Immigration Act

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it will perhaps be helpful if I repeat the criteria on which these children will be considered. We will be considering: all those children aged 12 or under, not just certain children from certain countries; all children referred to us by the French authorities who are assessed as being at high-risk of sexual exploitation; and those nationalities most likely to qualify for refugee status in the UK aged 15 or under.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a bitterly disappointing Statement. Can the Minister confirm that, when the Government announced their response to Section 67 of the Immigration Act, the Government said they would respect the letter and spirit of that amendment? My contention is that the Government are doing neither. How can one say that young children refugees fleeing from Eritrea, Somalia and Afghanistan, for example, are not eligible to claim refugee status on a statistical basis? That is a breach of the 1951 Geneva Convention. Can the Minister please think again about this depressing Statement?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am disappointed that the noble Lord is disappointed in the Statement, because he and I have worked so productively over the last few weeks and months on Calais. In October, we updated our country guidance on Eritrea to reflect the court judgment, but we cannot base a threshold on possible future grant rates. The threshold is based on overall grant rates for the year ending June 2016 and the nationalities that have a grant rate of 75% or higher are Sudanese and Syrian.