Child Refugees: Age Checks

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As regards the first half of the noble Lord’s question, I can confirm that exactly those children who he has identified will be our priority when we move on to helping those who qualify to come here under the Dubs amendment. We want to help those in the greatest need so I can give him that assurance. As regards the broader issues, we are liaising with non-government organisations and the Greek and Italian authorities in order to identify those children in those countries who may qualify to come to the UK, so that we can play our full role in bringing support to people living in desperately difficult circumstances.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, having visited the camps, I am well aware of how chaotic the situation is and how difficult it is to manage. This morning I spoke to a friend who has been working in the camp. She was with a 14 year-old Syrian yesterday who arrived this week. He has a passport, so it is easy to verify his age. I reinforce the point that it is better to work through those who have documentation. However, he said that the majority of those on his bus were adults. In order for the British people to trust the system, I encourage my noble friend to make sure that the screening and registration are as robust as possible—I understand from my friend today that people being screened now are being given priority whereas those who were screened a month ago seem to be at the back of the queue—and to co-ordinate with the organisations on the ground such as Citizens UK which have been working in the camps for a long time and know exactly what is going on, and may know more than the French authorities do.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend. As I think I said in my Statement, it is up to the FTDA to refer eligible children to UK officials in Calais. Once that process has taken place, we are now dealing with those applications in a matter of days, whereas previously it was taking a matter of weeks, so we are dealing with this now with some urgency. I pay tribute to the NGOs working in Calais in very difficult circumstances.

As regards working out the age of an applicant, clearly one can work on that where there is documentary evidence, as in the case to which the noble Baroness referred. Where there is no documentary evidence, there is no single way of determining the age of an applicant. If the applicant is clearly beyond any doubt an adult and way over 18, they are turned down in Calais, and roughly 10% are refused. However, if they arrive in this country and there is still dispute about their age, they are then subjected to what is called the Merton process, whereby a local authority over a period of some 28 days assesses the age of the applicant through social workers, with interpreters if necessary, and an independent adult present if that is also necessary. If, at the end of that process, the applicant is determined to be an adult, they will no longer be treated as a child but will have to make their way through the system as an adult applicant for asylum.