Nationality and Borders Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Stuart C. McDonald]

No, I am not saying that. What I am advocating is the position at present—that the decision maker looks at all the evidence that is available in the round. If somebody is 50, I cannot imagine them needing an invasive scientific procedure to establish that they are over 18. I am not by any stretch of the imagination saying that we just take somebody’s word for it. I am advocating for the status quo. By all means the Government can introduce some sort of advisory board, but that should not supplant and take over the functions of local authorities—but that, unfortunately, is how I see these new clauses working.

The new clauses suggest that there will be implications for a person’s credibility if they choose not to undergo the medical procedures. I object, as a point of principle, to Parliament telling decision makers what to think about someone’s credibility when it is those decision makers—not us—who know the circumstances of the decision that they have to make. It is particularly objectionable given that professional medical bodies thoroughly object to these so-called scientific procedures. Despite the fact that professional bodies have said that these tests are inappropriate, the Government are telling decision makers that, if a young person says, “Well, the medical professionals say this is inappropriate, so I won’t undergo this,” they must find that young person lacking in credibility.

I repeat the point I made in relation to earlier clauses about the impugning of the credibility of those making statements on someone’s behalf. It is especially bizarre that a medical report by a multi-disciplinary panel of experts could have its credibility maligned simple because a child or young adult refuses to undergo one of these so-called scientific methods of testing introduced through regulations by the Secretary of State. Not only is it bizarre; it also undermines the fundamental idea that people should be able to give free consent to medical procedures and examinations, and not be pressured into them. Similarly, it undermines the principle that such a procedure should happen only if it delivers a scientific benefit for that person.

What consultation has there been? We have not been able properly to scrutinise or ask questions of relevant witnesses in relation to these specific provisions. Is consent to be sought from devolved Governments on the basis that large tracts of these new clauses relate to how local authorities should exercise functions related to devolved legislation? In the absence of assurances on any of those fronts—the evidence of problems, proper consultation and devolved consent—the case for change is absolutely not made. On the contrary, there are all sorts of dangers in these clauses that could have serious consequences for children.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I will be brief, as I have just a couple of questions. Ethics aside, as is the want of this Government—if that is not the case, why are they running away from the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central?—I want to look at the issue of estimating the maturity of a child’s skeletal system by comparing images with databases of children of the same age and gender. Do children in Ethiopia develop at a comparable rate to children in the UK, because I understand that that is who they are going to be compared to? Do children in Eritrea and Sudan develop at the same rate? The British Medical Association seems pretty certain that they do not. If that is the case, how long will it take to build databases of comparable images for each country or region, and has that work started?

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

The Government have tabled new clauses 29 to 37 to replace clause 58, which was a placeholder clause on age assessments. Colleagues have already made the point about lack of scrutiny. Having received these new clauses so late in the day, we have not had a chance to see proper evidence, because we were not aware of what has been said. Clearly, as part of its role a Committee must have time to scrutinise. I am sure we will do the best we can with the time we have been given, but it really is not best form to have so many Government new clauses so late in the day on such an important issue.

We are concerned that the age assessments referred to in new clauses 29 to 37 risk violating children’s rights. I thank the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, a coalition of over 60 organisations, for its excellent briefing on these new clauses and for sharing its concerns about their inclusion in the Bill. If implemented, the new regulations and measures on age assessments will significantly increase the risk that children in the system will be treated as adults and criminalised. Before we discuss specific measures, it is worth noting that age assessments are not straightforward, nor are they an exact science. The measures in this Bill fail to recognise that it is impossible to determine age precisely, especially when there is an absence of documentation, which is often the case. By introducing a higher standard of proof in age assessments, more children in the system will be wrongly treated as adults, with devastating consequences.

For unaccompanied children in the asylum system, age is fundamental to receiving the support and protection they need. In the UK, age determines how or whether someone is supported by children’s services and has access to education; whether they are provided with asylum support by the Home Office and dispersed to a different part of the UK; and whether they are accommodated or detained with adults. It is imperative that we get age assessment right, and we all agree that there are clear safeguarding issues when people claiming to be children are later found to be adults, but it is also true that the effects of children being wrongly treated as adults are significant. I therefore urge colleagues to consider those safeguarding risks in relation to new clauses 29 to 37.

New clause 29 defines various terms, including “age-disputed person”, which governs the persons to whom the provision on age assessments will apply. As it stands, new clause 29 will mean that age assessment is required whenever there is insufficient evidence to be sure of age. Of course, as we know, this is true in many if not all cases. In practice, this clause therefore puts the burden of proof on a child to prove that they are under 18.

This is problematic for a couple of reasons. Children who come to the UK on their own from countries such as Afghanistan face challenges when asked to prove their date of birth. First, the registration of births and the importance placed on chronological age differs across the world. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, there is often a lack of documentation. For example, many children who come to the UK have never had official identity documents in the first place, or have had documents taken from them or destroyed during their journey to the UK.

It is worth sharing an example, and I thank the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for bringing it to the Committee’s attention, as it highlights both the challenges in determining age accurately and the impact of wrong decisions. This case refers to a young person named K, who arrived in the UK from Iran and was held in a police station. He was 16 years old when he left Iran, and he told the staff at the police station his date of birth. They explained that, based on the date of birth, he was now 17.

K was then questioned by someone—he believes they were from social services—who did not believe he was 17, as they believed he looked older. Before entering the UK, K had been living in the jungle in Calais, and had not properly washed for a long time and had grown a beard. K was pressured into accepting he was 18 years old, and the Home Office recorded his age as 18. This meant he was not referred to a local authority for a full age assessment and was dispersed into adult asylum support accommodation in a hotel. He was the only child in the hotel and was left very scared. He reported that adults in the accommodation were taking drugs and he could not eat during his time there.

K managed to get in contact with the British Red Cross, and a safeguarding referral was made to the relevant local authority. The local authority promptly arranged to visit the young person, and two social workers agreed that it was highly likely that K was the age he was claiming to be. K was immediately moved and provided with full support under section 20 of the Children Act 1989. The local authority completed a full needs assessment and quickly took action to refer him to a GP, dentist, optician and immigration solicitor, and supported him to enrol in college. He had been suffering from asthma, and had not received any medical support since he arrived in the UK.

K’s case highlights what can happen when a young person is wrongly considered an adult in the asylum system, and the effects are stark. They lose access to the support and protection they need. That is why we must be incredibly careful to develop appropriate and fair age assessments, and also ensure that they are a function of the child protection and safeguarding system more widely.

In relation to K’s case, I have mentioned the fact that children are in hotels, and there is a real question about what safeguarding goes on in hotels. I know the Minister is deputising today, but could he look into that for me and to write back to me, or ask officials to do so at some stage, about what safeguarding for children does go on in hotels?

In new clause 30, the Home Office will be given the power to make regulations on how to assess age and introduce a standard of proof on the balance of probabilities for age assessments. The current standard when age is disputed in the context of an asylum appeal, developed through years of case law, is that of a reasonable degree of likelihood. Given the complicated nature of assessing age, introducing such a high standard of proof would significantly increase the risk of children being wrongly treated as adults. Indeed, new clause 30 undermines current statutory guidance from the Department for Education, which makes it clear that age assessments

“should not be a routine part of a local authority’s assessment of unaccompanied or trafficked children”.

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[Craig Whittaker]

I will come on to that when I discuss further measures in new clause 32, but our opinion is that the amendment is not necessary and I ask the hon. Member for Sheffield Central to withdraw it. On the new clauses, clause 58 is one of the six clauses drafted as placeholder clauses of introduction, as indicated in the explanatory notes and memorandum for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It was drafted as such in the interests of transparency to make clear our intention to bring forward substantive provision on age assessment. New clauses 29 to 37 are intended to replace clause 58 entirely.

Before I touch on the other clauses, regarding new clause 32, we have already said that determining a young person’s age is an inherently difficult task. One of the questions posed earlier was how we do that as a comparator between other young people growing up in less well-developed countries. Under current arrangements where an individual’s age is disputed, local authorities must already undertake an age assessment. That typically involves two appropriately qualified social workers undertaking a series of interviews with the young person and taking into account any other information that is relevant to their age. However, even where those assessments are conducted thoroughly and reach reasoned conclusions, they are fraught with difficulty, as one would imagine. Such assessments can have a wide margin of error. We are aware of cases where a Merton-compliant age assessment, as they are called, has been conducted on the same individual by different social workers and has come to very different conclusions about the person’s age. Given that context, the use of scientific age assessments represents an additional and important source of evidence to help decision makers in a difficult task, allowing them to better come to accurate judgments. At the end of the day, that is our aim.

Various scientific methods of age assessment are already in use across most European countries, and have been for several years. In Finland and Norway, which I mentioned earlier, radiographs are taken to examine development of the teeth and the fusion of bones in the wrist. Two certified experts perform the age assessment and must jointly agree on the person’s age. In France, X-rays are taken to examine the fusion of the collarbone, alongside dental and wrist X-rays. In Greece, dental X-rays are used alongside social worker assessments.

[Anne McLaughlin]

What are the experts comparing with? My question is, will they be comparing the bone density or whatever with that of children of the same age in the UK, knowing that the development of children from other parts of the world is very different, or will they have a database of comparable images of the skeletal system—whichever part they are using—from each of the other countries? Is that something that is happening at the moment, or will they just be compared with UK-based children?

[Craig Whittaker]

I suspect that the answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that how that is assessed will be down to the individual scientific advice given on the individual case at the time. I cannot see a like-for-like comparator for a child from Ethiopia or Sudan, which was mentioned earlier, being a child in this country. That is why the scientific evidence is a much more accurate way of assessing. It can be a great tool in the arsenal of assessing a child when compared with our existing system, which is the Merton assessment by two individual social workers. Given the challenges of assessing an individual’s age, we see no good reason why such technologies should not also be used. In all good faith, this is one of several tools in the arsenal. To further enhance my answer to the question asked by the hon. Lady, the precise scientific method of assessment will be specified in regulation, following scientific advice.

We are also making it clear within new clause 32 that a decision maker will be able to draw a negative credibility inference if an individual refuses to undergo a scientific age assessment without reasonable grounds. The introduction of any scientific method would be entirely undermined if someone who was asked to undergo such an assessment could simply refuse to co-operate. By legislating to develop our own scientific age assessment capability, we hope to emulate best practice across Europe and to ensure that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are provided with the care they are entitled to in a safe environment.

Let me turn to the rest of the amendments in the group before I answer some of the questions. Amendment 168 is consequential on new clauses 32 and 33. It provides that the regulation-making powers in the clauses are commenced automatically two months after Royal Assent.

The purpose of new clause 29 is to define an “age-disputed person” and to set the parameters to whom the age-assessment clauses apply. It clarifies the meaning of a number of terms, including “age-disputed person”, “immigration functions”, “immigration officer” and the respective definitions of “local authority” in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The clause also defines the meaning of “relevant children’s legislation” across the four nations of the United Kingdom.

New clause 30 relates to the establishment of a decision-making function in the Home Office, referred to as the national age assessment board, or the NAAB, as I think the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate referred to it. The NAAB will have responsibility for conducting age assessments of age-disputed persons on referral from the local authority or another public authority specified in regulation. Where an age-disputed person is referred to the NAAB by a local authority, the NAAB assessment will be binding on both the Home Office, in relation to immigration functions, and the local authority when determining access to children’s services. Alongside new clause 30, new clause 31 relates to the establishment of the NAAB. While most NAAB age assessments will be conducted on referral from a local authority, the new clause stipulates that the NAAB may, in certain situations, conduct age assessments on age-disputed persons for the sole purpose of deciding whether or how the Secretary of State should exercise any immigration functions.

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[Paul Blomfield]

I am interested in that observation, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will lead the charge to persuade the Government to allocate far more resources for the training of health professionals and to tackle the crisis they have created within our health service over the past 11 years.

Amendment 151 will try to ensure that the Government are clear-eyed about the impact of their policy and the trade-offs they are prepared to make, as well as the impact on UK public services, communities and businesses. The amendment would allow the public to examine that trade-off, too. It would ensure that the Government track the impact of their policy, and are transparent with business and trade over the impact any visa penalties might have, either through reduced travel or through deteriorating relationships with those countries.

The Government talk a lot about global Britain, but through our examination of the Bill we have seen many threats to that and a lot of ways in which they plan on sowing discord with other nations around the world, damaging our reputation in the international community. I know that the Minister will not vote for clause 59 stand part, but I would welcome his thoughts on the wider impact of the replacement clauses, along the lines of my amendment. I would appreciate it if he could tell us whether any such impact assessments are being considered.

I have an important point to make about new clauses 9 and 10, to which I hope the Minister can respond. There is significant concern that these clauses will prevent people from joining refugees in the UK through the family reunion route. Let us consider the countries cited in The Daily Telegraph again: Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Eritrea and the Philippines. Since the start of 2019, 8,480 people from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea have been granted refugee family reunion visas to join loved ones in the UK. That equates to just over half—53%—of all family visas granted over that period. Some 3,584 of those visas were for children and 5,771 for women or girls. The new clause, as drafted, would potentially apply to visas for refugees coming to the UK under one of the Home Office’s resettlement schemes, including the relocation scheme for Afghan nationals who have previously worked with the UK Government or applicants from Hong Kong for British national overseas visas.

So, if the Government are determined to proceed with these new clauses, at the very least new clause 9 needs to be amended to include an exemption for refugee family reunion and other protection routes. I should be grateful if the Minister would indicate whether the Government are willing to do that.

[Anne McLaughlin]

We support amendment 151 for the self-explanatory reason that we need to know the impact of these actions. We are not saying that visa penalties should never be imposed in any circumstances, but we share many of the concerns voiced by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central and I will focus on a couple of them.

The Government say this clause will incentivise other countries to co-operate with the UK Government to remove those who have no right to be in the country, but they have presented no evidence that this will be the case. Saying it is one thing, but if they are so confident of it they should do some work and, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central asks in his amendment, publish a report examining the impact on our relations with other countries.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants says that this clause will affect, among others, workers, including key workers. Have not the Brexit restrictions on key workers coming into the country taught us anything? There are also tourists and their massive contribution to our economies; performers; students—who pay thousands of pounds to study at our universities, many of which would struggle to survive without them—and academics, among others, including the family members of British citizens. Again, we are punishing the wrong people.

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[Craig Whittaker]

I think what the hon. Member has asked me to do is put a time limit on this, and I have already said clearly that just does not work. We have a duty to those in the immigration system, but we have a duty to protect the public too. The introduction of a 28-day detention time limit would severely limit our ability to remove those who refuse to leave voluntarily, and would encourage and reward abuse, to answer the question raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, in some cases from individuals who present a genuine threat to the public, which is not the effect I consider the hon. Members intend with new clause 38.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Does the Minister not think that if someone represents a threat to the public, they would be in jail? If they are not in jail, there is no evidence that they represent a threat to the public.

[Craig Whittaker]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, but we are talking about those who are a threat to the public. We have to have a duty of care. In fact, the first role of the Government is to protect their own citizens.

New clause 38 would allow those who wish to frustrate the removal process to run down the clock, in answer to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, until the time limit is reached and release is guaranteed. It would encourage late and opportunistic claims to be made simply to push them over the 28-day limit.

New clauses 38 to 40 are at total odds with the main objectives of the Bill, which will streamline the asylum process, ensuring that outstanding claims and appeals are dealt with much more effectively, with access to legal advice, while enabling us to remove more easily those with no lawful right to remain in the UK. In summary, it is the firm view of this Government that the introduction of a time limit would significantly impair the UK’s ability to proportionately and efficiently remove individuals who have no right to be here and who, in some cases, represent a significant danger to the public. I therefore respectfully ask the hon. Member to withdraw the amendment.