Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I welcome this amendment and commend it most strongly to the Government. I am also glad to hear the Minister’s indication that the Government are going to look sympathetically and positively at what the amendment says and what lies behind it. I will make a couple of points. First, it is particularly significant that the amendment stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. The noble Lord is not a man who indulges just in rhetoric—his humanitarian commitment is demonstrated in his own direct work, for example in west Africa. When somebody with practical demonstration of human concern speaks out, it is always doubly important to listen. The noble Lord and the other supporters of this amendment have of course spoken up for civilised values and are trying to give some substance to what we like to say this society is about—what we believe the England, or the United Kingdom, we want to live in is about, when it comes to a pressing social issue. By putting the amendment forward so well, it seems to me that they have also endeavoured to give substance to the commitment that we gave before the world when the conventions were being drawn up. It is not just about what the conventions demand—we were speaking up positively in favour of the conventions. It is therefore particularly disgraceful when we have situations that contradict what those conventions say.

I want to say one other thing. Very recently, we were celebrating Charles Dickens’s 200th anniversary. I have absolutely no doubt whatever that, had Dickens lived today, he would have been writing powerfully about this story. My noble friend Lady Massey has spelt out the realities. Of course, another reality is the damage that is done to the future lives of children in this predicament—the potential delinquency and all that follows from that; the potential recruitment to ugly causes that could easily arise from experiences of this kind.

Most important of all, we talk about the need for expertise and people with knowledge of the law who will be able to find practical solutions because they are professionally qualified to do so. That is crucial, and we do not want to go down the road of sentimentality; but at the same time, what would Dickens have brought out? Dickens would have brought out that child’s loneliness and isolation when faced with all the awe of the legal system and the immigration administration, however well intentioned the people within it might be. Dickens would have brought out that that child desperately needed a friend—it is not just expertise they need, but friendship to help them build their lives and future. They need love. Why do we, in this House, always hold back from talking about the importance—the muscular importance—of love in our society? Those children need love.

However, for love to be effective, it must be backed by serious work and commitment, from people with serious and relevant qualifications bringing them to bear. We will not find a solution simply by good, decent, administrative intent; we will find it by the quality of the relationships. In speaking out as I do on this point, it should be stressed over and over again that this is not just a matter of the responsibility of the immigration or other authorities, it is our whole society’s responsibility. Dickens would have wanted to wake up the nation, as a community, to the reality of the situation in its midst. There has to be an awakening of social and public responsibility across this land, if we are to find the real and lasting solutions to not just this issue but all the issues of which this is a particularly acute symptom. I, for example, would love for this amendment to have gone a little further. I do not think it would have been practicable in this context but, perhaps at some stage the amendment could be taken forward to include all children in the immigration system who find themselves alone, not just the children who are victims of trafficking.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

The Minister’s reply to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and others has been most warmly welcomed. When he examines this, will he put his mind to the further thought that trafficked children are highly likely to be retrafficked? This splendid amendment has an underlying assumption that somehow the children will be safe forever once they are here and there is a legal guardian and a framework around them. Of course, that is not the case. Trafficked children are hugely vulnerable. Naturally, there is a point in this amendment that locates their parents again and very probably, in most cases, an effort will be made to restore them to those parents. However, the volume of children who are retrafficked is dramatic and appalling. When they consider this amendment in such a positive light, I wonder whether the Minister and indeed the department will think about trying to stop the trafficking at source.

I declare an interest as president of a charity registered in Romania, which has been working against traffickers in Romania for 20 years. There is a great deal that we from this country can do for other developed nations, including Romania which is the subject of all sorts of trafficked children from Moldova, Russia and China. They pour through rather large and porous borders, and many of those children end up here. Vast numbers of them are then retrafficked.

I wonder whether the Minister could consider the next step of putting a great deal of focus on how to strengthen at source the anti-trafficking barriers. In fact, a predecessor of the Minister loaned some senior police from Scotland Yard for a short time to work in situ on providing training. That made a huge difference. We may do everything we possibly can for children who arrive here, but they will be rotated again and come back unless we take some measures to stop the trafficking at source.