Missing Asylum Seeking Unaccompanied Children

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As I say, the decoration of these facilities is a matter for the Home Office. It is a detention facility for those who have entered the country unlawfully and it is appropriate that it is decorated in a manner that reflects its purpose.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Can I ask the Minister to reflect again on what his noble friend and my noble friend Lord Dubs have just said? Is it really the Government’s position that it was perfectly justified to paint over these murals in a detention centre for children? Can the Minister not see how frankly astonished and, to use the noble Lord’s phrase, ashamed we are that this has happened? The least we would have expected is that the Government are sorry that it has happened, are looking into it and are going to make sure that it never happens again. Will the Minister reflect on his answer and see how appalled the Chamber was by what he said?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I reassure the noble Lord that we take the welfare of children in our care very seriously. The point is that those children are held at the Kent intake unit for only as short a time as possible. Of course, the age of the children held at that unit can be anything up to 18 years old and, as this House knows from repeated answers, the majority of those passing through that unit are in the upper end of the available age bracket.