Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches, we support Motions E1, J1, K1, N1 and N2. We welcome the Government’s Motion L on time-limiting detention for women who are pregnant. This suite of Motions is about the depriving of liberty of some of the most vulnerable people who reach these shores and, in particular, the welfare of children.

Government Motion J is narrow, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said. It is a limited concession, and as Tim Loughton pointed out in the other place yesterday, unaccompanied children’s arrivals are to be treated the same way as adult arrivals in terms of their detention for initial processing, and the amendment proposes nothing for unaccompanied children detained for those purposes.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said, for those who are deemed in detention for removal, there is no automatic condition of eight days; there is a condition that, at that point, a child can ask for bail. Just think of a 10 year-old child in detention: how will they have the support to be able to ask for bail? It is for that reason that, if the noble Baroness moves Motion J1 to a vote, these Benches will definitely support her. The same is true for the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Motion on unaccompanied children.

I support Motions N1 and N2, and particularly the points made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Throughout the passage of the Bill, these Benches have asked on a number of occasions, as have other noble Lords throughout the House, what the role is of the corporate parent—the local authority—under Clause 16. To date, the Minister still has not answered that question. It is really important that the Minister says something from the Dispatch Box; otherwise, this will end up in the court, given the contradiction between the Bill and the provisions in the Children Act 1989, particularly Sections 17 and 47. That is why it is important that the assurance the noble and learned Baroness asked for be addressed by the Minister now. We believe that Motions E1, J1, K1, N1 and N2, if put to the House—particularly Motions J1 and K1—will add a little more humanity, kindness and compassion to the Bill.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the Motion in the name of noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, as I had put my name to a similar amendment on Report.

We should not take for granted the decades of work done by many in your Lordships’ House, and others, to put together a child protection system that is well understood. In her most recent email of today, the Children’s Commissioner stated that the local authority must have responsibility for the safety and well-being of children in all settings, including when they are detained.

The child protection system that I have outlined is like a jigsaw: it is well put together and each of the bodies involved knows what its role currently is. That includes many bodies, such as the police, the local authority, schools, the NHS and, at government level, the Department for Education. It is noteworthy that in many of the legal cases taken by children’s rights organisations, the main submissions, if not the only submissions, that the court has wanted to hear are from the Department for Education, not the Home Office.

What we have with this jigsaw puzzle of people responsible is a Home Office that seems to have taken out some of the pieces of that child protection system, and we are not sure how they fit together again. Since this is an area where retrospectivity will apply to those children in hotels—they are now in hotels again—I hope that there will be clarity, at last, from my noble friend the Minister as to how the pieces of that well-understood jigsaw will be put back together, so that everybody knows what their role is. We know from history that if people are confused about their role in a child safeguarding situation, information, communication and the welfare of children themselves can fall between those gaps.