Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Bishop of Bristol Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Motion D1. I remind the House that this issue was raised at an earlier stage, either on Report or in ping-pong, by a Member of the Conservative Benches in this House. I also remind the House that how the law will be applied is not what the Minister says; it is what the law actually states. We are hearing from the Minister that in relation to unaccompanied children it will not be used very much, but that is absolutely not good enough. If the law allows unaccompanied children to be detained for well over 28 days—that is, unless the child gets to the tribunal, and how will the child know that he or she is to apply to the tribunal?—then under this law they could remain there indefinitely.

I have four points to make. First, there is a risk to the welfare of the child of this indefinite detention instead of the present 24-hour maximum—a very considerable increase. The Government talk about child-appropriate detention. I just wonder what that really means.

I am afraid that I have banged on to this House again and again about the Children Acts, but I am particularly concerned about the impact of the Children Acts on Home Office detention if the detention goes beyond just two or three days, because there is no parental responsibility. What happens, as a Conservative Peer said much earlier, if a child suffers a serious medical emergency? There is no one, particularly not in the Home Office, with the right to sign the consent form for a child. They would have to go to the court to get an emergency protection order for the child to be able to receive proper medical attention. It would be quite a good idea if the Home Office remembered that. I said it to it earlier, and so did the Conservative Peer, but it does not seem to have put that in its mind.

Secondly, I worry about the Department for Education. To what extent does it know the implications of the Bill? I get the impression that the members of the DfE in this House do not really have any knowledge of it.

Thirdly, there may be disputes between local authorities and the Home Office over a child being removed from local authority care under the Children Acts and taken into detention. What happens if there is a care order where a judge has ordered that a child should be living in a particular place under the care of a local authority? Is the Home Office really going to move the child where there has been a judicial order over where the child lives?

Fourthly, although I know this is not necessarily popular with many people, Article 5 of the human rights convention talks about detention. In due course I would like to test the opinion of the House.

[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

My Lords, I shall speak to Motion E1. This Motion, as with Motion D1, concerns vulnerable children being deprived of their freedom—in this case, those accompanied children. I am disappointed that, regardless of the strength of opinion across this Chamber, the Government are still not proposing to set limits on the detention of children in the Bill, whether they are accompanied or unaccompanied. Despite the comments of the Minister about the possibility of fake families earlier in the debate, I wish to press the point.

My amendment, as originally tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester last week, seeks to address and bring forward provisions for children within families. It was the Prime Minister himself who stated that it is not the intention of the Bill to detain children. This amendment seeks to go some way towards ensuring that commitment for all children. It would ensure that for families with children, the children could be detained for no longer than 120 hours—five days—or for no longer than seven days, with ministerial approval. It presents a proportionate response to the possibility of unlimited detention of children that is a compromise on what is in the 2014 Act. Given that the Government intend to deport those meeting the conditions of Clause 2 swiftly, It would not hinder that objective.

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Tabled by

[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 33D in lieu—

33D: Clause 10, page 15, line 29, leave out “for any period” and insert “for a period of not more than 120 hours, or for a period of not more than seven days in cases where the longer period of detention is authorised personally by a Minister of the Crown (within the meaning of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975)””

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[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

My Lords, given the lateness of the hour and the current mind of the House as indicated thus far, with sadness I am minded not to move Motion E1.

Motion E1 not moved.