Immigration Bill

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Lords Chamber

As I said, this is a probing amendment and the intention is to investigate how best to give that support to these vulnerable young people. As I have highlighted, the amendment will bolster and clarify the obligations of the Secretary of State and local authorities in relation to the various problems. I am sure the Minister will agree that there should be joined-up policies across various departments to ensure that these vulnerable young people do not fall through the gaps in the system. There is evidence of that happening and it has the potential to get worse unless we put sufficient measures in place. I look forward to hearing the Minster’s response and I dearly hope that we can find ways of working together to address the important issues that have been identified.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment in this group to which I wish to speak is Amendment 81AA, which would require independent legal guardians to be appointed to look after the interests of children trafficked into the United Kingdom. The amendment proposes the insertion of a new clause but this is by no means a new issue. A similar amendment was recently voted on and narrowly defeated during the passage of the Children and Families Bill. The Committee will be aware of the tremendous work of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, who has championed this issue for a very long time, and indeed the work of other noble Lords, including the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon. We have been pursing this matter and the shadow Home Secretary has raised it a number of times.

We are returning to the matter again because it still is very much a concern. At least 450 children were identified as possible victims of trafficking in the past year alone. NGOs and police all say that it is most likely that the numbers of people trafficked, including children, are far higher than the national referral mechanism statistics record. A shocking two-thirds of children who are rescued from traffickers go missing again because the system to protect them is not strong enough.

Most of those children come from countries outside the European Union. They are here alone and have no knowledge of the country that they are in. They often speak and understand little English, and do not know who to turn to or how to find help. In the debate on this issue during the Children and Families Bill, noble Lords heard evidence from research commissioned by the Government, which highlighted the desperate need of trafficked children for specialist, independent support. That research, and the report by the Children’s Society and the Refugee Council, entitled, Still at Risk, which was published in September 2013, recommended the provision of “an independent trusted adult” whose,

“role would be to ensure”,

that all child victims are,

“able to understand their rights, ensure that their voice is heard in decisions that affect them and are supported effectively through the different legal processes that they are engaged in”.

Amendment 81AA would provide such a person.

When this was discussed in the Children and Families Bill, the Government argued that there was no need for new independent guardians for trafficked children since there are a number of professionals with responsibility for supporting a child under the Children Act. They pointed instead to the introduction of draft regulations and statutory guidance which they claimed would address all the faults in local authority care, rendering specialist guardians unnecessary. I suggest that that misunderstands the role of the independent legal guardian.

Child victims of trafficking find themselves in a foreign country and to access help they are expected to deal with many different state agencies; that is, local authorities, social workers, police, investigators, immigration officials and so on. When dealing with each organisation, they must engage with a different set of people and must repeat their story again and again, with all its traumatic details. This process is distressing and unhelpful for a child in unfamiliar surroundings. Children can become alienated and distrustful of those trying to help them, which leaves them vulnerable to retrafficking. Local authorities do not always seem to appreciate that young victims of trafficking often maintain links with the person who brought them to the United Kingdom because they speak the same language. A guardian with legal responsibility for the child would understand the dangers.

The role of the legal guardian is an entirely new role that no existing agency currently provides. That person would be a constant for the child in an ever changing world. They would accompany the child as they relate to all the different state agencies and would also have the right to speak on behalf of the child if the child requests it so that the child does not have to keep repeating their painful story if they do not want to.

Noble Lords will be aware that the Government recently published their draft Modern Slavery Bill but that does not provide for an independent guardianship system, so we are raising the matter again here. There is a growing coalition of support behind this idea. Trafficked children should have access to a trusted and independent advocate or guardian who is legally responsible for them and their interests in order to do what we are failing to do all too often at present; that is, to protect children who are the victims of trafficking in human beings from repeated trafficking and repeated abuse. I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic response to this amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, the issue of guardianship for victims of child trafficking is one that has support right around the House. When it was raised during the Children and Families Bill, I said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, that when he first raised this some years ago I had not been persuaded. However, particularly through his arguments, I came to be persuaded of the need, in part from the point of view of someone who has practised as a solicitor and needs someone from whom to take instructions. That is one of the functions that a guardian would fulfil. The draft Modern Slavery Bill, which is the subject of pre-legislative scrutiny, has been drawn up from the point of view of the victim and, like the noble Lord, I think that this would fit absolutely in protecting and assisting victims.

I have a couple of comments about the issues raised by my noble friends with regard to children and young people without immigration status. I first want to draw attention to a report published last year by the ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford, entitled No Way Out, No Way In about irregular migrant children. Its summary, which is a tiny part of a report that goes on for many pages, states:

“Our estimate regarding the high proportion of irregular migrant children who are either born or have spent most of their childhood in the UK invites a refocus of public understanding of this population”.

The second issue that I would like to mention is the very uncomfortable reporting that we have seen, not so much of the children to whom my noble friend Lady Benjamin drew attention, although some would fit into this category, but of wonderful young people—just the sort of young people we want to have in this country —who reach the age of 18 and are accepted at university and told they cannot go there. They are told that they need to go “home”. I am not saying that they are any more deserving than the other children in question, but I hope that the Government have been embarrassed by the reports because they should be, just as they are about the reports of the children assisted by Kids Company and others of whom we have heard.

When I tried to draft this clause, I really did not know how to do it. It seemed that so much is a matter for the Secretary of State’s discretion. I hope that when the Minister replies, he can assist the Committee with some clarity about what issues are matters of discretion and how that discretion comes to be exercised.

--- Later in debate ---

The trial will not only include both independent specialist advocacy provision but test it against the existing system that I have described, supported by new, strengthened statutory guidance and regulation in this area. I say in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that an evaluation will take place six months into the trial, with a full evaluation at 12 months. This means that we can start looking at the impact of the child trafficking advocate model during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill.

[Lord Rosser]

Can the Minister clarify whether in the trial that is taking place the advocates to whom he has referred will have the same roles and responsibilities as are set out in my Amendment 81AA for an independent legal guardian?