Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Sentamu and Lord Judd

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this amendment. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, and I visited Yarl’s Wood when he was Archbishop of Canterbury. We were quite surprised and shocked, and made very clear representations about this particular question of the detention of unaccompanied minors. I am very grateful for what is happening here but again, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I want to know whether the Minister can give us an assurance that there will be monitoring of the 24-hours issue and that it will not turn into a norm that nobody can question, so that we can find out whether this is healing a very difficult problem. However, for all of that, I welcome this particular amendment.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment is certainly a move in the right direction, but the one anxiety I have is that it still leaves matters very much in terms of systems and the responsibilities for ensuring systems are running properly. If we put ourselves in the position of the unaccompanied child, who may be going through all sorts of mental turmoil and agony—bewildered, uncertain and desperately in need of friendship and help—it would be good to hear a little about the Government’s thinking on how these real psychological, and consequently very often physical, needs of the young person are being dealt with. We have debated the policy in this Bill in previous years and, ideally, the child in this situation needs a personal champion, who is there throughout the process, advising, talking to and consulting them—if you like, a counsellor, who is there to enable the child to make sense of what is happening and being proposed and to enable the child to start developing his or her own views about what they really want to take place.