return to this point—it may be that I will not need to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but the current interim committee includes experts involved in medical statistics, children’s social work, anthropology, psychiatry, paediatrics and radiology. The intention is that, from this broad range of disciplines, a holistic view of the issues involved in age assessment can be arrived at.

A submission was made, I think by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, about the different appearances of persons coming for assessment. We acknowledge the contributing factors of ethnicity, diet and life experience that may have an effect on things like bone development, and therefore on the results of a scientific age assessment. We will be in a position to take into account all these factors, and I stress once again that the intention is not to present these scientific age assessments as a means of determining the question once and for all but rather, potentially, as available evidence, depending on the views of a committee.

It was my noble friend Lady Shackleton, I think, who questioned the fitness of the Home Office to assess such claims. The figures that I have been given are that the Home Office grants refugee status on humanitarian or humanitarian protection grounds in 90% of cases of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

The Government are embarking on this process so that more data is available to assist in what is, necessarily, a difficult area, and one where—as I pointed out to the House on a previous occasion—the Merton assessments undertaken by skilled and experienced social workers may throw up radically different conclusions from examinations of the very same persons. Anything that can be done to assist in that process, by providing additional data, ought to be welcome.

I turn briefly but gratefully to—