Rwanda Asylum Partnership: Removal of Unaccompanied Children

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, what must it be like to be forced to leave not just your country but your home and to know little about where you are trying to head for, though you have an idealised version in your head? It is a journey full of hazards, because you have no means of travelling direct by a safe, regular route—such routes may not exist—and you are alone. What must it be like to find you are treated with suspicion? They say you are an adult, and you may look it after the experiences you have been through; inside you feel very young indeed and you are a child.

What would it be like then to be moved on to Rwanda, where, undoubtedly, criminal gangs will be operating to smuggle refugees who find themselves there to another country? Crucially, what will it be like to reach the UK, not having—and never having had— convenient proof of age, have difficulty being understood and be given a notice of intent about being sent to Rwanda?

What discussions have the Government had with the Rwandan Government about unaccompanied children? What assurances have they been given about the treatment of children and young people found, in fact, to be children? What have the Government advised their liaison officer in our diplomatic mission in Kigali or the monitoring committee? Those are both mentioned in the memorandum of understanding. Saying that children will not be sent there is not adequate when there is even the slightest doubt whether the procedures will ensure that no child will be treated as an adult.

It is largely NGOs which provide support in challenging decisions for those they can. Their resources are limited. I realise that caseworkers are stretched, and Home Office guidance may be difficult to apply, but it seems very wrong that society has to be so reliant on the third sector.

Members of the House received powerful representations about the age assessment provisions of the then Nationality and Borders Bill, and we had a very helpful, but necessarily limited, briefing from the noble Baroness, Lady Black of Strome, the interim chair of the interim age assessment committee—I understand that everyone is still interim there. However, the British Dental Association conversely believes that the use of dental and other X-rays to assess age is a fait accompli. It is concerned that dental age checks—if “checks” is the right term—are already taking place. It seems a long way from what we were told at the time of the Bill about safeguarding and triangulating information from different sources as a safety net. I found that very reassuring at the time; I hope not to be disillusioned, but I am on the way there.

Our Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I am lucky enough to chair, heard last week from an academic who said there was

“not really any process for the best interest of unaccompanied refugee children to be properly weighted in any assessment … It is an impossible state of exception”—

an exception to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He added:

“We have no discussion about unaccompanied refugee children’s development.”


Another witness said that family life and a child’s best interests are often portrayed

“as private matters, versus immigration control being in the public interest.”

She referred to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, in the Supreme Court, putting it that

“there is actually a strong public interest in”

the upbringing of, and opportunities for, children.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for ensuring that the House debates these issues; I wish it were not necessary.