X-Rays: Child Refugees

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Plainly they will be formally approved by the advisory committee to the Home Secretary, and one suggests that the views of relevant professional bodies will be of great weight in making such a decision.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, as a sitting magistrate I occasionally have to do age deeming, both in youth court and in adult court. Sometimes we have reports from social workers and sometimes—although rarely—we get expert reports. In the training I received, maybe 10 or 12 years ago, the central message I got was that it was ultimately a judicial decision and that all forms of report, be they from social workers or scientific reports, have quite large elements of doubt within them and the decision is ultimately a judicial one. Does the noble Lord agree?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

In the context of decisions made in magistrates’ courts, I agree that it is a judicial decision. In the context of asylum-seeking people who say that they are minors, the question then falls to the Secretary of State to determine whether they should be treated as a minor—and sadly, as I say, experience suggests that a large number of people have suggested that they are minors in order to take advantage of the perhaps more beneficial regime. It is very important that those people, for the reasons that I have already given the House, are weeded out by such a fair system as we can determine.