Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a long time coming. In a series of events that have spanned the entire year, the Government have finally taken the first steps towards establishing the national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal.

I will not recount the absolute horrors that have been faced by victims; noble Lords will be well versed in the details by now. The sentencing remarks from the trials demonstrate the appalling and vile abuse that those gangs perpetrated.

It is shameful that it took the Government so long to get where they are today. It was all the way back in January when the first calls were made by these Benches for the Government to launch a national inquiry. The Government at that time point-blank refused, smearing those urging an inquiry as “far right”.

In one of the numerous screeching U-turns that have become the mainstay of the Government’s conduct, the Home Secretary then announced that there would be a full national inquiry. That was in June, and it has taken us until December for the chair to be appointed and the terms of reference to be published. This is deeply regrettable.

The Government have appointed the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to chair the inquiry. Obviously, she is currently a Labour Peer, and I understand she will be resigning the Labour Whip, but is the Minister really satisfied that a politically aligned appointment for chair will have the support of the victims of these gangs? Not only this, but in the register of interests for her role as chair of the Police Remuneration Review Body it states that Zoë Billingham is also a member of the Labour Party. She is one of three who will make up the panel. So, two out of the three members of the leadership of the inquiry are directly linked to the Labour Party. Does the Minister think that that sends the correct message to survivors? It is clear to me that it may undermine trust in the independence of the inquiry. This is even more important given that a number of the victims have already signalled their distrust in this process.

Can the Minister absolutely guarantee that the inquiry will not shy away from investigating the links between nationality and ethnicity and the mass rape of young girls? That is the crux of the matter. It is the deliberate cover-up of these crimes due to fears of accusations of racism that led to countless young white girls being ignored and cast aside by the authorities that were meant to protect them. The inquiry cannot lose sight of that.

The terms of reference that have been published state that the inquiry will investigate only issues arising up until the date of its establishment and that it will not attempt to be exhaustive. This makes it seem like these are events from the past, where the only concern is that we do not allow it to happen again. But it is still happening. How will the inquiry, and indeed the Government, address the concerns that young girls are still being abused and raped by gangs of men of mainly Pakistani origin?

Finally, we still do not know what areas will be investigated and what criteria will be used to determine them. Can the Minister tell the House how the inquiry will determine which local areas will be investigated and how it will ensure that certain councils and officials are not able to avoid scrutiny? I look forward to what the Minister has to say in response.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, earlier this year, Parliament discussed the national audit by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse. Her report brought with it her exceptional ability to identify the issues around the appalling exploitation and abuse and the actions that need to follow to ensure that these execrable acts do not happen again, not least because government and other public bodies will do the right thing at the time to protect these children and hold the perpetrators to account.

From these Benches, this is where I want to start. Many of the victims and those who supported them have said that some of the handling of the communications with them has distressed them, including proposals earlier this year for possible candidates for the role of chair.

All the survivors and victims from many other state tragedies and scandals repeat exactly what these survivors say: “If you don’t work with us, you will get it wrong, which is distressing and can re-victimise people”. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the Home Secretary’s choice for the chair of the inquiry, the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, will work closely with survivors to overcome any fears that they might have? I appreciate that she will stand down from the Labour Party for the duration of the inquiry, but the concerns of victims and survivors are very real, despite the victims’ and our respect for the exceptional skills and commitment of the noble Baroness.

The Statement talks about the

“abject failure by the state”.

This is correct. As with the infected blood scandal, the Post Office Horizon scandal, the Hillsborough disaster and many others, this country, its Government and public bodies seem to have a blind spot about failures and a natural inclination to cover them up.

While the inquiry will look at the details relating to the exploitation and abuse of young people, I want to ask the Minister what plans the Government have to ensure that the findings are not just read and acted on briefly but will be fully embedded into the culture and working practice of every government department and public body. How will the Government judge that both the hard recommendations and the softer cultural ones from the audit by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and those that will come from the inquiry from the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, change how children are viewed by officials so that are truly supportive of those children from the first to the last contact with them?

The terms of reference outlined in the Statement are clear and strong. However, I gently warn the Minister that many other current or recent inquiries have had equally strong terms of reference but, as the detail of how they are going to happen has been released, survivors and victims suddenly discover that things have changed a bit and their expectations shattered. What will the Government do to work with the victims and survivors to ensure that that does not happen with this inquiry and after it?

I have some other specific questions. The Statement says that the Government will introduce a legal duty for information sharing between safeguarding parties. Can the Minister say whether this can be included in any of the Bills currently going through Parliament; for example, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill or the Crime and Policing Bill? That is interesting because the Minister and I had a debate about another piece of legislation which is waiting to be enacted. I do hope that that might be the case.

Is it also possible to use a different Bill currently in front of Parliament, which might be the Crime and Policing Bill or the Victims and Courts Bill, to change the law to ensure that children who are raped cannot consent—the Minister is very clear in the Statement that that is the law and it must be explicit—and that advice to the CPS should be that an alleged perpetrator must be charged with rape and not a lesser charge?

The proposed changes to the taxi licensing system will be welcomed from these Benches. My noble friend Lady Pidgeon has already raised this problem with the noble Lord, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, so it is good to see that there will be action too.

Finally, I was slightly bemused by the title of the Statement today, because yesterday there was also a Written Statement from the DWP on safeguarding. I think it might have been quite helpful to call this what it is, which is a Statement on the chair and panel for the child grooming gangs inquiry.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

315: After Clause 86, insert the following new Clause—
“Commencement of the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act(1) Section 4 of the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 is amended as follows.(2) Leave out subsection (3) and insert—“(3) Sections 1, 2 and 3 come into force on the day that the Crime and Policing Act 2025 receives Royal Assent.”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause automatically commences the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent, removing the need for regulations to bring the Act into force. The Act criminalises the public harassment of individuals where that harassment is based on an individual’s sex.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 315 seeks to do something very simple but long overdue: automatically commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent. The Act requires the Government to pass a statutory instrument to commence its provisions. We have been waiting two years now for this SI, so the Act is not in force. Of the four sections in the Act, the only one in force is Section 4, on the extent, commencement and Short Title of the Act.

As with other groups this evening, this amendment has a cross-party background. It is worth noting and giving credit to Greg Clark, the former MP for Tunbridge Wells, because this was his Private Member’s Bill, sponsored by him and given time by the then Conservative Government. Greg said he had heard some harrowing experiences of school students in his constituency. It is really shocking that one in three girls reports being sexually harassed while wearing a school uniform. In our society in 2025, that is unacceptable. The 2023 Act creates a new specific offence of harassment on account of an individual’s sex.

The amendment to this Bill was tabled in the Commons by my honourable friend Mike Martin MP, who is now the MP for Tunbridge Wells. Like Greg Clark, Mike Martin believes that the Government need to create the statutory instrument to bring it into effect, but there has been nothing other than warm words from Ministers—no action has happened. The Act criminalises harassing, following, shouting degrading words or making obscene gestures at women and girls in public places with the deliberate intention of causing them harm or distress. This offence will carry a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment and under the Government’s new proposal would clearly still come under the magistrates’ courts, whereas in the past it would have not been able to, but would have had to go to a Crown Court. As Mike Martin MP said in the Commons debate, sexual harassment is a blot on our society.

The statistics are damning. Some 71% of women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in public; this rises to 86% among women aged 18 to 24. The lack of action from this Government on ending the sexual harassment of women, especially young women, is not good. Mike Martin MP tabled a Written Question on this back in the spring, and the Government said then that they would publish their next steps. However, more recently, the Government said that it will be done in due course. To be honest, this sounds as though it is further away than the next-steps offer made earlier this year. The amendment says that now is the time.

Greg Clark’s Private Member’s Bill had cross-party support and this amendment also had cross-party support when the Bill was debated in the Commons. I worry that this Government cannot deliver on their manifesto commitment to halve violence against women and girls when they will not take this straightforward first step to challenge and prevent the appalling sex-based harassment that continues to be so evident everywhere in the UK. I look forward to the Minister’s reply but, above all, I urge that now is the time for action on this matter. I beg to move.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness’s amendment for the reasons she gives and for a further reason, which is that I deprecate the practice of Ministers of all Governments of not bringing into force legislation which has been enacted by Parliament. Parliament intends legislation to come into effect; otherwise, we are wasting our time debating and approving it. Parliament enacts legislation to address a mischief, as, in this case, the mischief that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has identified. Of course, I understand that sometimes time is needed to prepare for the effects of legislation, perhaps because implementing regulations are needed, but after two years, it is high time for this legislation to come into force.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for raising the important issue of public sexual harassment. As has been discussed, Amendment 315 seeks to automatically commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent. I remind the Committee that this Government have been responsible for periods of activity since July 2024, not for two years. As members of the Committee will know, tackling public sexual harassment is an important part of the Government’s mission to halve the levels of violence against women and girls in a decade.

As the Committee knows, and as I have said on numerous occasions, including today, the new violence against women and girls strategy is to be produced as soon as possible. It will include a range of actions to tackle sexual harassment. I reassure the noble Baroness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, that the measures we are developing within this to address sex-based harassment include options for commencement of the 2023 Act.

I echo fully the sentiments of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and agree that timely implementation of legislation is an important principle to follow. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that, if we pass legislation, we must look to introduce it. The Government have heard what noble Lords have said: namely, that we need to set a timeline for the commencement of the 2023 Act. It is important to fully consider the issues of implementation of the new offence, including engagement with the police and operational partners. We want to ensure that, when the offence comes into force, it is used often and well.

I assure all noble Lords who have spoken today that the Government intend to commence this offence as soon as is reasonably practicable. By bringing the provisions of the 2023 Act into force through the usual commencement regulations, we can ensure that this can be timed so that the police and others are ready. Accordingly, I suggest that the amendment is unnecessary. I ask the noble Baroness to be patient and wait for our violence against women and girls strategy, which will appear in short order. In the meantime, I hope she is content to withdraw the amendment.

I say that because we are looking at options to commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023. We believe that it will tackle this issue and ensure that women feel safer on our streets. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, as with all primary legislation, we need a preparatory period, but my officials in the Home Office, along with my ministerial colleagues, are working through the next steps. We are taking the time to get this right. I assure noble Lords that we will provide an update in due course and that they will not have too long to wait.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am struggling to get what I have just heard right. Earlier this evening, we discussed a number of amendments in which we were not supported because we expect to see the strategy on violence against women and girls. This is completely different. There is legislation that is on the books but has not been commenced. Can the Minister explain why it cannot be commenced now? It is a completely different issue from what is going to be in the strategy, where there may be surprises. The Minister has told us that it will be commenced. What is the delay?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We are looking with police and other partners at the stage at which we wish to commence the legislation. We have been in office since July last year; my honourable friend Jess Phillips, the Minister for Safeguarding, is undertaking a considerable amount of work to pull together the strategy, which we expect to be able to announce in very short order. As part of that strategy, we are looking at a range of measures, including harassment. I accept that that is on the statute book now, but it is important that we produce a package of measures that is whole and includes a range of things, which I am not at liberty to talk about today but are in genesis for the violence against women and girls strategy that we will publish shortly.

We are now in Committee. Report will happen at a later stage in this Session. I very much expect that by then we will have published our violence against women and girls strategy, and I hope that at that stage the noble Baroness will not need to look at pressing this amendment further. For the time being, I ask her to give us time to consult further, make sure we implement this correctly and allow the violence against women and girls strategy to be published. I would be grateful if she would not push her amendment at this stage but reflect on what I have said. If not, we will return to this in due course.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his response, even if I am still somewhat bemused about the hierarchy of decisions going on in relation to this Bill when there is actually something on the books. However, I will hold him to his word. If we do not have clear indications of the VAWG strategy and when things will happen by, I will bring back an amendment on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 315 withdrawn.

Facial Recognition Technology: Safeguards

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister’s response in which he said that legislation and regulation are important. It is overdue by eight years, to be precise, during which the Home Office, under various Governments, had the worrying view that existing legislation is up to the job. Why is the consultation so focused on police use of facial recognition, when it has also had rapid and uncontrolled growth in the private sector? Frankly, it is the Wild West on the high street, which can have life-changing consequences for some innocent shoppers. Will the Government undertake to look at the private sector as well?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness can make representations on those matters as part of the consultation. We are looking at the public sector because we are the Home Office and are responsible for policing. That is therefore the issue that we are examining. There need to be some safeguards, regulation, and an understanding of and groundwork for that. I can tell the noble Baroness that nobody who is innocent of an offence needs to worry about facial recognition technology—nobody. That is why we are looking at these issues. I will defend facial recognition technology at this Dispatch Box and elsewhere. The consultation is there to allow this House and others to make their views known on what is an effective tool in crime fighting. The noble Baroness is shaking her head, but I ask her: if somebody who is guilty of a crime and on a wanted list walks past a facial recognition camera, should they not be arrested?

Angiolini Inquiry

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the three moving statements from the families of Sarah Everard, Zara Aleena and Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman must act as a reminder that too little has changed since their murders and, worse, since the inquiry was set up. These four women represent the safety of women in our country.

The Minister’s Statement is sparse; while it is good that the Statement says the Government will act, it is just not yet. I say gently to the opposition spokesperson that not much happened under the previous Government either. This is a difficult issue, and I realise that the detail needs to be sorted, but many of the recommendations in the part 2 report are very clear to most of us who are involved in home affairs issues because we debate them time and again in Questions, debates and legislation. For me, the key issue is that because the violence against women and girls document is not yet published, there appear to be zero commitments from government.

In 2021 the UN survey of over 1,000 women reported that 71% in the UK had experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space at some point in their lives. One of the key recommendations is number 20,

“Empowering and engaging citizens to take action”.

I will focus on this and some of the softer issues, because they may be harder for a Government to deliver. With great respect to both this Government and the previous Government, changing a culture is difficult and the Home Office cannot change culture on its own.

What ideas are there to create a strong campaign explaining that sexual harassment is not acceptable and should never be normalised, that women should not have to live their lives on high alert the whole time, and that they should not feel guilty because of how they look? These are all key points made in the inquiry report. Whatever this campaign is, it also needs to cover social media and the digital world, given all the work that is happening in your Lordships’ House to try to make sure that bad influences are moderated by sensible behaviour. It covers education, and it involves campaigns with young people and children, and their parents and families. Lady Elish rightly says that this is a society-wide problem; it is, and it is urgent.

Recommendation 22,

“Information and early intervention for men and boys to create a culture of positive masculinity”,

is also essential and equally urgent. In the Crime and Policing Bill, as well as many other pieces of legislation, we are trying to combat the appalling culture that is normalising the sexualisation of young girls and women, pushing boys and men to accept stereotypical roles as dominant partners in a relationship, and violence is often not far away. The Tate brothers have made a fortune by creating an obscene and abnormal online society on which young boys and men are fed without any counternarrative. What do the Government propose to do to begin to remedy this?

The report also recommends designing out crime officers. I remember in the late 1990s, when I was bursar of a Cambridge college, that the Blair Government made clear recommendations to councils about designing out crime. If the Government are going to act on recommendation 18,

“Increased use of police Designing Out Crime Officers in the prevention of sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces”,

will the Government ensure that local government planning committees must also consider this, and that there will be training for officers and planning committees as to why it is so important?

On data, it is appalling that, after murders and violence against women have received so much attention, data collection remains inconsistent and forces still use different systems. The report notes that the NHS has fared much better, but it has learned the hard way that common systems are critical if problems throughout the country are to be dealt with. Pilots are a typical way that Governments try out new ideas. The report notes institutionally poor sharing of good practice or funding rollout, so money for a pilot dies with the pilot and therefore nothing else will happen because when it is rolled out there is no money for it. I know from stalking and other VAWG issues that police, and other professionals and partners, are often left out of data collection. There is often groupthink over issues, and that needs to be addressed. Lady Elish rightly pointed out that:

“Prevention is the first Peelian principle”,


but it must not only remain within the police. What will the Government do to remedy this problem? Lady Angiolini also says that this must happen immediately. This is a tough ask, but an essential one. She sets out who needs to be involved in seeing the data, including His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. This is right and it is urgent. Will the Government act on the first part of this recommendation straight away, as she proposes?

Above all, I echo the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Davies: when will the Government launch their own VAWG strategy? Will they, and the police, not start on any of the recommendations until after that launch or, worse, after the usual consultation? Will all the recommendations be fully and properly funded, because if not, as Lady Elish said so powerfully last week, women are still at risk this Christmas?

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to both the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their comments on the report. I start where they started, with remembering Sarah Everard and her horrific murder, which instigated this inquiry. She and all the other women who have been murdered deserve an effective response from government because she is a daughter, a sister and a friend, and the family demand and want answers. We are in a position to be able to help prevent murders.

Colleagues in the House will know that this a second part of recommendations by Lady Elish, and I thank her and her team for the work they have done on this. Noble Lords will know that part 1 included 13 recommendations—three for government and 10 for police—directed at the Home Office to improve the response to non-contact sexual offences. To date, we are delivering against those 13 recommendations, including measures in the Crime and Policing Bill, which noble Lords are aware of. A number of questions have been asked, but I emphasise again that it is simply not acceptable that women should live in fear of attack by random men in the streets of their own town, for domestic violence to continue and for the attack that led to the murder of Sarah Everard not to be resolved by government.

Colleagues—shadow Ministers and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench—have asked similar questions and I will try respond to those issues. Let me be clear to both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that the violence against women and girls strategy is being finalised. We will publish it as soon as possible. Last week, for example, the Prime Minister and the Safeguarding Minister held an event with stakeholders, including victims and their families, to discuss the progress on the VAWG strategy. It will deliver a whole-system response. There is a need for us to consult with colleagues in the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that our public spaces are safe for everyone. I assure both noble Lords that the strategy is to be published shortly; although I cannot give a date today, but it will be published in very short order.

That does not mean that we have to wait for the strategy to act—which goes to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, acknowledged, the Government have invested £13.1 million to launch the new National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection, to provide co-ordinated national leadership to improve the public response. Thanks to initiatives and the strong push of my honourable friend Jess Phillips, we have introduced domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms, which we are rolling out at the moment. We are also rolling out domestic abuse protection orders and have put in place the strengthening of the management of registered sex offenders. We are also improving the response to stalking. There are measures on that in the Crime and Policing Bill currently before the House.

We intend to take forward reforms to the vetting and misconduct systems, so that those who commit crimes such as violence against women and girls have no place in policing. This is extremely important. As I know the noble Lord, Lord Davies, feels very strongly about, in the forthcoming White Paper, being published very shortly, we will set out a package of reforms to policing to ensure that policing can focus on the crimes that matter to the public and drive out waste and inefficiency. We will also look at how we can build on some of the big operations, such as Operation Soteria and Project Vigilant, which have been funded through the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and in which we have invested over £13.1 million.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, rightly pointed to how we can tackle what I will call “negative masculinity”, which is prevalent and very much encouraged by what I regard as some poisonous online activity. We must ensure we tackle that at root cause. That is why, in advance of the response to part 2 of the inquiry, the Department for Education in England has updated the statutory guidance on RSHE with a focus on helping pupils understand the markers of a healthy relationship and how to navigate online safety.

I am being pressed, rightly, on our response to the recommendations in part 2. I simply say to both noble Lords that we published part 1 of part 2 last week, and we intend to take our time to study the recommendations clearly to make sure we can respond to that, as part of the violence against women and girls strategy, which, as I have said, will come very soon. It is simply not acceptable that, as the inquiry found, one in 20 adults per year is recorded as a perpetrator of violence against women and girls. It is a clear sign that violence against women and girls is a national emergency, which is why this Government have committed to bringing forward the strategy very shortly, to ensure that we set out a road map to halve violence against women and girls over the next 10 years.

It is important that we have an effective strategy. The recommendations of the Angiolini report will be part of how we respond to that, and I very much hope we will be able to do that shortly in our violence against women and girls strategy. We are therefore working hand in hand with Lady Elish’s recommendations. We have responded to part 1 by accepting those 13 recommendations, and we continue to press the police to improve their performance in meeting those recommendations. I hope that very shortly we will be able to bring forward that violence against women and girls strategy and do justice to the memory of Sarah and others who have been murdered.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I very much deprecate people who come to this country and commit crimes. The sooner they are deported, the better. However, I do not really understand why we need these amendments. I am hoping that the Minister is going to tell us, as he previously said he would, how the Government are going to move forward in identifying the age of people. Again, I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that those who are not children—and pretend to be—should be found out.

However, as I said at an earlier stage of discussion on the Bill, when I went to a drop-in centre with Safe Passage some years ago, I met two 16 year-old Afghans: one with a beard and the other with a bushy moustache. We need to recognise that boys in other parts of the world mature, particularly facially, at a much earlier age than they do in this country and in western Europe. That is an issue which raises real problems for identification.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, and the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that, over the last four to five years, we have been round the Houses on this issue, not just in this Bill but in a large number of Bills. It keeps returning because there are concerns.

I want to start by trying to find some common ground on this issue, as we did last week, with the noble Lord, Lord Harper, in particular. Age verification—determining whether someone is 18 or not—is extremely difficult. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, it is completely inappropriate for people who are well over 18 to come into a school system where they are treated as much younger, and even these Benches would not support that.

The difficulty—and the reason why we keep raising this—is that it is clear that no doctor will apply any of the scientific methods. We have had this debate since 2023, when the BMA made it clear that they were unreliable. On that occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, spoke in your Lordships’ House about how hormonal change because of poor diet, and the possibility of hormonal change because of minor and benign tumours, are impossible to tell just from looking at an MRI.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling these amendments. We have indeed been around the Houses, but in trying to reach some common ground, I agree with every noble Lord who has spoken that we need to have some method of assessing age. Children who are placed in settings with adults are at risk, and adults who are placed in settings with children potentially pose a risk. I think there is common ground across the House today on the need to find some mechanism to establish age verification.

Amendments 63 and 64 refer to scientific methods of age assessment, and Amendment 63 places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to lay regulations under Section 52 of the Nationality and Borders Act within six months of the passing of the Bill. This is one of the reasons, in addition to those that I have given, that I support the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Regulations have already been made under this power that specify X-ray and MRI methods of age assessment.

Amendment 64 would, in effect, reintroduce Section 58 of the Illegal Migration Act, which the Bill looks to repeal. Under the powers given to the Secretary of State in Section 52 of the Nationality and Borders Act, the Secretary of State would not make regulations to the effect that this amendment seeks to achieve unless and until the specific scientific methods in question were sufficiently accurate to mean that applying the automatic assumption in cases of refusal to consent would be compatible with the ECHR. The specified methods—that is, X-ray and MRI images of certain body areas—do not currently meet this threshold. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, also emphasised that point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Harper, to some extent.

That does not mean that the Government do not wish to have age verification measures in place. I can assure the House that, in the context of the Government’s wider work to reform age assessment systems, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, the then Minister for Security and Asylum set out in a Written Ministerial Statement in the House of Commons, which I repeated in this House in July, that this Government have commissioned work to determine the most promising new and emerging methods of age assessment to pursue them further. As a result of that, currently the work to operationalise X-ray and MRI methods of age assessment have been stood down, because facial age estimation methods—this goes to the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger—are less intrusive, cheaper and faster, and there is no requirement for a physical medical procedure. As I mentioned in Committee, we are not there yet, but facial age estimation technology is currently being explored by the Home Office. It is a potential assistive tool in the age assessment process, and we have commissioned further testing and trialling with the intention of implementing the technology during 2026 if it proves a worthwhile addition to our armoury.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The last Government produced an expert report in the run-up to our 23 debates on various amendments. Will the Government undertake to have an expert report from doctors and scientists, which would then be published in full, so that Parliament and the wider community can actually see the detail? The Minister is absolutely right to say that AI age assessment is not there yet, and I always worry about passing something that might mean that we do not see the detail when doctors are unhappy.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that it is in the interests of the Government to get technology in place that is less intrusive and more accurate and does not rely on X-rays and MRIs, as we have now, for that physical contact. The question of what that development will be is something that we are working through at the moment, and I am expecting that in the latter part of 2026 I will be able to come to this House—if still in post—to argue the case for the implementation of a better facial age estimation technology. I will, on the basis of what the noble Baroness has said, make sure that I can put into the public domain whatever information I think does not compromise the operation. That is the best I can give her today, but I will reflect on what she said and look at whether I can agree to her request. I do not want to give her an immediate response, because there may be reasons why it is not in our interest to put some of that information into the public domain, because people will always try to subsume facial recognition technology or any other method. I will just reflect on that, if I may.

The key point is that these emerging new methods and the regulations applying the automatic assumption of adult provision for refusal to consent to methods of scientific age assessment as set out in the IMA cannot be laid until the specific methods are sufficiently accurate. Because we do not believe that they are going to be, these amendments are not necessary. For those reasons, I hope that we can share common ground with the noble Lord: his objective, my objective, and I think that of every noble Lord who has spoken, is to ensure that we have accurate age assessment. The methodology he has brought forward in these amendments is not the way forward, but I give an assurance to the House that the exploration of other methods is under way and I will report back when those tests are complete. I urge him, therefore, to withdraw his amendment.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have signed both Amendment 58 and Amendment 80, which is consequential to Amendment 58. We have just heard very eloquently from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about why it is important. I will just highlight a couple of very brief points.

First, I lived in Hong Kong until 1960 and my family knew Anthony Grey, the Reuters journalist who was imprisoned by Mao Tse-Tung in 1967. As a young teenager, I wrote to him at his home in Peking where he had been imprisoned. Anthony died last week. His family have said that what China did to him, keeping him in solitary confinement with no charges or anything else for over two years, affected him for the rest of his life. We see an echo of that today in the treatment of people such as Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong in prison. Hong Kong is not a safe place for some people to be.

I just want to add that, two years ago, there were a number of incidents with border staff not understanding the British national overseas route and treating Hong Konger arrivals as if they were asylum seekers. They were not. I was grateful that, after our intervention in your Lordships’ House, Ministers ensured that this error was corrected.

Last week in your Lordships’ House we discussed the changes to the extradition arrangements for Hong Kong; again, I am very grateful to the Minister for those discussions. The reason that both these issues were important to the Hong Kongers who have come here to safety as British nationals, holding British national visas, is that their life here is very unsettled. Threats to their personal safety in the UK are bad enough, but their families are also threatened in Hong Kong as well.

The whole point of the BNO visa was to keep our word to fellow British nationals after 1984. We made that real in 2021. The tiny things that have been going wrong also add to the unease that many Hong Kongers feel in this country. Making sure that no decisions are changed on the BNO visa route other than by Parliament is exactly what needs to happen to give them the confidence that the UK still stands by them.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 70 and 85 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who is not with us today for reasons I explained earlier. We listened to what was said in Committee and this amendment mirrors what was placed on the agenda then. But, in tabling this amendment, we have made some changes, one of which is the need for biometrics to be taken prior to travel, and the amendment also proposes a capped scheme to control numbers and an initial pilot of 12 months minimum in order to have the opportunity to evaluate it.

To try to explain this scheme, which is basically about a legal route into the United Kingdom, I will just refer to the United States. A similar scheme to the one we are proposing—not exactly the same, but similar—was instituted there, and the US Government were able to reduce illegal border crossings from Mexico across the US border by 77% between December 2023 and August 2024: that is, in nine months.

It was achieved through a three-pronged approach, one of which was, of course, diplomatic efforts to make sure that there was a strong ability to manage the system in the countries where people started, and also then taking a tough approach to the irregular border crossings, significantly reducing the chance of successfully claiming asylum for those arriving without permission, and a substantial official scheme through which people could apply to come to the country. That is the bit that, of course, the humanitarian travel permit relates to.

The result in the United States was that it simply was not worth the expense of paying the smugglers any more and it undermined their business entirely. That is because you cannot look at just one side of the demand-supply equation. The demand is being met by the smugglers, and we have to touch both sides. Without a form of legal route, you will not get that demand reduced.

I will try to explain it very straightforwardly. In the United Kingdom, we put up with queues. We may not like them, but we follow, if there is a queue, in a proper and orderly manner—mostly. If somebody pushes in, either they do not get served when they get to the front, or they get sent to the back of the queue. This scheme means to do exactly that—to provide a scheme where there is a queue in which people can come to the United Kingdom. If you decide to jump the queue by taking the smugglers route, you get put to the back of the queue again.

That means, of course, that you have to have a quota attached to the scheme, and because the law in this country says that you cannot make a claim for asylum unless you are here, you have to have a travel permit in order to come here. But that would be controlled right back at the beginning of the journey. If you have paid a slab of money to a smuggler back in Egypt or Libya, you are certainly not going to be put off when you get to the end of the route. It is certainly the case that you need to tackle this right back at the beginning. This whole scheme is about trying to create a legal route and being tough on anyone who tries to jump the queue by coming in irregularly and moving them to the back of the queue.

It does not matter if the queue is not moving very quickly; what matters is that it is moving. It is surprising that people will be prepared to wait, as they did in the United States, where, in the case of Haiti, instead of 10,000 people turning up at the US border, it was just a handful every month. That is because people said, “It’s not worth my while doing that”. They saw that joining the queue meant that at some stage they would get to the front of that queue.

It works much better, of course, if you are doing it with other countries as well, because you can collectively create these routes, which can be dealt with in a very efficient way. That way, we control the borders. That is what this is about. It is a different sort of approach from what is suggested by putting your hands up and saying, “You can’t get in”, and “We’ll stop you in every way possible”, and all that stuff. That did not work.

It may be that, in time, the pressures to try to deal with this across the channel may well work in reducing the numbers. But we are looking at changing the whole model so that the smugglers’ model does not work. It has been tried and tested. That is why, if we are going to use this in a European context, it is important that it is done with a capped model, with one particular country perhaps, and certainly for 12 months, so that we can find out whether we can make this work here in Europe as well.

This system, this scheme, is one that is designed to provide safe routes and to take away the business of the smugglers. It will not solve it all, but if it reduces it by 77%, as was the case in the United States of America, it is certainly worth doing.

That is what this amendment is about. The other amendment, with which it is associated, is simply to create a pilot scheme with a capped number of people in it. I hope that we will consider this when we come back to it later in this debate.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

27: After Clause 36, insert the following new Clause—
“Mandatory referral for age assessment in criminal proceedingsWhere an individual who claims to be under 18 is charged with an offence of illegal entry or facilitating illegal entry under immigration law, the Home Office must—(a) make an immediate mandatory referral to the relevant local authority for a comprehensive Merton-compliant age assessment, and(b) ensure that no prosecution proceeds until an assessment has been completed and the individual’s age is confirmed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that individuals who may be children are required to have a comprehensive age assessment before any criminal proceedings for immigration offences can proceed, ensuring they are properly assessed and safeguarded in line with child protection principles.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for not being able to take part on this Bill at an earlier stage. The second amendment in this group, Amendment 57, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, addresses the issue of age assessment of young asylum seekers who may or may not be under 18, and we continue to support these amendments. My Amendment 27 deals with a more specific part of the age-assessment process. It seeks to introduce an immediate mandatory referral for a Merton-compliant, social work-led age assessment before any criminal proceedings can be taken against the individual. I thank the Home Office for issuing its paper on abbreviated age assessments earlier in the year, which clarifies its position on this sensitive issue of issuing criminal proceedings against an asylum seeker who says they are under 18, but who officials believe to be over 18. From these Benches, while it is a helpful clarification, it does not change the core position that this amendment wishes to remedy.

At the heart of the government note is an abbreviated and expedited process now led by National Age Assessment Board—NAAB—social workers. We still argue that this process needs to be carried out by local authorities and not by NAAB, because NAAB is answerable to the Home Office and, of course, to its Ministers. Any age-assessment process must be independent of the Government and their staff, who have often already decided that the individual is probably over 18. I therefore have some questions for the Minister.

The considerably shorter abbreviated age-assessment process has turned the premise of how old an individual is into trying to determine that somebody could be under 18, as opposed to establishing their actual age under the Merton-compliant system; whereas the full assessment uses age ranges in much more depth. In January 2022, the Kent intake unit tried an abbreviated process with an investigation half way between a full age assessment and a brief inquiry, which was found to be unlawful in the courts. Can the Minister say how the abbreviated system will be different from the previous Kent intake unit case? Can the Minister also confirm that, if someone is in a hotel saying that they are a child, then they are potentially a child in need in that area, and therefore the local authority needs to respond, given that the case law makes it abundantly clear that it has to take a view that is independent from the Home Office? It would be a miscarriage of justice if the Home Office tells local authorities, who think they are children, that they are not children. That must remain the role of local authorities. Can the Minister confirm that local authorities will still play this key independent role?

This amendment is laid because concerns continue that the National Age Assessment Board uses a hostile approach to the age-assessment process. The Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit has investigated the experiences of children who have been assessed by the NAAB and found that it:

“Operates according to the Home Office’s political agenda, which is felt by the children being assessed … Carries out assessments that do not follow established age assessment guidance, and therefore make it difficult for children to engage meaningfully in the process … Causes distress, retraumatisation, mental health crisis, and ongoing trust issues for children”.


One young person said to the Greater Manchester Immigration Unit:

“From the first time, you feel that they are against you. This is their intention, to end with the report that you are an adult”.


This is not a safe human rights approach to making a decision about whether a young person and child could be deemed to be over 18, then treating them as such, without the safeguarding protections afforded to under-18s in our court system. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 57, in my name and those of other noble Lords, to whom I am grateful for their support. I am also grateful to the Refugee Migrant Children’s Consortium for all its help and to my noble friend Lady Longfield, who cannot be in her place but who has written to my noble friend the Minister in support of the amendment, drawing on her experience as a former Children’s Commissioner for England. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for finding the time the other week to discuss some of this with some of us. I should make clear my support for Amendment 27 and everything that has been said so far.

This amendment is focused on the age of assessment of children at the border. It would create safeguards for asylum-seeking children whose age is in dispute and would set limits on the use of scientific or technological age-estimation methods, which I believe the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Hamwee, will cover. It would also provide for an annual report to Parliament.

To recap the case very briefly, as we have heard, the Home Office continues to assess incorrectly as adults a significant number of asylum-seeking children arriving in the UK based on a quick visual assessment of their appearance and demeanour. This has serious consequences—some have already been outlined—which include significant safeguarding risks when children are placed in accommodation with adults without appropriate safeguards, including the oversight of child protection professionals.

Concern has been expressed about this by the Children’s Commissioner, Ofsted, the British Association of Social Workers and, just last week, the Home Affairs Select Committee, which called it a “serious safeguarding issue”. Yet the Home Office appears to be more concerned about the potential risk of an adult masquerading as a child being housed with children even though child protection professionals will be present in those circumstances.

The Select Committee made it clear that it did not share the Home Office director-general of customer services’ confidence in the current system. In his recent inspection report, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration highlighted that over a decade of concerns around the Home Office’s “perfunctory” visual age assessments remain unaddressed, and that questions about policy and practice “remain unanswered”. He noted that

“inspectors were surprised at the lack of curiosity from individual officers and corporately about decisions that were subsequently disputed and overturned, and at the view that there was no learning to take from the later assessments”

made by local authority social workers, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred. I welcome the fact that the Government have accepted all the chief inspector’s recommendations and that they are working to improve the data, which have been woefully poor hitherto.

I simply draw attention now to what the chief inspector described as his “overall message”, namely that the Home Office

“should look to work more closely and collaboratively with external stakeholders”,

among which he included NGOs,

“as much as possible in designing and delivering its processes”.

Thus, his first recommendation was that the Home Office should:

“Produce a stakeholder map and engagement plan that takes full account of the practical and presentational value of involving external stakeholders”,


including non-governmental organisations,

“in the development and delivery of relevant policies and best practice, including but not limited to input into and implementation of each of”

each of his other recommendations.

How does my noble friend plan to respond in practice to this recommendation? Will he agree to the establishment of a task and finish group that includes NGOs, notably members of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, to work with officials on taking forward the chief inspector’s recommendations? I understand that such collaboration has existed in the past but was ended about 10 years ago, so it would not be setting a precedent. I know it would be warmly welcomed by stakeholders, especially if provision were made to hear from those with direct experience of age disputes. The proposal was also supported by my noble friend Lady Longfield in her letter to the Minister.

I have made it clear to my noble friend the Minister that I do not plan to push the amendment to a vote. However, I will be very disappointed if he is not able to agree to this very modest proposal, which does no more than embody the spirit of what the chief inspector has recommended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me say it again and see whether I can help my noble friend: the Government have accepted all eight recommendations. That is clear. We have accepted all the recommendations from the borders inspectorate, including plans to proactively engage with local authorities, social workers and key stakeholders—voluntary agencies are key stakeholders, and I met them again last week to discuss this very matter—to progress the recommendations. How that pans out will be for my honourable friend the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Alex Norris, to take forward, but I give this House the assurance that that is the level of engagement that we are trying to have. On that basis, I hope that I have satisfied my noble friend and that she will not press her amendment, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will withdraw hers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken during the debate on age assessment, and particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her amendment, which, as the Minister recognised, sets a wider framework for concerns about age assessment, whereas my amendment was highly specific about one area of concern. I say to the Minister and to the noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord Cameron, that nobody is saying in either of these amendments that there should not be any age assessments. We are arguing for age assessments that are appropriate and safe for the particular circumstances that the two amendments address.

I am very grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said that this is not an exact science. We understand that, and it is exactly where part of our concerns come from. I think that full assessment is the only way, particularly when young people who say they are children might end up being treated as adults in a criminal case. That is a very particular concern, which is why I tabled the amendment, because during cases those under 18 are afforded particular support that is not available if they are over 18. Therefore, age assessment is extremely important, which is why my amendment asks for a full age assessment, not the abbreviated age assessment that the Minister says is now taking place.

To summarise as best I can, without taking anything away from the intervention just now from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, we hear the Minister saying that there have been changes and that he is watching development as time progresses. From this side of the argument, we say that we do not see enough evidence that these systems are safe. I hope that the Minister will continue to discuss this with us outside the passage of the Bill, because some of us have been arguing for this for three years or more. We still have concerns, which we are seeing in the current system right now, when a child has been treated as an adult and then found to be a child. That should not be happening. But on the basis that this is a progression and that I hope the Minister will meet us in the future, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 27 withdrawn.

Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2025

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

At end insert “but that this House regrets that the Order makes changes to the extradition arrangements with Hong Kong at a time when a fair trial can no longer be guaranteed in Hong Kong due to the National Security Law; further regrets that the Government did not carry out a full consultation, preventing those who will be affected from expressing their views; and in the light of the special responsibilities of the United Kingdom to Hong Kong, calls on the Government to set out robust protections to ensure that no Hong Kongers are extradited for politically motivated purposes.”

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss this statutory instrument and my concerns, which are outlined in my amendment to the Motion before your Lordships’ House. As it makes clear, my concerns extend to only one of the three countries specified in the SI—Hong Kong—because of its specific and different status.

The reason for my concerns is that most of the Hong Kongers in the UK are holders of a British national (overseas) passport—an arrangement made after the UK’s 100-year lease of Hong Kong expired in 1997. The UK Government then made BNO arrangements for the people of Hong Kong to confirm the special status and relationship they had for over a century, when they were ruled by the British and felt British. Most importantly, these days they feel that they have a stronger tie to the UK than to China.

In 1997, many Hong Kongers felt that they were being deserted by the UK Government. At the time, the noble Lord, Lord Patten, my former colleague Lord Ashdown and many others said that we must, as a nation, recognise our responsibilities. In the House of Lords we continue to hold successive Governments to this standard.

We are told that the SI in front of us aims to correct an irregularity in relation to the arrangements for extraditing a Hong Konger at the request of China, which have been in place since 2020. As the Minister outlined, Hong Kong is designated under category 2 in Part 2 of the Extradition Act 2003, which requires prima facie evidence to the UK judicial system. In the past, Hong Kong was designated under the UK-Hong Kong extradition treaty of 1997. However, this was suspended in 2020 following the imposition by China of national security legislation containing provisions that, as the Minister said, were incompatible with the treaty. I will put it more bluntly: a fair trial in Hong Kong can no longer be guaranteed.

China’s treatment of those who disagree with it remains completely incompatible with that treaty. Protesters are repeatedly imprisoned, and prisoners who are British, such as Jimmy Lai, are treated very badly and not to a standard that our extradition processes would ever want to support. That is why Hong Kong was given a blanket “no extradition” in 1997.

The Minister says—and I hear him—that there are protections under the new proposals in this SI to look at cases on a case-by-case basis. This means that the Chinese Government could try to call for the extradition of Hong Kongers who may have both British and Chinese nationality.

The other point in relation to Hong Kongers living in the UK is that, in the last few years, there have been many reports to the police of China’s inappropriate behaviour through its agents in the UK. This includes mainland Chinese students physically attacking Hong Kongers in the streets; Hong Kongers having to move house because of threats from China; and Hong Kongers not using social media because China will use that to harass and intimidate them. This is the behaviour of a country that might try to submit extradition demands purely to get at Hong Kongers with BNO passports whom it might wish to pressure further.

I am very grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, whose 34th report, published on 11 September, quoted Hugo Keith KC stating that

“it looks like the government is seeking to reverse, through a sleight of hand, the practical consequences of suspending the [UK-Hong Kong] treaty”.

In that same report, the Government responded by saying that much of that reporting is false. I am grateful for the Minister explaining earlier why he believes that to be the case, but there has been no direct explanation to our Hong Konger community here in the UK. Those people need to understand why China might not behave in the way that I have outlined and why the change in designation will give them the full protection that they need.

As I understand it, the argument runs that protection is there for extradition on a case-by-case basis, but how can that protect targeted individuals if the application itself is spurious? Once commenced, a request for extradition would cause significant anxiety to the individual concerned and their family, both here and in Hong Kong, not to mention incurring legal costs, none of which would have happened under the blanket refusal that we had before. Is it worth moving to this case-by-case basis when Foreign Office Ministers repeatedly call out China for its egregious treatment of those who disagree with it—not just Hong Kong?

In paragraph 10 of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, the Home Office noted that this brings Hong Kong into line with other non-treaty partners under the Extradition Act 2003. Can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House how many other countries with non-treaty partners have residents with British or British national (overseas) passports, because of our historic responsibility for them for well over 100 years?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all the speakers. I thank the Minister for repeating the strong, hard processes that he believes are in place to protect Hong Kongers. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for agreeing that Hong Kongers need very specific protection, and for the question on whether the UK would entertain or support an application from China for extradition; the Minister’s response on that was also helpful. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for talking about indirect influence on the Government, which continues to remain a concern for us—as I am sure it is for the Minister as well—so I am grateful for his response.

The reason I tabled the regret amendment was about the difference between hard processes and soft power. Hong Kongers remain concerned that they will be further under threat, and I am grateful for the hard processes that the Minister has given. I am also grateful for the promise of a meeting, because I think that will help people within the community to feel that their concerns are being listened to and that they will know where to go if there is a concern about China pressing for extradition from the UK in the future. On that basis, I beg to withdraw my regret amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, there is never a more solemn occasion in this Chamber, in my mind, than when we discuss the issue of child grooming gangs. Noble Lords are all aware of the utterly horrendous nature of the abuse that was—and still is—being perpetrated. For that reason, as ever, these Benches are immensely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for all the work she has done in this area, although we regret the delays in publishing the Casey review earlier this year.

I start by welcoming the action that the Government have taken so far. We are pleased that they have continued the grooming gangs taskforce, which in its first year of operation arrested over 550 people. The establishment of Operation Beaconport is also a welcome move. I am sure that we all hope that this joined-up approach will deliver real results and give victims the justice they deserve.

As my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower said on 18 June, we on these Benches are pleased that the Government have announced that they would finally launch a full, statutory national inquiry into these vile grooming gangs. There were many calls, including in this Chamber, for such an inquiry, and it was highly unfortunate that it took the Government so long to agree to this, but they have finally come to their senses. However, we have heard in this Statement that not quite as much progress has been made as one would have hoped. On 18 June, the Minister when asked about timelines said

“we will be bringing that forward at an early opportunity; we have to appoint a chair and set terms of reference”.—[Official Report, 18/6/25; col. 2087.]

The inquiry was announced over two months ago now, yet the Minister for Safeguarding in this Statement has confirmed that they have not yet appointed a chair nor agreed the terms of reference. We appreciate that the Home Office is in the final stages of the appointment process, but might the Minister be able to give us a date? Surely the department knows when it will announce this appointment.

Given the amount of time that has transpired between when many of these crimes were committed and now, it is absolutely vital that the next stages are completed at pace. Not only should the chair be appointed imminently, but the terms of reference should also be speedily nailed down and the start date for the inquiry announced as soon as possible after that.

While the inquiry is being established, we must ensure that the police and Home Office continue to do everything in their power to investigate historical cases, identify current perpetrators and prosecute anyone involved. I stress to the Minister how important it is that justice does not wait for the results of the inquiry. We know that such an inquiry will probably take between two to three years. Obviously, there is much ground to cover, and it must be thorough and rigorous, but in the meantime, there are people who simply cannot wait.

In the light of this, can the Minister tell the House when the Government will publish their violence against women and girls strategy? How will the Government ensure that this strategy is not merely warm words but contains actionable plans that can be delivered upon, and will it include tough measures relating to the victims of the grooming gang scandal? We all owe it to those survivors to end their nightmare swiftly.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing the update as promised to Parliament earlier in the year—it is refreshing and a sign of how seriously this Government are taking group-based child sexual exploitation. From the Liberal Democrat Benches, we also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for her excellent work.

I start by thanking the whistleblowers and victims, who are still speaking up about this. The speed and success of the actions forecast in this Statement will be judged to have satisfied their demands for justice, and should change policing forever, so that we never end up in this position again.

The national inquiry and national police operation must not just be survivor-centred but must always check back with survivors about process. On many, many occasions, your Lordships’ House has highlighted other victims of appalling circumstances, inquiries and compensation schemes, where the Government of the day paid the right lip service but the reality has left those survivors getting caught up in the bureaucracy that definitely is not survivor-centred. I think particularly of the Hillsborough tragedy, the Manchester bombings and the Windrush scandal, as well as the scandals of infected blood, the Grenfell Tower fire and the Horizon postmasters.

The update on the national police operation is encouraging, but there seems to be one glaring hole: all the detail is about training senior and specialist staff. There is no mention of the front-line staff, including control or police officers on the beat. Their lack of training in years gone by meant that the police missed the obvious first signs and ignored whistleblowers. This has also been a problem in other areas, such as in recognising stalking and domestic abuse. Can the Minister say what is planned for those on the front line, because, without their involvement, cases may not even make it to the high level specialist units?

The update on the Tackling Organised Exploitation programme—TOEX—is also helpful, including the details of the rollout. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches understand that things cannot change overnight, but can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House when every police force will be TOEX trained and funded?

I will briefly make two other points. It is good to see the commitment to improving ethnicity data. The Statement says that this will be used for all cases with child sexual exploitation suspects, but is that not too late as well? Data needs to be consistently collected across the board. We therefore welcome the inquiry considering the intersection with ethnicity, race and culture, as well as safeguarding.

Finally, while it is right that the focus of this Statement is on the horrific gang-based child sexual abuse, as the Minister knows, the vast majority of child sexual abuse is hidden from view. NSPCC data estimates that one in 20 children face child sexual abuse, accounting for probably close to 90% of child sexual abuse across the board. The average age of a victim finally finding the courage to volunteer information about what happened to them is, shockingly, about 20 years after the event. What will the Government do to ensure that all adults—parents, teachers and especially doctors—are able to identify the signs early on and report it, so that this serious scourge can be reduced too?

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the questions, and the broad welcome for our measures, from both His Majesty’s loyal Opposition and the Liberal Democrat Benches. I too echo the thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for her work and focus on these issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, rightly pressed me on the final stages of the appointment of the chair of the inquiry. I reassurance him that we are working at pace to do that. He knows that it took two years to get Alexis Jay into post. We are trying to do this as a matter of urgency. We want to make sure that the victims and survivors are consulted, and we are undertaking formal measures, as is outlined in the Statement, to ensure that they are involved in the process. That is similarly the case for the terms of reference. I am hopeful that we will be able to bring forward proposals to both Houses of Parliament, in relatively short order, to finalise those issues. It is the Government’s intention to establish the inquiry as a matter of urgency.

I cannot give the noble Lord too much detail today on the violence against women and girls strategy, because that will be developed and then announced and put before both Houses of Parliament in due course. I assure him that tackling violence against women and girls is a key manifesto commitment, as is the strategy. The Minister responsible directly in the Home Office, my honourable friend Jess Phillips, has a very keen interest in making sure that the strategy has a real impact on violence against women and girls. I expect to make a Statement in this House, alongside the Minister in the Commons, at some point in the relatively near future.

It is also important that the noble Lord noted—this also goes to one of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made—that Operation Beaconport, which we announced today, has reopened an additional 1,273 cases to be reviewed now. Some 216 priority cases of historical abuse are being reviewed. As the Statement outlines, we are bringing together partners and police under the National Crime Agency to look at these issues and to put some energy into this. That will be trialled later this month, with further announcements, I hope, from the National Crime Agency and policing partners on how they will deal with those issues on the ground.

I think that partly answers a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, but we also have the great involvement of victims and survivors. We need to look at the training issues that she mentioned, and the policing partners will review that in due course. The ethnicity data is extremely important and, as the Statement outlines, we are trying to move that forward at pace. Between that and the extra resource we have announced this week of more than £400,000, on top of the money already allocated, we have a reasonable initiative with which to take forward these issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also made the valid point that the Statement relates to grooming gangs and particular problems and challenges that have arisen because of them; the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, focuses its direction of travel on that. However, there are also many other issues to do with child sexual abuse that the Government need to grapple with and bring forward some solutions to.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is aware of the Crime and Policing Bill, which will come to this House after the Conference Recess. A number of measures in the Bill will ensure that we meet the Alexis Jay recommendations, including on mandatory reporting. If the Bill achieves support from both Houses, there will be additional new legislative measures to improve performance on mandatory reporting, as well as new powers on tackling AI generation of child sexual abuse images.

It should also never be forgotten that the Home Office itself spends in the region of £60 million per year on preventing child sexual abuse, as well as on supporting victims and bringing perpetrators to justice. The Statement is therefore an update on where we are; it is not the end product. If noble Lords look at the Crime and Policing Bill, the work the Home Office is doing and the announcements in the Statement, they will see that big movement is being made to tackle this issue in an appropriate and effective way.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I return to something I said in the earlier groups of amendments. The country that is at the heart of so much of this debate and previous debates is Rwanda. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has introduced his amendments with customary coherence but, ultimately, I do not think he has thought through some of the countries he is talking about. He certainly has not responded to the points that were made earlier about Rwanda.

It is not just about Rwanda. The problem is that this is about generalities, and we are required by the obligations that we have entered into to get down to specifics. I shall give one illustration of what I mean by that from another example in this long list in Amendment 120—that is, the country of Nigeria. The Joint Committee on Human Rights report, referred to in earlier proceedings on this Bill, quotes the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as saying that,

“while designation of safe countries may be used as a procedural tool to prioritise or accelerate the examination of applications in carefully circumscribed situations”,

which is really what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was saying to us, and I do not think that there is conflict about that,

“it does not displace the requirement for an individualised assessment of an asylum claim”.

The UNHCR notes that the risk of refoulement in the absence of individualised assessments is unacceptable. I refer the noble Lord, if I may, as well as the Minister when he comes to respond, to paragraph 122 of the Joint Committee on Human Rights report that deals with that.

The JCHR concluded that it shared the concerns of its predecessor committee—because this is not a new issue; it has been around for predecessor committees. I look at the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, because she and I seem to have gone around this course many times over the past few years. It said:

“We share the concerns of our predecessor Committee that, whilst the states listed may be considered safe in general, this does not guarantee the safety of all individuals from these states, especially those who are members of particular social groups facing persecution. It must be possible for such individuals who face a real risk of persecution upon return to make a protection or human rights claim which must be considered on its merits in order to guard against the risk of refoulement. If the Government chooses to bring section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act into force, it should, at the very least, periodically review the list of safe states, with a particular consideration of the rights of minority groups”.


Again, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, accepted that there would be regular review, but I would like him to respond further, when he comes to reply to the group of amendments, on how he looks at the position of minority groups in some of these countries. These are not just groups that are defined by issues such as ethnicity, religion, gender or orientation: it is also about what happens inside particular countries. A country such as Nigeria may be safe, and that is the example that I shall turn to in a moment, if you are in Lagos or Abuja, but it is not necessarily safe in Benue state or northern Nigeria—depending, again, on aspects of your background. How will that be dealt with in a list of this kind?

I have a dislike of these kinds of lists anyway, as a principle. I do not know that they help matters. We should look at every single case and country on the merits of the arguments. These are things that we should keep abreast of without having to draw up lists. I shall give a specific example of the dangers of this one-size-fits-all approach in what can be variable conditions, depending on many issues—everything from minority ethnicity or religion to gender or orientation. It is an issue that I raised in the debates on the Nationality and Borders Bill, when we were debating it on 8 February 2022, and again on Report on the Illegal Migration Bill, and I refer to Hansard of 5 July 2023.

I cited the case of Mubarak Bala, president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for so-called blasphemy committed on Facebook. Nigeria is one of 71 countries that criminalise blasphemy, and as long as those laws exist people will face persecution, prosecution and imprisonment. As I have said, some will even face the possibility of death and be pushed to find safe haven abroad. During those debates, I also raised the case of Usman Buda, a Muslim, who was murdered in Sokoto state in north-west Nigeria because it was alleged that he had blasphemed. I raised the case of the lynching of Deborah Emmanuel, a Christian, at Shehu Shagari College of Education, again following an unsubstantiated accusation of blasphemy.

Last year, I raised the plight in your Lordships’ House of Nigerian Christians in the northern and middle belt states and pointed out that some 82% of Christians killed for their faith in the previous year were in Nigeria—4,998 Christians were slaughtered, with 200 murdered during the Christmas services in 2023. The highly respected voluntary organisation and charity Open Doors reports that

“Christians in Nigeria continue to be terrorised with devastating impunity”

with

“abductions for ransom, sexual violence and death … leaving a trail of grief and trauma”.

I met Dominic and Margaret Attah, who were survivors of the Boko Haram Pentecost attack at St Francis Xavier Church in Owo, where 30 were murdered. Margaret’s legs had been blown off. She wanted to know why nobody had been brought to justice. I asked the then Minister, who told me in reply:

“We continue to call for those who committed this attack to be brought to justice and held to account”.


Needless to say, they have not been brought to account. Nor have the abductors of Leah Sharibu, who was abducted on 19 February 2018 by ISIS West Africa from the Government Girls Science and Technology College in Dapchi, Yobe State. Leah was told to convert; she refused, and was raped, impregnated and enslaved. She is still held captive. I promised her mother, Rebecca, who I showed around your Lordships’ House, that I would lose no opportunity to raise her case. I have done so on a number of occasions with Ministers.

When I see that this country is safe, according to the amendment, to send men back to, I wonder what will happen to these men if they come from a particular religious group or one that holds a set of views that are unacceptable, or a group that is defined by their sexual orientation. The Government’s travel advice contradicts the presumption that it is safe, particularly for gay men:

“Same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Nigeria with penalties of up to 14 years in prison. Some northern states observe Sharia Law which can prescribe the death penalty for same-sex sexual activity … Same-sex relationships are generally viewed as socially unacceptable in Nigerian society. There is an increased risk of violence, attacks and threats, such as blackmail and intimidation against anyone being thought to be part of the LGBT+ community or supporting their rights”.


This advice is based on facts, not wishful thinking that adding Nigeria to this list will somehow make it a safe country. We have got to follow facts and evidence. Similarly, atheists face significant risks, including discrimination, marginalisation, ostracism, violence and, as I said, potentially death, particularly in the northern states. No differentiation is made in this list between different parts of the country. No distinction is made according to people’s minority status. It demonstrates the dangers of drawing up lists of this kind. I plead with the Official Opposition to give this further thought before we are perhaps asked to vote on this on Report, which I hope we will not be.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his detailed introduction to Amendment 120. I will start there and then very briefly go back to Amendment 110. I will not repeat what I said earlier or what he has just said.

I have checked every single country on the list where it says, in brackets, “in respect of men”. All of them have similar approaches to gay men in particular, as the noble Lord described. There are a number of European countries that are now doing that, including Hungary and Slovakia. When I was last in Bratislava, we went to place some flowers where a friend of a local had witnessed her two colleagues being shot as they went into a bar. It includes Moldova and a number of other countries which are becoming extremely intolerant.

Going back to Amendment 110, the detailed descriptions in proposed new subsection (3) which start with sex, language and race are helpful, but they are exclusive. They exclude key protected characteristics which we and our courts recognise in this country. Can the Official Opposition say whether there is a particular reason for doing that? For example, the protected characteristic is “religion or belief”, not just religion. There is gender reassignment, sexual orientation and pregnancy and maternity, which is extremely important for not just adult women but young girls, who may be returning to a place where young girls are traded for marriage and pregnancy. The last remaining two are age and—I am sorry to say I do not find this here—disability.

--- Later in debate ---

That provision restores the law to where it was prior to A v Croydon, and it appropriately reflects the level of deference to the expert decision-makers in this field. As a result, I strongly commend Amendment 203H to the Government.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to both noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Jackson, for thinking that they absolutely know where I am coming from, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, at least, might be relieved to find that we are on slightly more common ground than he believes. I am going to start backwards; I am going to start with the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray. I happen to have with me the SI on age assessment of asylum-seeking minors, because a number of us did regret Motions for that on 27 November 2023. Initially, the Home Office, of which I think he was a Minister at that point, said that, as per the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee report from October 2022,

“the Home Office will not use the scientific methods to determine an age or age range, but rather use the science to establish whether the claimed age of the age-disputed person is possible”.

Possible is not scientific fact.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Forgive me for intervening. I should clarify that the National Age Assessment Board is not using scientific methods, so my amendment has nothing whatever to do with scientific methods. The National Age Assessment Board is using conventional social work methods to identify age.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s intervention. One of the problems is that social workers are using exactly those techniques—perhaps not in full, but they are. What is more, the NNAB social workers are paid through the NNAB by the Home Office. They are not independent, which is the other key point we wanted to make. I am very grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said at the start. He said that the public had moved on. But, as a former trustee of UNICEF, I say that my priority has to be the protection of young people who are under 18, and an arrangement for those where it may not be possible to decide that exactly—and we have had many debates about all that.

The issue is not just one of public satisfaction. The public may be very irritated by the young men who are clearly over 18 who are doing this, and that is fine for the system. Those of us who are bringing back amendments, probably on Monday, want to make sure that it is not happening the other way round: that people under 18 are being deemed to be adult. We know that this has happened and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me that we might finally see some data on this. Every time I have asked over the last three or four years, there has been no data about those who are deemed to be 18 and over who were under, and, indeed, the other way around. That is important for the Home Office, because it needs to understand about provision for those who are in this very small group, who need to be looked after in a slightly more special way.

By the way, not every young person who is under 18 who goes to a school is going to have special needs. They may need some language support, but not necessarily special needs. They may need emotional support if they have come from a war zone such as Sudan but, if we are saying that they are awaiting assessment as asylum seekers, that is something that this country really ought to be prepared to look at. So I am much more cynical about the NNAB being as truly independent and clear as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, was making out. Those of us who have amendments will go over this in detail next week.

I want to go back to Amendments 114 and 115. Young people having no right of appeal contravenes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child. They absolutely must have support in complex issues, particularly in a country where they may not speak the language. When the official Opposition were in power, they also refused to let young people who were having age assessments carried over have any access to legal or advisory support during that process. They said it was not necessary. But I have to say that those European countries that use age assessments all have independent support for these young people from that Government’s own process. I particularly pray in aid the Netherlands, because it was cited by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, when he was at the Dispatch Box in the past.

These protections are built in because we have a formal duty to look after those under 18 and, yes, it may be difficult to work out if some are, but we will know about most of them. I really think that the first two amendments need to be reviewed, and I do not think we can support them. I can remember when I read the first full report: it is not as clear as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said. There is always talk about ranges. I do not know about noble Lords, but I have a son of six foot four and he was certainly sprouting a beard by 16 or 17 and was already over six foot. We make mistakes, and I absolutely support what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was saying. You cannot just assume that that is right and, if we get it wrong, you have a young man—they usually are young men—who is put into an adult centre. They then are at risk, and that is on us as a country.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I absolutely applaud the laudable work of UNICEF. The point that I was attempting to make was that we must focus our efforts on weeding out those who are clearly, as she concedes, not reaching the age criteria, so that we can focus on those in most need, who have suffered terror, despotism, trauma et cetera.

Taking the noble Baroness back to the appeals, what is the alternative? If you have an open-ended, liberal, permissive appeals system, it will be gamed by many people. She might want to think about this before she tables an amendment: can you have an appeals system that pays due regard to the universal human rights of children but does not allow the system to be gamed by endless appeals that take months and years?

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The problem is that Amendment 114 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, says there is no appeal—full stop, end. None. Therefore, that young person, who probably has English as a second language, whichever side they are and who will be arguing that they are under 18, does not even have the right that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, was talking about, and that worries me. I have argued this for some time, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, knows, to his cost. I agree that the public are concerned. I have no doubt about that. However, are we only concerned with what the public are concerned about? Do we not need to focus on children who are seeking asylum in this country and can get some help? If we go by, “Well, actually the public don’t want it”, it will all start going the wrong way.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that she is balancing two things here. First, a problem arises if a young person is put into adult accommodation, as she identifies. However, a bigger problem arises if you put an adult who is fraudulently claiming to be a child into facilities for young people. At that point, there is a very significant risk to those young people.

As a House, we have a significant responsibility in this area to ensure that we do not gullibly take people’s claims to be young people, which can put other young people in those homes and facilities at risk. It is very important that the Home Office has a coherent system, which it does, and that the system is capable of review, which of course it is by judicial review. The noble Baroness will agree that there is a balancing act to be performed here.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. I have argued before to him, and I say it again, that there is a very straightforward answer. You have smaller group homes for those who are around the borderline, because the protection we need is for the younger ones. The noble Lord is absolutely right that, if we put a load of people in who are over 18, those younger children are at risk. But we do not have to, given the number of children that there are.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Does the noble Baroness have any figures for the number of young people whose ages are in dispute, because I suspect that there are not that many? We may be worrying about a relatively small number of people compared with the huge number who are seeking asylum.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness and say again to the Minister, who will probably curse me for it, that there is no data and we need that data to understand the size of the problem. It must be not just pure data about age. It must also be about the response when children or young people are placed in the wrong one, and what support they need. I will leave it there.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments of my noble friends Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Murray. They are interesting amendments because they seek to tackle the same problem by different means. The aim is to have accurate information about age and to require that it be secured.

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On the data point of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we are trying to keep data separate between the Home Office asylum side of the business and the Home Office NAAB side of the business. There is a sort of wall between them, and that data is not shared. I will reflect on her points and examine them in detail, but that is where I am coming from at the moment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Is there a plan to publish this in annual form at some point in the future? We need that data.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I have heard what the noble Baroness said. I will reflect on that point. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson.