Refugees: Notice Period for Home Office Accommodation

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will go through the process: all individuals who receive a positive decision on their asylum claim can remain on support and in their accommodation for at least 28 days from when their decision is served. However, as I said in my earlier Answer, current practice is that individuals remain on that support and in accommodation for 28 days from the point of the biometric residence permit being issued. That can be five to seven days after the asylum decision. This means that individuals have longer than the 28 days’ notice after receiving their grant of leave to make onward arrangements. Confirmation of the exact date that an individual’s support and accommodation are due to end will be issued in a notice-to-quit or notice-to-vacate letter from the individual’s accommodation provider. This notice will be issued at least seven days before support and accommodation is due to end. There are at least three opportunities there where the asylum seeker, or the asylum claimant who has received a decision, will be notified. They have plenty of time.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, last week the Minister said that 28 days was “more than enough” and “perfectly generous”. Has he read the research done over the years, which shows the hardship and heartache that that period causes to newly recognised refugees at the point where they should be delighted because they have got their status? If he has not read the research, please will he do so—and will he undertake to meet those organisations on the ground that know what it is like to have to try to find somewhere in 28 days?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, as I have tried to explain, it is more than 28 days. The underlying aspect of this is that we should be moving to 56 days; I am afraid that we simply do not agree. The asylum accommodation estate is under huge strain, as all noble Lords are aware. Increasing the move-on period would exacerbate those pressures. Therefore, there are no current plans to extend the prescribed period, which is long-standing in our legislation; but we engage with the Department for Work and Pensions and DLUHC on ensuring that individuals can move on as smoothly as possible. I have read some of the research—not all of it—and I will continue to do so.

Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

That this House regrets that the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023, which increase fees by above inflation for a range of immigration and nationality applications, will (1) increase financial barriers to children securing their rights to British citizenship, (2) cause other individuals to fall out of lawful immigration status and face significant debt and precarity, (3) increase the operational burden on the Home Office, and (4) damage the United Kingdom’s economy; and calls on His Majesty’s Government to consider and develop policies to support individuals, families, and businesses adversely affected by these changes.

Relevant document: 55th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2022-23.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, this is only the third regret Motion I have brought in my 12 years in your Lordships’ House, and, like the other two, it concerns the crippling level of fees. I declare my position as a RAMP associate.

I will focus mainly on the 20% increase in the route to settlement, entry clearance and indefinite leave to remain fees for those on a five or 10-year route to settlement, and on the same increase in children’s citizenship fees, which is the subject of the previous regret Motions and a matter of great concern to a group of us who have come to be known as “the terriers”, as we never give up. Unfortunately, however, a number of the terriers who wanted to support the Motion could not be here today.

I will start with some general points. The first raises the procedural criticism voiced by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee:

“Regrettably, this is the third instrument from the Home Office in just over a month that has breached the convention that at least 21 days should be allowed between laying an instrument and bringing it into effect. In none of the cases has it been clear that urgent action is essential, and in this case the breach seems clear-cut as it resulted from the Home Office’s failure to organise its paperwork in time”.


The committee has written to the Minister concerned to seek assurances that there will be no further unjustified breaches that restrict parliamentary scrutiny in this way, and I hope the Minister can give us that assurance today.

The committee was critical of the failure to publish the impact assessment and equalities impact assessment until after the regulations were laid. Praxis, in its briefing on behalf of a group of 15 organisations working on migration issues—I am grateful to Praxis for its help—argues that the EIA fails to consider properly the impact the fee increases will have on those with protected characteristics, especially where there is no fee waiver. It states:

“Given what we know of the different impact of these fees particularly on women”


and “racialised communities”, and their likely “detrimental and discriminatory impact”, the EIA merely “pays lip service” to the assessment of this impact.

The Home Office has dismissed claims that the visa fees increase will harm business competitiveness, even though the Explanatory Memorandum acknowledges that the impact on business, charities and voluntary bodies is likely to be “significant”. Indeed, the FT ran a story in the summer on how business groups are urging a rethink on the grounds that the increase will damage the UK’s competitiveness. However, it quoted an “ally” of the Chancellor as saying:

“We need this to fund the public sector pay awards”,


which was a reason given for the increase when it was announced.

This brings me to the justification made for these big increases in fees. As funding public sector pay awards is not a permitted reason for raising them, the rationale offered in the Explanatory Memorandum is

“to significantly increase the income generated through … fees for the purpose of meeting costs within the wider migration and borders system … This will in turn allow taxpayer funding that would have otherwise been required to meet those costs, to instead be prioritised elsewhere”.

Later, there is an oblique reference to public sector pay. I am certainly in favour of decent public sector pay awards, but I fail to see why they should be financed by above-inflation increases in the fees charged to groups who are often in vulnerable circumstances, given that the existing fees were already well above the costs of their processing—a point I will return to.

Furthermore, the justification of helping to meet the costs of the migration and border system is totally inappropriate in the case of children’s citizenship fees—a point that the terriers have made over and again. As the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, of which I am patron, points out in its briefing with Amnesty and other organisations, for which I am grateful,

“rights to British citizenship by registration are plainly not concerned with migration. Rather these rights are concerned with ensuring that all people whom Parliament identified as having particular connection to the UK when it passed the British Nationality Act 1981 can be fully and equally recognised as citizens of this country.”

Given this, can the Minister please explain the rationale for raising the registration fees of those whom our nationality laws identify as British?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for answering, but quite a lot of questions were not answered. I hope he will circulate answers to everybody who spoke. In the previous regulations, he sounded quite surprised when he said that he thought he had answered all the questions, because he obviously did not expect to—and he certainly has not this time.

I am very grateful to noble Lords from across the House who have spoken, all—more or less—in support of the Motion. I want to pick out a few points, one of which is process. My noble friend Lord Coaker made the point that these are really important issues with great financial implications, as the noble Lord, Lord German, pointed out. We have to think about how we consider these through statutory instruments, because although the Minister said that there is parliamentary oversight, if someone had not brought this regret Motion, we would not have debated these issues—they would have just gone through—so I do not call that oversight. I laid the Motion because an outside organisation asked me to. We should not leave such important issues to the vagaries of whether a regret Motion is brought.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Minister’s answer on the process of missing the 21-day rule is exactly the answer that was given to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The committee did not take that answer very kindly. It was not impressed with it. I suspect that noble Lords were not impressed with it either. I am not sure that we had the assurance that it would not happen again which I asked for.

A number of noble Lords made points about the impact on those affected, be it businesses or individuals. I am not sure that they were really taken on board by the Minister. We are talking about some people in very vulnerable circumstances. There may not have been an increase in the number of requests for waivers yet, but these were introduced only in October and it takes a bit of time to percolate through.

A number of practical points were made about waivers. Certainly, there were questions that I asked following the debate that we had last year, which I look forward to the Minister answering in writing. There were also practical suggestions about how waivers could be improved, perhaps through using schools—the right reverend Prelate made a very valuable suggestion there. My noble friend Lady Blower talked about higher education, which brings us to the question of citizenship. I do not think that the crucial point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, to whom I am very grateful, and my noble friend Lady Primarolo was addressed at all. They asked, as I did in a broader context, about this fundamental distinction between immigration and citizenship—the citizenship of young people, many of whom were born here and have lived here for most of their lives. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, called “wholly odious” the way that this distinction is completely ignored by the Home Office. I am afraid that we have seen another example of it here this evening.

I notice that some of my terriers have arrived since we started the debate. I press the Minister to take this back, because we will come back to this question of citizenship time and again. I have not heard a convincing explanation for why we are raising the fee on the basic right of citizenship by this huge amount—what was huge already is now even more huge. The Home Office must look at this and come up with an answer; there was no answer today. I am disappointed that the Minister has not grappled with this fundamental question that was put so strongly from across the House.

I will leave it at that. The regret Motion was tabled partly to get answers to questions. We got answers to some of them but not others. I look forward to receiving the letter from the Minister. I hope that this will act as a shot across the Home Office’s bow in terms of processes and when it thinks again about raising fees. It is a way of saying that the terriers are still here and that we will still be yapping at the Home Office’s heels. However, on this occasion, I will not seek the opinion of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Windrush Generation

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the non-affiliated Bench.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that the former Home Secretary decided not to proceed with three lesson learned review recommendations —hence my use of the word “majority”. I will not say any more on that subject, because I think it is subject to legal proceedings.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in her progress report on her lessons learned review, Wendy Williams referred to the “central importance” of the hostile/compliant environment policies to the causes of the Windrush scandal and argued that

“The results of the review of the compliant environment policies remain an essential element in the department’s efforts to demonstrate it is learning from past experience and adopting a more compassionate approach”.


Can the Minister therefore tell us what has happened to the review of the hostile/compliant environment?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I think I have made it very clear where the Home Office and indeed where the Government stand on this particular subject. As I have said, it was a disgrace and an outrage and it is being corrected through the progress we are making with the Windrush scheme.

Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to these issues: the points raised by the Home Office’s AESA committee and where the research that it demanded can be found, given that it tabled the SIs; the Children’s Commissioner’s concerns about the belief that the rights of children can be protected, especially in relation to competence and consent; and why, if this Government want to follow certain European countries, they are not following the safeguards for children that those countries have already put in place. If there are no clear answers, these two SIs are not yet ready to be put on to the statute book. Science and medicine, as well as the fundamental rights of children, are under threat. I urge the Government to withdraw the SIs until the deficiencies of evidence can be presented to Parliament. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for tabling her regret Motion, which sets out so well why these regulations should be withdrawn. Having challenged the proposals to use X-rays in the sensitive matter of age assessment in both recent immigration Bills in the early hours of the morning, I find it a relief to be debating the matter today at a civilised hour. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger—a fellow veteran of those debates—very much regrets that she cannot be here in time to speak but she has authorised me to speak on her behalf. Some of what I say will repeat points that have already been made but they are important and bear repetition.

It is unclear to me why these regulations are being brought forward now, given that the Explanatory Memorandum to the Home Office regulations states that

“the policy and design are still under development”

and gives that as a justification for the lack of an impact assessment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed out. This clearly did not impress the SLSC, which described it as “sub-optimal policy-making”. It suggested that we might wish to press the Minister on why this approach was taken and to provide a clear indication of the costs and wider implications for health service provision. As the Minister will have read its report, no doubt he is briefed to provide a response, although the Minister in the Commons failed to do so when that point was raised.

The committee was similarly unimpressed with the lack of real consultation. In its written questions to the Home Office, it asked various questions about what the Home Office described as engagement with key stakeholders. The response simply said,

“the MoJ to answer this section”,

but answer came there none in the MoJ statement other than reference to a statutory consultation to which it had just three responses. Can the Minister please enlighten us now about the responses to the engagement with key stakeholders and tell us who they were?

One point raised in response to the MoJ’s statutory consultation that is worth noting here is the poor representation from the dental community on the Age Estimation Scientific Age Committee, considering that dental X-rays are one of the proposed practices. It was the British Dental Association that first contacted me with regard to the age assessment clauses in the then Nationality and Borders Bill. It is just one of a number of professional bodies that have raised concerns—notably, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the BMA and the British Association of Social Workers have also done so—together with children’s and refugee organisations. They are surely stakeholders so what engagement was there with them? Why do their concerns appear to have been ignored?

What particularly struck me when we debated the clauses giving rise to these regulations were the ethical concerns raised by the BDA and the RCPCH at the prospect of the use of X-rays on children and young people without any medical justification. Those concerns have not been allayed. One line of justificatory argument used by the Government and the Minister is that the use of X-rays is in line with common European practice. However, the Helen Bamber Foundation, whose earlier work was so important in challenging the Government’s figures on the number of adults posing as children, has questioned that line of argument, as the SLSC notes.

According to the foundation, a growing number of legal decisions in Europe have held that the scientific methodology is not sound enough to be relied on. It quotes the Council of Europe as concluding this:

“There is a broad consensus that physical and medical age assessment methods are not backed up by empirically sound medical science and that they cannot be assumed to result in a reliable determination of chronological age”.


The CoE points to evidence of their harmful impact on the physical and mental health and well-being of those undergoing age assessment and thus advises that their use

“should be reduced to a minimum”

and should

“remain a measure of last resort”.

Although the SLSC did not feel able to assess the strength of the arguments around international comparisons, it expressed its expectation that the Government take into account any changes in the legal position or practical implementation elsewhere, given that they have cited international approaches in support of the policy. Will the Minister give us an assurance that the Government will do so?

Another argument used in the Commons debate on the regulations was that Merton assessments are very time-consuming, yet it has also been emphasised that scientific methods, which all are agreed cannot provide a definitive answer, will be used alongside Merton assessments; presumably that will make the whole process even more time-consuming. Forgive me for my cynicism but I cannot help but fear that, ultimately, the plan is to replace Merton assessments with so-called scientific methods. Can the Minister give us a categorical assurance that that will not be the case?

A critical issue mentioned by the noble Baroness, the SLSC and those submitting evidence to it concerns consent. In its response to the committee’s questions on the subject, the Home Office pointed out that the regulations are made under the Nationality and Borders Act, not the more recent Illegal Migration Act. However, that is not of itself sufficient to assuage concerns. Although it is welcome that the Home Office does not feel ready to go ahead with a lack of consent having automatic consequences, the Children’s Commissioner is pressing for an assurance that the power will not come into force at all.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Safe Routes

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The answer is twofold. First, we have welcomed over half a million people, so that is very much a vindication of the Christian principle. Secondly, we are not obsessed with the asylum seekers themselves; we are obsessed with putting criminal gangs out of business, and I make no apology at all for that.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister, in a rather throwaway remark, acknowledged there are still children from Afghanistan who are stuck in Pakistan. Can he give us any estimate of just how many children, who should have been able to come to the UK because they are entitled to on the routes set up, are stuck there?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I apologise if it sounded like a throwaway answer, but I do not think it was. I am afraid I cannot give you that information, and I do not think it would be wise to do so.

Rwanda: Asylum Arrangements Treaty

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I am aware of that.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

The Minister did not answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Clarke. According to the Telegraph, Lord Sumption warned that a new treaty would not prove the country was safe, as Rwanda does not have the institutional strength to observe its own treaty obligations. What changes have happened to give the Government the belief that it has the strength to fulfil its treaty obligations?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, the noble Baroness is speculating as to what may or may not be in the legislation, which no one has yet seen—apart, perhaps, from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. However, I would also note that there are 135,000 refugees in Rwanda as we speak.

Asylum Seekers: Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will recall, as part of the structure of the Illegal Migration Act detention forms an important part of the deterrent effect to dissuade people from crossing the channel. Of course, detention should only be done when it is necessary. In these circumstances the Government take the view that it is.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, while the Minister’s earlier remarks were very welcome, feeding the culture of disbelief in the Home Office, as the Home Secretary did, too often means that women who claim asylum on the basis of sexual orientation have their claims wrongly refused. What steps will the Government take to tackle this damaging culture of disbelief?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I do not accept that there is a damaging culture of disbelief. Asylum claims are taken very seriously by the department, as can be seen from the grant rates in asylum cases. We also have a very elaborate appeal structure to independent members of the judiciary, so I do not accept the premise of the noble Baroness’s question.

Creative and Cultural Industries: Impact of Visa and Immigration Policies

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the recently announced increase of at least 20% in the visa charge for people on the 10-year route to settlement and their families will mean a rise of at least £18,265 for an adult and much more for a family. What assessment has been made of the impact on long-term residents, many of whom are on lower incomes and already struggle to meet visa fees?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I regret that I did not hear the beginning of the noble Baroness’s question. How is that connected to the creative visa schemes?

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My question is connected to visas, and visas were in the original Question. I asked about the recently announced increase of at least 20% in the charge for people and their families on the 10-year settlement route, which will mean a rise of at least £18,265 for an adult and more for a family.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I still do not follow the noble Baroness’s question, but I reassure her that we will bring forward a further fees order in the autumn. No doubt she will ask further questions then, but I reassure her that visa fees are carefully studied by the department. It is vital that they appropriately reflect the cost of running the visa scheme.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Motion J1 in my name. First, I am grateful to the Minister for his invitation to discuss this matter last week and for acknowledging the particular vulnerabilities of children who arrive in this country alone. But, having carefully read the Government’s Amendments 36A and 36B in lieu, I think it is clear that the Bill would contain no absolute time limit or safeguards on the powers to detain unaccompanied children. Permitting a tribunal to grant bail to only some detained unaccompanied children, after eight days, is not the same as an actual time limit on detentions for all unaccompanied children. They would still be a great many unaccompanied children who could be detained without any time limit and to whom the First-tier Tribunal could not grant bail for 28 days. Therefore, I would like to provide the other place with an opportunity to reconsider this matter.

If an unaccompanied child is detained under any of the new powers in the Bill, under the amendments I now propose, that child cannot be detained for more than 72 hours. If in regulations the Home Secretary wishes to specify a time limit for detaining unaccompanied children for less than 72 hours, then of course she has that prerogative. However, a matter as fundamental as the ultimate period for which an unaccompanied child can be held in detention should not be left to mere regulations or verbal assurance. It must be stated in the Bill. Overturning the legal safeguards and time limits introduced—and I say once again, under a Conservative Prime Minister and Conservative Home Secretary—and detaining children without any stated time limit serves neither British nor Conservative values. Therefore, I will divide the House on this, so that we may provide the Commons with the opportunity to think again carefully about the powers created by this Bill. I ask the House to approve Motion J1.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, with reference to Motion L, I welcome the government amendments, which have the same effect as our original amendments of restoring the status quo ante with regard to pregnant women.

Before my round of thanks, I have one query from the lawyer who has kindly been advising us. He says that his only concern is that they are a separate provision for the new powers in paragraph 16(2C) and proposed new subsection (2A) of Section 62 rather than reapplying the protection of Section 60. The reason that this matters is that for the purposes of the time limit, the period of detention under the old detention powers would not be aggregated with the period of detention under the new detention powers. However, now, in theory, a pregnant woman could be detained for up to seven days under the old detention powers and then for another seven days under the new detention powers. Could the Minister confirm that this is not the intention and that the powers would not be used in this way?

I turn to my thanks. First, I pay tribute to Women for Refugee Women, in particular Gemma Lousley, for all their invaluable work in pressing this amendment, and also to David Neale of Garden Court Chambers for his pro bono legal advice. I thank all noble Lords around the House who have supported the amendments by adding their names, speaking in support, voting in support or deliberately abstaining. I am particularly grateful to those Members—largely women, I think—on the Government Benches who could not bring themselves to support the Government on this. That there was so much support for the amendments on the Government Benches is largely down to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who I think of as a noble friend. She has been tireless, both behind the scenes and on the Floor of the House, as was recognised by the Immigration Minister yesterday.

The preservation of the time limits on the detention of pregnant women in recognition of the likely health impact of the original proposal to remove them represents one small beacon of light in what otherwise continues to be the gloom of a punitive Bill that will do untold harm. The government Motion was described on both sides of the Commons yesterday as a no-brainer. Nevertheless, it would be churlish not to recognise that the Government have listened on this issue at least, and I thank them for doing so.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Motion N1 in my name, which is just ahead of the Motion in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. This is a rather different point; it relates to a situation where there may be a stand-off between the Home Office and the local authority.

Picture a child who is either being accommodated under Part III of the Children Act or for whom a judge or magistrate has made a care order which the local authority is complying with, and the Home Office, according to Clause 16, wishes the child to be removed in order to send them back to their parents or to some other place. Although it said to use it only occasionally, it does not say in Clause 16 that the local authority should be consulted or, rather more importantly, should actually consent. In particular, if there is a care order, that is an order of the court. As far as I can see, it would be very difficult for the Home Office just to pick the child up and take them away where there is a court order saying that the child must live with the family, or whoever it may be, arranged by the local authority.

Quite simply, what I am seeking is that the Secretary of State should bear in mind all these things and not just consult the local authority but gain its consent to the removal of the child from its care. It is a very simple proposition.

What I would like from the Minister is either an assurance that the Secretary of State will do that, or that he will take it back to the Home Office for the Secretary of State to consider and agree to it. I do not propose to put this issue to the House, but it is very important that the Home Office’s interaction with local authorities under Clause 16 be clarified and that the Home Office recognise the fact that it cannot just remove a child if it is contrary to the Children Act.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much echo what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just said. I want to draw attention to the fact that the last-minute publication of the child rights impact assessment, which required the intervention of my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, meant that we were unable to pay due attention to it during the Bill’s passage—despite children being among the Bill’s main victims. Therefore, I will say a few words now.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child makes clear that a child rights impact assessment should be built in

“as early as possible in the development of policy”.

The fact that it arrived so late and reads more like a repetitive post hoc justification of the Bill’s measures than a serious analysis of their implications for the rights and best interests of the child suggests that it was not. Noble Lords from across this House and the Children’s Commissioner have called for the assessment since the Bill’s introduction. The commissioner has now made clear that the assessment “does not allay” her

“concerns about the impact of this Bill on children”.

With particular reference to detention and the use of force, she notes that it

“relies on overly optimistic assumptions about what might come to pass to reach conclusions about the positive effect on children, while ignoring or overlooking the clear, evidenced and tangible negative impacts it will have”.

While the Home Office’s use of the DfE template is welcome, it serves to expose the lack of evidence to support its assessment of the impact on children’s rights and its failure to consult externally. From the perspective of process and outcome this is a travesty of a child rights impact assessment. I hope that we remember that when it comes to the process of ping-pong on amendments affecting children.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

From these Benches, I echo the remarks made by the Minister about our late and lamented noble and learned friend Lord Brown, who is sorely missed and who was often an inspiration to us all, even when we did not entirely agree with him, because he always inspired conceptual thinking.

I thank the Minister—and I do mean this by the way—for his patience while under fire, even though I mostly disagreed with his responses when they came. However, behind and underneath that carapace of patience has been a failure to understand that the Government set out to do something that is neither possible nor legal. We were told that the Bill would stop the boats as a deterrent. However, we know that the boats were fuller than ever in June. We were told that sending asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda would be a deterrent. However, sending them to Rwanda is illegal—I use the word advisedly—under the laws of this country, at least until the matter has been relitigated in the Supreme Court. In the Minister’s consultations with the Home Secretary, the Government should give serious consideration to pausing this Bill until that hearing has taken place. It seems extraordinary to me, as a long-time parliamentarian in both Houses, for this Parliament to be asked to pass a Bill which requires something unlawful to be done. I have a basic opposition to that.

I will say one other thing. Some of us are already receiving messages from various well-informed members of the media about changes the Government intend to make to this Bill. It would be helpful if we were informed at approximately the same time as the media so that we can make a considered judgment as to what we do during ping-pong and so that we can carry out the role which, I believe, we have performed effectively hitherto.