Rwanda Asylum Partnership: Removal of Unaccompanied Children Debate

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Department: Home Office

Rwanda Asylum Partnership: Removal of Unaccompanied Children

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts
Thursday 21st July 2022

(1 year, 8 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Asked by
Baroness Lister of Burtersett Portrait Baroness Lister of Burtersett
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure no unaccompanied children are removed to Rwanda because they have been mistakenly assessed to be adults.

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Portrait Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
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My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have signed up to speak and the Minister; I suspect they were all hoping to have started the Recess by now. I tabled this QSD because I was so dissatisfied with the answer that the Minister gave on 15 June during questions on a Statement. In essence, I asked the question posed today, and the answer I received was that the Minister

“made clear in the other place that no unaccompanied asylum-seeking child will be sent to Rwanda, and I am sure I repeated it in this House.”—[Official Report, 15/6/22; col. 1597.]

No doubt she did, but that was not the point of the question.

I know it is government policy not to send unaccompanied children to Rwanda and that is welcome, although your Lordships’ House made clear during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act its view that responsibility for anyone claiming asylum in this country should not be “offshored” in that way, particularly now that it has become clear that they will be given a one-way ticket regardless of whether they are subsequently granted refugee status.

The point of the question was to draw to the Minister’s attention the real concerns among members of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium of over 60 organisations that the commitment not to remove unaccompanied children is already being undermined because some of these children are being wrongly assessed as adults. Those concerns are reinforced by today’s highly critical report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration on the processing of boat arrivals, which states:

“The treatment of those claiming to be children was not child-centred … The age assessment process was perfunctory and engagement with the young people was minimal.”


My concerns are all the greater given the forthcoming changes to age assessment, which I will not pursue now but were also rejected by your Lordships’ House. As was made clear during our debates, age assessment is not easy. Many children arrive without documentation of their birth date, for totally legitimate reasons, and it is widely recognised that physical appearance is not a reliable indicator of age. Nevertheless, an initial Home Office decision will be based on an individual’s “appearance and demeanour”. Where that gives rise to suspicion, one of two courses of action are currently taken. Under the first, the individual is treated as a child whose age is disputed and they are referred to a local authority for further assessment. According to a recent Written Answer, during the first quarter of this year, of 255 age disputes resolved, half concluded that the person was a child. Under the second course of action, if their

“physical appearance/demeanour very strongly suggests that they are significantly over 18”,

the individual is treated as an adult and moved straight to adult accommodation or detention—but there are no statistics for how many are so treated and no monitoring of the consequences. Why are these data not kept? Will the Minister look into the possibility of doing so?

Some data have been collected by the Helen Bamber Foundation from local authorities on those referred to children’s services because of staff doubts over their adult status, having first been sent to adult accommodation/detention between January and March of this year. Of the 211 in 64 authorities for whom they got information, two-thirds were found to be children, meaning that in just three months nearly 150 children could have been at risk of wrongful removal. The chief inspector cites Refugee Council statistics which show that in all but six of 106 resolved cases of young people deemed to be over 25 on arrival, they were subsequently found to be children.

On Report I cited the tragic example of Alex, who had killed himself and whose inquest concluded that his wrongful assessment as an adult and his subsequent ill treatment contributed to the “destructive spiral” that led to his death, even though the error was rectified. It is argued by Ministers that the wrongful treatment of adults as children has safeguarding implications, but this example illustrates the serious safeguarding implications of treating children as adults. Those consequences will be considerably more serious if they are removed to Rwanda as adults.

The Home Office has reassured critics that:

“Everyone considered for relocations to Rwanda will be screened and have access to legal advice”


and that there are adequate safeguards to ensure that children are not subject to inadmissibility procedures, but that was contradicted by oral evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee by Asylum Aid, the Refugee Council and Medical Justice. In their experience, recent arrivals to the UK are being detained without any screening for vulnerabilities. To quote the director of Asylum Aid:

“While detained, isolated, frightened and overwhelmed, they often do not understand what is happening to them”.


They are told that they may be sent to Rwanda and have only seven days in which to access legal advice and respond to the many complex questions that arise in such cases. The notice of intent, the inadmissibility notice and the information pack do not even set out that unaccompanied children should not be sent to Rwanda. Why is that the case? Will the Minister undertake to ensure that, as a minimum, those documents contain that information?

Without prejudice to its opposition to the Rwanda scheme as a whole, the consortium makes four recommendations with regard to children as follows. First, no one who claims to be a child but is being treated as an adult by the Home Office should be issued with a removal notice until confirmation is received from their legal representative that they have not been, or will not be, referred to a local authority. Secondly, in any case of an age dispute, where a person has been assessed as an adult by a local authority or the new National Age Assessment Board, the Home Office should not initiate or continue with the inadmissibility process until the time limit for challenging the decision via judicial review or appeal has passed, or the challenge or appeal has been heard and decided. Thirdly, where a person has been issued a notice of intent but is then subsequently accepted into children’s services as a child, the Home Office should confirm that their asylum claim will be deemed admissible. The process to be followed should be published. Finally, as I argued earlier, those claiming to be children who are assessed as adults at the outset should be identified in the statistics and what happens to them monitored.

The Government rightly accept the principle that no unaccompanied child should be removed to Rwanda. Let us try to put ourselves in the shoes of a child who has made a difficult journey to the UK, often having faced trauma in their home country or during the journey, and who now believes they have reached safety. What must if feel like to be told that they are now to be forwarded, alongside adults, to a country they know nothing about, like a parcel stamped “no return to sender”. We are given some insight by testimony from a Refugee Council worker who has been working with two children initially detained as adults. That worker writes:

“They were very worried these kids. Very, very depressed, very emotional, lack of energy, lack of sleep. They just didn’t know what would happen to them, all they were thinking about was Rwanda … They are so frightened. The first one I saw, he just locked himself in his room … He was shocked. He said the experience was worse than travelling to the UK”.


Pretty sobering, my Lords. Perhaps the Home Office will dismiss such observations as just anecdotes but, as the Home Affairs Select Committee, which raised a number of concerns about age assessment in this week’s report, observed:

“Specific instances may illustrate systemic issues”.


From all I have read and heard, I fear we are talking about systemic issues. If the Government believe that no unaccompanied child should be sent to Rwanda, surely it behoves them to do all in their power to ensure that this principle is not undermined in practice. I thus welcome the fact that there will be a meeting between consortium members and officials soon. Might I ask that the consortium’s recommendations be given serious consideration and that there is a real commitment to working out a way of ensuring that the Government’s own aim is achieved? Might I also ask that those who spoke in this debate today are told what practical steps will be taken as a result of this meeting? We have a bit of time now that flights have been suspended during the leadership election. Please use it constructively to ensure that unaccompanied children receive the protection promised them.

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Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
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My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for securing this debate and all noble Lords who have contributed to it. It is a very important topic and I am very happy to set out the Government’s position. In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I am happy to engage in future debates on this important issue.

Before I come on to discuss the specific points that have been raised, I hope colleagues will allow me to briefly set out some background. Last year, the Government published our New Plan for Immigration, and we have since introduced the Nationality and Borders Act, which is the legislative vehicle through which we will put much of that plan into action. In April this year, we announced the migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda, which is part of a co-ordinated strategy to disincentivise dangerous and unnecessary journeys, such as small boat crossings, to save lives and to increase public confidence in our immigration system. In reply to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, we have many safe and legal routes which allow people to come here safely. The UK and Rwanda have worked closely on the arrangement to ensure adequate safeguards are in place to protect vulnerable people seeking safety, as set out in the memorandum of understanding. There are provisions for a monitoring committee to monitor the end-to-end process.

Turning to the specific topic of today’s debate, I cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings but our position under the Home Office’s inadmissibility guidance is clear: unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are not suitable for third-country inadmissibility action and as such are not eligible for relocation to Rwanda. The approach to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is also extended to any individual whose age has been disputed by the Home Office but where that age dispute is ongoing. I hope that answers the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.

In answer to my noble friend Lord Lilley, as to why we cannot speculate on the reasons why unaccompanied asylum-seeking children might travel to the UK, everyone considered for relocation to Rwanda will be screened and have access to legal advice. This includes individuals who are undergoing a full Merton assessment and those who have legally challenged their assessment. The age of an individual arriving in the UK is normally established from the documents with which they have travelled. However, many who claim to be under the age of 18 do not have any definitive legal documentary evidence to support their claimed age, to answer the question from my noble friend. While many are clearly children, for others it is less clear. It is important that there is an effective decision-making process in place, not least for safeguarding reasons. An incorrect determination could result in an adult being placed with or alongside children. Conversely, if a child is wrongly assessed to be an adult, they may be served with an inadmissibility decision.

This initial age assessment is just the first stage in the broader age-assessment process. Where there is still doubt, the individual will be treated as a child, pending further consideration of their age. The Supreme Court recently and unanimously held that the Home Office’s initial age assessment policy was lawful in the case of BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, and that was last year.

The policy contains various safeguards, including that an individual whose age has been disputed may be treated as an adult without further consideration of their age only where two officers, one of at least chief immigration officer grade, have independently assessed them as being over the age of 18, based on their physical appearance and demeanour. There is a large margin of error in the individual’s favour, and that is designed to ensure that only where it is very clear that the person is an adult will they be treated as such.

Where there is less certainty, the policy directs officers to afford the individual the benefit of the doubt and treat them as a child, pending further assessment by a local authority. These measures will collectively serve to further minimise instances of individuals being mistakenly assessed as adults and provide them with an easily accessible route to seek a remedy where error does occur. There are also a number of safeguards in place to ensure that children are not mistakenly removed to Rwanda. Those who are deemed suitable for the inadmissibility procedure go through either a detained or non-detained route following a case-by-case assessment of their suitability for detention. For those who are not detained, where their age has been disputed by the Home Office, they are at liberty to approach a local authority and ask for a holistic age assessment, which takes into account all relevant information and evidence in relation to the young person. These are led by qualified social workers who are trained to work with children, and it is long-established Home Office policy to give significant weight to any decision on age made by a local authority. There has been no use of X-rays in the context of age assessment since the Nationality and Borders Act came into force.

However, where an individual is assessed by a local authority to be an adult, they are at liberty to challenge that decision through the courts. Where an individual is assessed to be suitable for detention, they will be referred through the detention gatekeeper process. This was introduced in June 2016 and works independently of both referring operational teams and detained caseworker teams to ensure that individuals enter immigration detention only where it is for a lawful purpose and is considered to be a proportionate measure on the facts of the case. If the detention gatekeeper is not satisfied that detention is lawful and proportionate, a referral can be rejected, or returned for further information. This process provides an element of independence in the detention decision-making process and protects potentially vulnerable individuals from being detained when it is not appropriate to do so. This would include individuals for whom there are any reasons to have concerns about the reliability of a decision on age.

Another safeguard is the requirement for regular detention reviews. Our published detention guidance sets out prescribed points at which continued detention must be reviewed. If a person who is detained makes representations that detention is unlawful on the basis that they are a child, the officer conducting the review will consider this and a decision on whether to maintain detention or release must be made as promptly as possible. In addition to monthly detention reviews, individuals also have the circumstances around their ongoing detention considered periodically at a case progression panel. These consist of a chair, panel members and panel experts, who review the appropriateness of continuing detention in accordance with the policy and legal framework.

Those subject to inadmissibility procedures will also have access to legal advice. They will be served with a notice of intent which notifies them that they are under consideration for the inadmissibility process and provides them with an opportunity to make any representations as to why they believe the inadmissibility process should not apply to them before a decision is made; this can include any representations about age. They will have the ability to seek legal recourse where they believe they have been wrongly treated as an adult and placed in detention.

Access to independent legal advice and judicial oversight of the process are two of the most important safeguards against the removal of individuals who may have been incorrectly assessed as adults, and the Home Office will of course fully respect the outcome of any successful legal challenge. Where an individual does put in a legal challenge on the basis of their age, we will of course wait for that to conclude.

Finally, we have in place a provision within the migration and economic development partnership to facilitate the return to the UK of an individual where there is sufficient cause. This would include individuals where it is subsequently established that removal was unlawful on any basis.

In terms of further strengthening the system, and on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, we recognise that there is more to do to make the wider system as robust as possible. The age assessment reforms within the Nationality and Borders Act will improve the accuracy of age assessment outcomes, minimising the risk that a person will be incorrectly treated as either an adult or a child.

I close by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for securing the debate—

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Portrait Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
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I think we have some time, so before the noble Baroness sits down, I would say that we have identified a gap between theory and practice. The Minister accepts that more work needs to be done but then says that everything will be fine once the Nationality and Borders Act is operational. However, this House rejected the age assessment procedures as taking us backwards rather than forwards. A number of specific questions were asked, which I do not think the Minister has answered. I would be grateful if she could do so subsequently in writing, but could I at least have an assurance, as I asked, that officials will consider seriously the recommendations put forward by the consortium, and that whatever decisions are taken at that meeting are relayed to noble Lords who have spoken in this debate?

Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
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My Lords, I know that this House did not accept the age assessment process, but Parliament did, and eventually this House did not demur on that. I will certainly take back the noble Baroness’s points on the consortium, and I hope that we can make progress in a constructive way. As I say, I look forward to further debates on this issue, because I think it is important that we get it right.