Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department takes to help determine the ages of irregular migrants.

Where an individual claims to be a child without any documentary evidence, and where there is reason to doubt their claimed age, immigration officers are required to make an initial age decision to determine whether the individual should be treated as a child or an adult. This is an important first step to prevent individuals who are clearly an adult or child from being subjected unnecessarily to a more substantive age assessment and ensure that individuals are swiftly routed to the correct process.

Current guidance provides that immigration officers may only treat that individual as an adult where that individual has no credible and clear documentary evidence proving their age, and two members of Home Office staff assess that their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggests that the individual is ‘significantly over 18.’

Where that threshold is not met, but there remains doubt about the individual’s age, they will be treated as a child, and transferred to a local authority for further consideration of their age. This often involves a further, more comprehensive age assessment if deemed necessary. This approach to initial decisions on age has been considered by the Supreme Court in BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 38 and held to be lawful.