Child Refugees: Age Checks

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

My hon. Friend needs to be aware that both the Dublin regulation and section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016—the so-called Dubs amendment—define children as those under the age of 18. Indeed, a large number of those in the camps are both male and 16 or 17-year-olds, and we have never tried to mislead anyone about that particular fact.

The criterion being used at this stage for the Dublin children is family connections in the UK. Those children are our priority and they are the ones we have seen being brought across this week. Further children will be brought across, and some of that initial assessment will enable further work to be done, including fingerprinting. If there are cases where, for example, the person concerned has been brought to the attention of a European immigration authority or has applied for a visa somewhere in the world to come to the UK, we will be able to have further information, so that work is being done.

The age issue can arise because of Home Office concerns about the claimed age or because the individual does not accept the initial assessment process. Where there is doubt, the individual will be referred to a local authority children’s services department for a careful, case-law compliant age assessment and will be treated as a child while the outcome is awaited. Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that they safeguard and promote the welfare of children under section 11 of the Children Act 2004, regardless of their immigration status or nationality. This safeguards the individual who is required to undergo an age assessment and safeguards children already in the care population from the presence of an adult being placed in the same living accommodation.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I want to start by welcoming all refugees who have entered Britain in the last few days to their new home. I hope that our country will provide them with a safe space that enables them to put behind them the traumas and difficulties they have faced. Welcome to Britain.

The Government committed to taking unaccompanied child refugees in May. The Home Office have therefore had five months to assess the age of the young people—five months in which refugees have had to live their lives in limbo and in conditions that none of us would like to live in, and certainly not to have our children live in. I am sure the Minister can assure the House that this delay is a result of the Home Office carefully assessing the age of the young people we are granting sanctuary to.

Europol has warned that at least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have gone missing since entering Europe after fleeing the most terrible political situation in Syria and elsewhere in north Africa and the middle east. Citizens UK thinks there are at least 54 unaccompanied girls, mainly Eritreans, in the Calais camp, and they are eligible to enter under the Dubs amendment. These are children who have had their homes, their parents and their entire lives taken away from them and they are in real danger. Does the Minister agree that our resolve to give sanctuary and protection to unaccompanied child refugees must remain undiminished? We cannot succumb to compassion fatigue.

I know that some Conservative Members have called for dental checks to determine the age of children coming over, but the Journal of Forensic Sciences found that when it comes to determining if someone is aged between 17 and 19 years old, dental checks are wrong up to 50% of the time. The British Dental Association, whose members would presumably have to carry out the mooted checks, has said that they would be “inappropriate and unethical”. Does the Minister agree that calling for dental checks is an unworkable red herring?

I am pleased that the Government are committed to helping unaccompanied child refugees, and 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. However, given the scale of the refugee crisis, we can and should do more. There will be challenges along the way and things will not go perfectly, but helping people in dire need—and they are—is the right thing to do. When we meet bumps in the road people in this place, and in other positions of power, we should keep a calm head and continue to offer a welcoming embrace to those who are fleeing the most desperate circumstances.

[Mr Goodwill]

The points made by the hon. Lady encapsulate the vast majority of the United Kingdom’s view of the compassion that we should show and our legal responsibility to step up to the mark to ensure that vulnerable children in those camps are looked after as well as possible. It is in the joint interests of both the United Kingdom and the French Republic that the camp is removed, and, more importantly, that is in the interests of the people in that camp. I must make it clear that nobody needs to be in that camp. The French have facilities for people who ask to leave the camp and large numbers have already left it.

I have already covered the point on dental checks. One additional point, which I think some of the media have failed to grasp, is that there are two distinct categories of children. First, there are the Dublin III children, who qualify because they have family here in the United Kingdom, and those are the children whom we prioritise to move before the camps are cleared. Secondly, there are the children who qualify under the Dubs amendment. The criterion in that case is where their needs will best be served. I can assure the House that we will prioritise the most vulnerable in that group—the under-13s and those who are vulnerable for other reasons—to ensure that that can happen. They cannot be processed as quickly. We need to remove them to a place of safety as the clearance starts and then ensure that we can fully live up to the commitments that this Government made when they accepted the Dubs amendment.