Rwanda Asylum Partnership: Removal of Unaccompanied Children

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for securing this debate. It is really important that we debate this issue again—and, possibly, again and again. I am also very grateful to the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for its valuable briefing, and to the House of Lords Library. We have had excellent material.

Much that needs to be said has already been said, but I want to echo the words of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. You can see a whole variety of 16 to 19 year-olds and, depending on the culture from which they come, some of them will look quite old and some quite young. You cannot just look at them and decide what age they are; it is a really dangerous game to play to say that you can do it absolutely scientifically. This House needs reassurance that those individuals, arguably children but whose age is doubted, who are presently treated as adults after a short visual assessment by border officials, cannot be issued with a notice of intent to remove them to Rwanda. That is the first thing that we need from the Minister. We know that there have been a number of cases where that has been the case and, given the very short time available, I ask the Minister to answer several questions about this.

First, in the case of individuals claiming to be children who are sent straight to detention or adult accommodation, can the Minister tell us how many young people, adults or children, this affects? Can she tell us whether the Home Office monitors what happens to them or whether, in the light of this question, this debate and other concerns raised recently, she can reassure this House that the Home Office will in future monitor what happens to them?

Secondly, given concerns raised about age-assessment methodology when we debated the Nationality and Borders Bill, and the reassurances we were given that no child or young person would be forced to have an X-ray, and nor would refusal be taken as a negative indication in any age assessment, can the Minister assure this House that, while such assessments are being made, no attempt will be made to serve a notice of intent and that a refusal to be X-rayed will not make such a notice more likely?

Thirdly, associated with that point—and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised this in part—can the Minister tell us whether dental X-rays, or any other X-rays for that matter, have been used already in the age-assessment processes since the Nationality and Borders Act was passed, and whether they might have been used in assessing the age of any of the migrants currently awaiting removal to Rwanda? The Age Estimation Scientific Advisory Committee has not yet made any formal recommendations on the issue of X-rays, and it would be good for this House to know. It is truly disturbing to hear that some of these people whose age is disputed, who have been detained as adults, are being served with notices of intent. These people are often found to be children, as other noble Lords have said. Can the Minister reassure this House that, until confirmation has been received from a person’s legal representative that they have not been and will not be referred into the care of a local authority, such Rwanda removal notices will stop?

This whole policy begs questions about safeguarding and children’s rights. Can the Minister reassure this House that the rights of children, including those whose age is disputed until a firm assessment is made and, where appropriate, also challenged, will be respected in full, and that the rights of the child will be paramount?

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I have retabled my amendment in the light of the Minister’s reply in Committee. Judging by Hansard, there was a very good discussion, albeit at three in the morning. We need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve here. Surely it is, first, that adults should not easily claim to be children and get away with it, and, secondly, that where doubts about age remain, the claimants concerned should be kept separate from those who are clearly children.

One aspect which was not covered in Committee was the very considerable increase in claims from those who were falsely claiming to be children. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that, in 2019, those found to be adults amounted to less than half the cases. I have in my pocket the Home Office table showing the outcome of these claims since 2006. The year which the noble Lord chose, 2019, was the lowest percentage in the last 10 years. We now have the percentage for adults in the last two years, and they were 43% and 66%, respectively. I will not provide more statistics, except to say that what is really important is the number of cases to which these percentages refer. In 2019, there were only 304 age-disputed cases; in 2021, there were 1,500—I repeat: 1,500. The whole scale is much greater and justifies the tightening of the criteria for which I am calling.

As to the test applied, the Minister said that our current threshold is that a person claiming asylum is declared to be an adult when

“their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are significantly over 18”.—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1568.]

That is a pretty tight restriction. My amendment would adjust that to when

“their physical appearance and demeanour strongly suggest that they are over the age of 18.”

The change is to “strongly suggest”. I believe that this falls well within the Supreme Court judgment to which the Minister referred in his speech: BF (Eritrea). That judgment found that claimants could be treated as adults if two Home Office officials considered that the person looked significantly over 18. My amendment tightens the criteria, but that is what we need to do in the face of the significant exploitation of the present scheme.

My last point concerns the important and related issue of safeguarding those who are found to be children. Surely it is common prudence that doubtful applicants should, until their cases are resolved, be kept separate from those known to be genuine children. I look forward to an assurance from the Minister that arrangements are now envisaged which will achieve this result. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and of Whittington Health NHS Trust, and as chair of the Schwab & Westheimer Trust, charitable trusts set up to provide education for young asylum seekers.

I am speaking to Amendment 64A. When we last debated age assessments for young asylum seekers, in Committee, it was in the small hours of the morning, and the issues to which we should have given real attention did not get enough scrutiny. The issue had had precious little scrutiny in another place, because these provisions were brought in so late by the Government in the passage of the Bill. I am very grateful to the Government for the amount of information which they have provided recently, but there is still more to tease out. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will understand why I and my colleagues—the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham—are putting forward this detailed amendment at Report. I am grateful to the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the British Dental Association, the British Red Cross, the UNHCR, the ADSS, the British Association of Social Workers and many others for their briefings and help.

There is widespread concern about age assessments among all the various voluntary and statutory agencies concerned with young asylum seekers, and among many medical, dental and scientific bodies. Because of the small family charity which I chair, I spend time with asylum-seeking young people who are desperate to get their lives back on track by getting an education. Most of those I meet are older than the children and young people presently under discussion and whose age might be disputed, but by no means all. From what they tell us, I know how traumatised they can be, and have been, not only by their experiences in their home countries and on their incredibly difficult journeys but by the processes they have been forced to go through once they have arrived in the UK, and the way in which they are often not believed—almost as if there is an assumption that they will not be telling the truth.

The fact that they might be asked for consent before they undergo an age- assessment process is neither here nor there. Refusing consent would undoubtedly be a black mark against them in a system which they already perceive as doubting their word. Many of them will not have paper evidence of their date of birth, precisely because of what they have been through. The idea that the Home Office will control these procedures, and insist on them, fills many of us with distinct unease as it almost certainly means that already traumatised young people who have been through terrible experiences to reach the UK will be forced to endure yet more traumatising experiences, possibly including intimate examinations which are hard, if not impossible, to justify.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Neuberger]

64A: After Clause 56, insert the following new Clause—
“Age assessments: restrictions
(1) Age assessments under section 49 or 50 must only be undertaken if there is significant reason to doubt the age of the age-disputed person.(2) A person conducting age assessments under section 49 or 50 must be a local authority social worker.(3) Age assessments must be undertaken in accordance with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services Age Assessment Guidance or equivalent guidance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.(4) When an age assessment is conducted, a process must be used that allows for an impartial multi-agency approach, drawing on a range of expertise, including from—(a) health professionals,(b) psychologists,(c) teachers,(d) foster parents,(e) youth workers,(f) advocates,(g) guardians, and(h) social workers.(5) When making regulations under section 51, the Secretary of State must not specify scientific methods unless the Secretary of State receives written approval from the relevant medical, dental and scientific professional bodies that the method is both ethical and accurate beyond reasonable doubt for assessing a person’s age.(6) Any organisation developed to oversee age assessments must be independent of the Home Office.(7) The standard of proof for an age assessment is reasonable degree of likelihood.”

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, we did not get reassurance on several issues. I wish to test the opinion of the House because we need to know more about the ethical response, which we did not get from the Minister.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

This is a welcome addition to the facilities which the Government have in this area. It will be welcomed very much by the people who Michael Gove was talking about yesterday—those who badly need levelling up in their areas. Some of the strains and stresses of dealing with this thing are disproportionately settled on their heads. This is a welcome thing from my noble friend, and I hope it will be approved in principle, although, I accept that it is quite reasonable for the noble Baroness to press the Government on exactly what their intentions are in some detail.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendments 56, 57 and 59 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I have added my name to these amendments. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that we are not talking about illegal immigrants; we are talking about asylum seekers. It is legitimate to seek asylum in this country.

In 2021—last year—a British Red Cross investigation found that unsuitable and poor facilities were having a severe effect on the well-being of asylum seekers, including children. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, in asking the Minister to clarify that these accommodation centres will not be used for children in any circumstances because that is really important, and we really would like that on the record.

We know that people housed in asylum accommodation are generally not registered with a GP and face significant challenges in accessing appropriate healthcare, particularly for more complex mental and physical health conditions. People who are not registered with a GP and do not have an NHS number are also unable to access Covid-19 vaccines through the regular channels, which makes them largely dependent on outreach and walk-in clinics. I can tell noble Lords, as someone who has been very involved in the vaccine delivery, that it is a serious problem. It poses a huge challenge for timely follow-up and identification of those who need additional doses as a result of their clinical vulnerability.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned the judgment about those who were in Napier barracks. Noble Lords will know of the judgment, which was brought in June 2021, where it was made very clear that there were inadequate health and safety conditions, a failure to screen for victims of trafficking and other vulnerabilities and false imprisonment of residents. Evidence presented to the court showed that the Home Office continued to house people at the barracks against advice from Public Health England. A Covid outbreak was found by the court to be inevitable and it occured in January 2021, with nearly 200 people testing positive. Yet this is the model the Government are using.

We need to understand from the Minister and know more about how exactly this is going to operate and how we are going to ensure that anybody in an accommodation centre has their health protected and gets decent health services. We know that the risks to the health and well-being of people in these large-scale accommodation centres are clear.

If you add in the most vulnerable of people—children, women, people with disabilities, those who have been referred to the national referral mechanism and others who are vulnerable—the system will not be able to cope. The accommodation centres will apparently provide basic healthcare services, but access to medical care and infection control in current asylum accommodation settings has been notoriously poor, drawing widespread condemnation from healthcare professionals across the UK.

This amendment would mean people in vulnerable circumstances, including children, survivors of torture and those who have been subjected to human trafficking or enslavement, are not accommodated in the new accommodation centres. The Home Office recognised that most vulnerable people should not be accommodated in Napier barracks but Doctors of the World—I am extremely grateful to Doctors of the World and other organisations which have provided excellent briefings on all of this—data shows that 70% of Napier barracks residents accessing its clinical services disclosed an experience of violence in their home or transit country and 38% had applied for asylum because of an experience of violence. Of course, people who have experienced violence and associated trauma are unlikely to regard an accommodation centre that is prototyped by an ex-military camp as a place of safety, exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has said. It is likely to trigger a trauma response. Talk to some of the psychiatrists who know about this and they will tell you that. It is likely to lead to the deterioration of an individual’s mental health and well-being.

Amendment 56 would mean that accommodation centres would not become overcrowded and would not place unnecessary pressure on local health services. It might also improve conditions—the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has perhaps said enough about that—because if you hear the experience of people who have been living 20 in the same room, you can almost not believe it. I t makes one stretch one’s eyes. The lack of privacy living in large, shared rooms is a major cause for concern for people’s mental well-being. By limiting the number of people accommodated at a site, this amendment would contribute to better access to mainstream health services, a better chance—not a great chance, but a better one—of social integration and possibly a chance of maintaining some sort of well-being.

There is a further point. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has referred to what is happening just across the Irish Sea in the Republic of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland has, for nearly 20 years, been providing something called “direct provision” of housing for asylum seekers. I know about that because we have a holiday home in Ireland. However, because of the poor health experienced by residents, deaths within the centres and the same arguments being adduced here, the Irish Government are changing their system and have promised to phase out these so-called direct provision centres by 2024. Their new centres will be smaller, but not small enough, will be for a maximum of four months, which is not short enough, and will look out for the health and well-being and integration of the residents. If the Irish are removing these large centres, for all these reasons, should we not be thinking again, as well as protecting the most vulnerable from being housed within them, and reducing the length of stay permitted?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that the stresses and strains being experienced by local economies and local people have actually been created by his Government, the Conservative Government, over the past 12 years. Their levelling-up message—I will not call it a campaign—is only to repair some of the damage they have done in the past 12 years. Please, I want no lectures about making things easier for people, because this Government have made things much harder for many millions of people.

I also express my admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has shown incredible perseverance, persistence, bravery and toughness in keeping on about this subject. Her deep knowledge is informing the House. I really hope that we can listen to her, hear from her and learn from her; I include the Conservative Front Bench in that.

The way that asylum seekers have been detained in unsuitable accommodation in this country is a national outrage—a national disgrace. We should be deeply ashamed of it. If these conditions were not in violation of international law, then frankly we ought to be fighting for a change in international law, because no country should treat people like this.

The amendments in this group would have a two-pronged benefit, by improving the standard of accommodation and reducing the time for which people can be detained. I hope that the Minister will reflect deeply on the impact that this government detention is having on people’s lives, and accept these amendments.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, and my noble friend Lord Cashman for their support and for hanging on in there, as well as to Women for Refugee Women for its help with the amendment. The amendment sets out a number of groups in vulnerable circumstances who should be deemed to meet the condition that they have presented themselves to the authorities to claim asylum without delay. This is a probing amendment, which does not imply acceptance of Clause 11, which, as I made clear earlier, I totally oppose; rather, it addresses one specific aspect of it that was not interrogated in the Commons.

As the UNHCR advises:

“There is nothing in the Refugee Convention that defines a refugee or their entitlements under it according to … the timing of their asylum claim.”


At present, the Bill does not provide any exceptions to the “without delay” condition relating to their potential vulnerability, although, if I understood her correctly, I think the Minister said on Amendment 39 that there is some flexibility, so I look forward to hearing more about that.

The amendment covers a range of groups who could be adversely affected by the clause. It reflects a warning made by Freedom from Torture that:

“Penalising refugees who do not present their claim ‘without delay’ following arrival risks further punishing the most vulnerable. It is clinically recognised that an experience of torture or trauma will lead to avoidance behaviours and interfere with the person’s ability to disclose.”


I shall focus mainly on women fleeing gender-based violence. The “without delay” condition is one of a number of provisions that will, contrary to ministerial claims, disproportionately adversely affect women, as more than 50 organisations warned the Home Secretary in a letter in which they argued that more women will be wrongly refused asylum, re-traumatised and placed at risk of violence and abuse. LGBTQ+ asylum seekers will also be at particular risk as a result of the “without delay” condition. I think my noble friend is going to say more about that.

Women for Refugee Women’s research has documented how many women seeking asylum in the UK have fled gender-based violence in their countries of origin, including rape, female genital mutilation and forced prostitution. Many were abused again on their journeys to safety. In the organisation’s experience, many of these women are heavily traumatised when they arrive and need time to feel safe before they feel able to share their experiences with a government official. This is endorsed in a legal opinion from Garden Court Chambers, which states:

“there may well be very good reasons to explain why … their claim was delayed … which relates to the particular forms of persecution to which women are subject, and their experience of gender-based violence and inferior social status.”

British Red Cross research published just last week reinforces the point and demonstrates how insensitive the asylum system already is to gender-related trauma and women’s needs. The Bill will only make this worse. In Women for Refugee Women’s experience, survivors, many of whom have experienced serious trauma, move at their own pace with regard to disclosure. No amount of legal or mental health support can guarantee a willingness to disclose without delay.

Preliminary findings from research into LGBT+ women carried out by Rainbow Sisters, a group supported by Women for Refugee Women, found that 20 out of 25 women did not claim asylum within the first month of entering the UK. The great majority of those who gave reasons said they were too traumatised by past experiences of persecution or scared to come forward, and many had not even realised that they could claim asylum on the basis of their sexual orientation.

The Home Office is well aware of such barriers to disclosure, because it acknowledges them in its own current guidance, which gives a number of reasons for reluctance to disclose information at the outset, including

“feelings of guilt, shame, and concerns about family ‘honour’, or fear of family members or traffickers, or having been conditioned or threatened by them.”

It notes the impact sexual assault can have on the ability to present one’s case. The same policy guidance says that late disclosure should not automatically prejudice a woman’s credibility.

The same considerations apply to failure to present oneself without delay. So, why does the Bill not reflect this clearly? On Second Reading, the Minister acknowledged these arguments in relation to the provision of late evidence, saying:

“We will set out in guidance what can constitute good reasons”—[Official Report, 5/1/22; col. 668.]


for late evidence. But no provision seems to have been made for good reasons for failing the “without delay” condition. Why is that? I know the “without delay” phrase is carefully taken from the convention—an example of what the UNHCR calls “selective echoes” from it—but that does not obviate the point. So, do the Government intend to protect the groups covered by the amendment in the guidance?

Can the Minister also provide some information about statistics, if necessary, in a subsequent letter? First, do the Government collect statistics on the number of women who claim asylum based on sexual or gender-based violence in their country of origin? If yes, what proportion of overall claims did these represent? Secondly, do they collect statistics on when survivors of gender-based violence make an asylum application? If yes, what do those statistics show? Thirdly, do they collect statistics on the number of women subject to sexual abuse on their journeys to the UK? Again, if so, what do they show?

I hope the Minister will be able to provide some clarity and, better still, an assurance that the “without delay” condition will be applied in a way that does not impact adversely on those in vulnerable circumstances—if Clause 11 survives. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. I would have said almost everything the noble Baroness has said, so I will just add a few other points.

One is that we have to recognise the nature of asylum seekers arriving in the country and the evidence presented by Doctors of the World and others. Asylum seekers often arrive suffering from considerable ill health. It is important we realise that, because that makes them the sort of people who ought to be included in the list provided in the amendment. According to Doctors of the World’s experience of running a clinic, 70% of patients with an outstanding asylum claim have at least one chronic medical condition, 30% have a psychological condition, almost a quarter present with an acute condition, and over 40% report their health as being “bad” or “very bad”. These are therefore people whom one might class as vulnerable, and this is the issue we are probing. Like my noble friend Lord Kerr, I am a bit worried about lipstick on pigs. Nevertheless, I think we will need to tease this out a little more, and we know the health conditions of asylum seekers are considerably worse than those of the general population.

I also want to pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said about the piece in the Times, which I also saw, and I want to reflect on some personal experience. We run a very small charity in memory of my parents. My mother was an asylum seeker, a refugee from Nazi Germany, and in my parents’ name we run this small charity to provide opportunities for education for asylum seekers who are not entitled to get student finance. I have therefore interviewed, over the last 20 years, quite a large number of asylum seekers, the majority of whom have been young men.

Without exception, they report being traumatised. They do not come as dangerous would-be criminals; they have seen their parents be killed before their eyes, have been forced into armies of appalling dictatorships, have been involved in civil wars and have been persecuted because they are bisexual—whatever it may be. None of them come and apply for a scholarship in the first period after they arrive in this country. We probably do not see them until a year, 18 months or two years in, and only then are they beginning to be able to talk about their experiences. Therefore, because they are clearly vulnerable, would they be classed as people who could be regarded as making an application “without delay”?

The Home Office’s guidance on gender-based violence and women who have suffered that kind of issue being treated favourably, if you like, and being allowed to wait until they are able to speak out is moderately generous—perhaps I would not go that far but would just say “possibly” generous, but whatever. I want to know whether we can extend that principle to those who have been traumatised in all sorts of other ways and have major mental health issues, often brought on by the trauma of what they have experienced.

Would the Minister be willing to entertain the prospect of those who are vulnerable for a whole variety of reasons being treated in the same way, if you like, as the Home Office guidance? We cannot see it within the Bill, but it would be wonderful if that were the case.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, who has added her name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett.

The earlier debate on the clause was illuminating and displayed this House at its very best. The speeches and interventions on all sides sought to give a voice to those who are often not heard—the voiceless, the vulnerable and the persecuted. I will not rehearse the arguments that were put before your Lordships during the debate on the previous group but I echo this: it is our duty to stand in the shoes of others and imagine. I revisit that often when dealing with subjects such as those that we are dealing with today, but never more so than when we are dealing with those who seek refuge and asylum.

I am particularly grateful for the number of briefings that I have received, in particular for an online briefing that I managed to attend with others, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who referred to this earlier. I thank Stonewall, Rainbow Migration, Safe Passage and others who have expressed their concern about the negative consequences for LGBTQI asylum seekers.

This probing amendment is extremely important. I am concerned, as are others, that the “without delay” criterion would affect large numbers of traumatised people, including, as my noble friend Lady Lister said, survivors of gender-based abuse and people who have fled persecution based on their sexual orientation and who are unable to claim promptly, as well as other vulnerable groups and the individuals who make up those groups. At the moment, the Bill does not provide any exceptions to the “without delay” conditions. Therefore, this amendment, to which I am proud to have added my name, seeks to ascertain whether and to what extent certain vulnerable groups would be affected by the “without delay” condition. Indeed, the Minister probably feels that she has already referred to this to some extent in her earlier contribution.

The amendment seeks to protect refugees with specific histories or characteristics from the adverse effects of Clause 11. The amendment rightly highlights personal characteristics that are relevant to why many refugees are not able to comply with the implicit demand underpinning Clause 11 and Clause 36, to which it is connected. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, who made the case earlier for the inclusion of protected characteristics in relation to those cited in the Equality Act.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Schwab and Westheimer Trusts, which help young asylum seekers in this country who cannot work and cannot access student finance to access further and higher education.

My mother, and many members of my family, came to this country as asylum seekers from Nazi Germany. I have some inherited understanding of these issues and, unlike the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, it was quite a recent event. The Bill appears to have little understanding of what it means to be an asylum seeker in this country—often desperate, insecure, unwelcome and feeling unwanted. As other noble Lords have said, the UK receives relatively few asylum applications compared with other European countries. The international norm, as set out in the 1951 convention, is to accept asylum applications regardless of the mode of arrival. Nowhere in international law is there a rule around people needing to seek protection in the first safe country in which they arrive. Nor should there be.

The Government appear to doubt that those crossing the channel in small boats are doing so to claim protection. However, as others have said, analysis by the Refugee Council has shown that by far the majority have come from just 10 countries where human rights abuses and persecution are rife, including Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Eritrea and Yemen. For many of these nationals, there is no legal refugee resettlement route to the UK. The majority of people from those countries are eventually recognised as refugees, thereby showing that the UK’s asylum system understands that at least some of them are in need of protection. Reducing the rights of refugees who arrive in the UK irregularly will not reduce the numbers fleeing war and persecution, nor will it make their travel routes any safer. People do not board unsafe small boats from France for fun. They do not trust people traffickers because they are stupid. They just do not have an alternative. These measures will not help that.

I want to raise three further specific points. Refugees in the UK often find themselves separated from their families following brutal experiences of conflict and persecution. Refugee family reunion allows people to come to the UK to reunite with family members in a safe way. In the past five years, over 29,000 people have arrived in the UK through family reunion— 90% of them women and children. The restrictions to family reunion rights in the Bill will increase the numbers resorting to unsafe routes and will particularly impact women and children.

My second point is about age. Unaccompanied children face particular problems in proving their date of birth. Many have no official identity documents and, in the absence of documentation, it is extremely difficult to determine a child’s age. Yet age is fundamental to their receiving the support and protection that they need. We know that children as young as 14 have been placed in immigration detention, alone in accommodation with adults, with no safeguarding measures and at risk of abuse. Of course there will need to be some age assessments but they need to be done sensitively by people skilled and experienced in carrying them out. Yet Clauses 48, 49 and 52 give the Home Secretary broad powers to designate who can undertake age assessments and to compel local authorities to assess the age of a child and hand over evidence to immigration officials, thereby undermining their independence. Clause 52 allows the Home Secretary to make regulations about how age assessments are carried out. This includes the use of so-called scientific methods to assess age, which allows the Government to introduce regulations specifying scientific methods to be used, including all sorts of horrible things such as

“examining or measuring parts of a person’s body”,

analysis of saliva and so on. These “scientific methods” have largely been discredited. I ask the Minister to explain to this House why she is proposing that those methods be allowed. If she thinks that maybe they should not be, will she reconsider?

Lastly, as other noble Lords have said, Part 5 provides for far-ranging reform of modern slavery legislation alongside other proposals that will impact all children who are at significant risk of exploitation, especially those who are trafficked. Children’s rights and protection must be put first. This is an urgent human rights and child protection issue. In fact, if the proposals go ahead, it will be a bit of a crisis. I ask the Minister to say whether she will carry out a children’s rights assessment before we reach the end of proceedings on the Bill.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

I wonder whether it is too far-fetched to think that there might be an element of self-interest in this. My mother has often talked to me about what it was like for her as a five year-old girl being evacuated from Croydon in south London to the Midlands during the Second World War. It was a very difficult experience for her and, of course, many of our children were sent off to the United States at that time for their own safety. We face an uncertain Europe. Perhaps one day we might need to turn to the United States or Canada to look for help for our children, and they might turn to us and ask, “Well, what did you do for the children arriving in Europe when they needed your help?”. If we do not stand up now and show ourselves to be willing to accommodate these young people, it will make it harder for us when we are in desperate need and want the support of other nations to say, “We need your help for our children. I know that it is a bit far-fetched, but it is not impossible and it has happened in the past.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on moving it. My uncle came here at the age of 13—he would have failed the 12 year-old cut-off point—as a semi-unaccompanied refugee from Nazi Germany; my mother was an adult when she came. I want to say something about the courage of the British Government at that time. When we talk about not wishing to accept the amendment, we should think about just how brave were the British Government against other Governments who did not wish to show such generosity and kindness in the late 1930s and in 1939 itself. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, paid tribute to Sir Nicky Winton, but, wonderful as he was, he was not alone—there was Trevor Chadwick, who worked with him. There were also British diplomats around Europe, particularly in Germany and in Austria, who played a major role in helping Jews and left-wingers get out of Germany and Austria. I pay particular tribute to Robert Smallbones, Arthur Dowden and the MI6 spy, Frank Foley, who does not receive enough tribute.

The reason for supporting this amendment is not only the moral one—it is the least that we can do—but something about what Britain is and what Britain should be and setting some kind of example. We could do it in the 1930s. Why cannot we do it now?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, this is a very difficult issue. The heart indeed speaks strong and it beats particularly strong, it seems, in this Chamber, but we also have to think it through a little. I entirely understand the good intentions behind the amendment, and nobody is better placed than the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to propose it and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, to speak to it. I would be perfectly content to support a Motion calling for HMG to accept a larger number of children and their families from the refugee camps elsewhere in the region. It is not a question of cost; it is a question of need and one that we should be ready to meet.

My concern is that the amendment refers specifically to unaccompanied children in Europe. These children are already in Europe and are initially the responsibility of the Governments in the countries where they find themselves. The idea seems to be that we, the UK, should take a fair share of these children, who indeed find themselves in terrible circumstances. But there is a risk, which we cannot dismiss—it is a serious risk—that in doing so we will make a bad situation even worse. We are not dealing here with a finite number of children—it is no use saying, “There are 24,000 children; we will take 3,000 of them”. We are dealing with a situation in which the families concerned have come to the view that if they can only get their children into Europe, they will be looked after, and as a secondary consideration they themselves might be able to follow them up later.

To my mind, the follow-up adults are not the issue, rather it is the risk that still more children will be put at very serious risk. A well-intentioned action could have the perverse effect that many more thousands of children will be sent off to face the terrible conditions that have been described. If so, we would not be solving the problem, and indeed we might be exacerbating it. That is why I believe that the Government are right to take refugees from the region, but not from Europe. It is unsatisfactory, but it is perhaps the least bad outcome. We have to consider this carefully. A point which has frankly been ducked in this debate—I think only one speaker has mentioned it—is the risk that this will generate very large numbers of children being put at risk and make a bad situation worse.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and by other noble Lords and reinforce the points that have just been made with regard to the attitude of the general public towards genuine refugees. They would much prefer that these refugees are enabled to make a contribution to the economy and to the social life of the community into which they move. This was reinforced in my mind the other night—as it possibly was for other noble Lords —when a refugee who was a pharmacist was shown on a television programme. One thinks of the contribution that he could make with those skills, which we need. We are silly not to maximise those opportunities. For those reasons, I support the amendment.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. I declare an interest as senior rabbi of the West London Synagogue, where we run in a drop-in service for destitute asylum seekers, as many synagogues and churches do around the country. Many of these asylum seekers have waited longer than six months. The way they survive—because you cannot survive on £5 a day—is by going from institution to institution—church to synagogue—getting handouts: that is, charity. They hate it. We do our best to make them feel welcome, but it is not what they want to do. They want to work and make a contribution. They do not want to set their children an example of effectively begging. One of the things that we give them, in addition to a decent meal and friendship—I hope—are second-hand clothes. On the rare occasions that we have enough shoes to put out, they go as if a plague of locusts has entered the room. Asylum seekers who are living on £5 or less a day cannot afford to get their shoes repaired, let alone get new ones. They walk absolutely everywhere and they go through shoes at the rate of a pair a week.

People need to understand what it is like to be in that circumstance and to realise that these people do not wish to live like that and it is not their fault that they have waited for longer than six months. I support the amendment very strongly.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I can see the point of the Government’s plan to collect child refugees from the Middle East, but the thousands of children who were seen on our television screens in October and November last year were already in Europe. The impression at the moment is that the Government are refusing to respond to what has become a public demand. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. This is not just an emotional issue; it is a case of practicality. The Government are talking about an admirable resettlement scheme, but, except in the case of family reunion, they are ignoring unaccompanied minors and ignoring this plea.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I support this excellent amendment. This is the least that we can do. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lord Roberts said, there is a huge groundswell of support to bring some of these children—as many as we can—into this country. It is enormously important to get those children out of there, particularly out of Calais and Dunkirk.

I have to declare a couple of interests. I am rabbi of West London Synagogue, which runs a drop-in for asylum seekers and asylum-seeking families, and we have a lot of volunteers who have been going to Calais and Dunkirk. What they say about the situation of those children and the degree of risk to them and the appalling circumstances in which they live is truly ghastly.

I am also a trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable Trust, which was set up in memory of my parents. My mother came as a refugee. She was a domestic servant when her younger brother was still at school. His teacher rang her from Germany and said, “You have to get your brother out of here”. So my uncle came as a semi-unaccompanied refugee and was looked after by the most wonderful foster parents, who responded to general appeals for foster parents. They came forward, took him in and looked after him for months until my mother could cope.

It is ironic that we have been holding these Committee stage debates on the Immigration Bill around the time of Holocaust Memorial Day, when we have been saying “never again” and have been remembering the Kindertransport and the refugees who came. When one looks back on those speeches, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, did, on the whole you think a lot of the parliamentarians in 1938 and 1939 were truly wonderful people. However, I want to mention Eleanor Rathbone who is something of a heroine of mine. She also helped my grandparents, who also got out just before the beginning of the war. She said that our being so slow in taking action—in a slightly different area—was the equivalent of saying:

“’We are very sorry for all the people who are in danger of being drowned by this flood, and we will do our best to rescue them, but, mind, we must use nothing but teacups to bale out the flood’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/1939; col. 151.]

The trouble is that we have been so slow and are taking such very small actions. Three thousand is the very least we can do. We should go to Italy or to Greece and see the huge numbers who are there and then ask ourselves whether 3,000 unaccompanied children on top of the 20,000 who the Government have already said they will take is really too many. I hope the Government will accept this amendment.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad to speak in support of my noble friend—and he really is a friend. What he has said has been all the more powerful for us because of his personal story. He speaks with all the authority of having experienced exactly what we are talking about. Having had the benefits of the response and care that he received, he is determined to see that shared with the children of today. That is a very powerful position.

I believe we should do what is proposed in the amendment because it is right. I do not see how anybody could argue that it is not. These children—bewildered and bereft—are totally innocent. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said that they are asking themselves, “Where shall we go?”, but some of them are so bewildered and lost that they are not even asking that. The thought in their minds is, “How are we going to survive?”. They are terrified, frightened and bewildered.

If we have any values in this country, surely we should say that it is imperative to respond. I listened to the noble Baroness’s powerful point about how we are slow to respond, but I am afraid that we are not just slow; inadvertently or not, we seem to be generating a certain message. We have to face the fact that that message is interpreted by many as our seeing something unfortunate or threatening about this situation. The message is that we have to somehow defend ourselves and make concessions where that becomes unavoidable —or clear that it would be impossible not to do so.

We have to face the fact that what confronts us now is only a small fraction of what is going to confront us in the future. With climate change and all the conflicts that are arising, we are going to see the movement of people on a huge scale. That makes it abundantly clear to me that we should establish a record of participation as leading members of international organisations and arrangements, rather than being perceived as defensive and frightened all the time and making concessions. That is not the intention.

I am going to be personal—and this may be embarrassing for the Minister concerned—but I am absolutely convinced that we have a thoroughly decent and very humanitarian Minister sitting with us this afternoon. I have no doubt about that at all. I am also convinced that he doing his level best within government to extend the Government’s response as much as he can. I want the message to go from this Committee that he will have 200% support from us in doing that. I am sure that it will be a message from the House as a whole that he will have nothing but overwhelming support in doing everything possible.

We have to accept that the response of people in this country is not just emotional but practical. I was very struck when all parties in the local authority adjacent to where I live in Cumbria said unanimously—and this very much provides tangible evidence of the case that my noble friend was making—“We must do something. We want to do something. Will the Government help us in pulling our weight as a local authority?”. They were not bludgeoned or cajoled into it. They did it spontaneously. I am sure that my noble friend, who has a home up there too, knows what I am taking about. It was very impressive and I thought it was good: in this community, these values are not just something for individuals but something that the community as a whole is determined to put on record, and we must not let them down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I thought the noble Lord put his view very morally and I do not believe that it can be dismissed out of hand. However, the question I want to put to him is what would he do about the children who are already in Europe? That is the point: they are already there. As my noble friend said, we are where we are. Although there may be intellectual logic and force in his argument, we have a real situation.

[Baroness Neuberger]

Could I add to that? The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has put the specific number of 3,000 children in his amendment, and we know that these are very troubled children. The situation is particularly ghastly right now and we know that some of those children are disappearing. That sounds alarm bells for all of us.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

That 3,000 figure is the figure that Save the Children calculated specifically in relation to children who are already in Europe. That does not, of course, make it inviolable, but I am sure it considered the arguments because, clearly, it will know that those are the arguments that the Government have used. The Save the Children number was accepted by the all-party International Development Committee.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger]

My Lords, I shall confine my remarks to Part 2 of the Bill. I was honoured to be invited to chair the advisory panel on judicial diversity by the then Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, and to continue its work under the present Lord Chancellor, Ken Clarke. We made a number of recommendations and were absolutely delighted and not a little surprised to find that they were accepted by the Government in their entirety. For that reason, I wish to congratulate the Government, particularly the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who I know has thrown his personal enthusiasm behind all this, on what is proposed in the Bill so far.

In these provisions we have the beginning of a way forward. There is a real need for the judiciary to be more reflective of the community it serves, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, has said. As Lady Hale, the single female member of our Supreme Court, put it in evidence to the Constitution Committee:

“A woman litigant should be able to go into the Court and see more than one person who shares at least some of her experience. I should not stick out like a bad tooth, as I do at present”.

However, let us be clear. We did not think back in 2010 when we reported, and nor do we now, that increasing diversity in the judiciary would be a speedy process. Nor did we think that it was only for the Government to change. Legal professionals, the judiciary and some of our senior law firms will also need to take ownership of these issues. We were encouraged by the positive messages coming from some of the most senior judges in the land, but enabling judges in the most senior positions to work flexibly is only a beginning. Of course we need the legislation to make it possible but even more important, as the Minister said at the beginning of this debate, is a change of culture within much of the senior judiciary and beyond. They need to begin to think differently about how people might work and realise that things do not have to be done just as they always have been.

We know that flexible working is possible and that provisions have been made for sick and widowed judges to work more flexibly on an ad hominem basis in the past. If it is possible in these circumstances, it is possible and—for diversity and other reasons—desirable to do it more widely. So we applaud the measures in Schedule 12. We like the idea of,

“no more than the equivalent of 12 full-time judges of the Supreme Court, rather than exactly 12 judges”.

This provision, and the fact that it is being made, sends important messages to women with children, anyone with caring responsibilities and others for whom an absolutely full-time role might be difficult.

We also welcome the so-called tipping point provision in Schedule 12, which we also recommended. Clearly, these changes should not and would not change the overriding principle of appointments based on merit, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said. However, they should encourage clear career progression—a judicial career, rather than a career judiciary—and applications from a wider talent pool than at present

Let us be clear. We have a wonderful judiciary in this country. It is highly talented, highly independent, not always beloved of Government—nor should it be—and of great merit. None of this desire to increase diversity is in any way a personal criticism of the present judiciary. Perhaps I should declare an interest here as sister-in-law of the Master of the Rolls. However, he is on record as saying to the Constitution Committee:

“The main problem is the cast of mind. Most of us think of a judge as a white, probably public school, man. We have all got that problem”.

I agree absolutely. Even that does not begin to tackle something even more complicated, which is the nature of the selectors if we are not careful. When I gave evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee, I said:

“We all have an inclination to appoint people who are like us”.

I spoke from experience.

“I certainly found as Chief Executive of the King’s Fund that an astonishingly large number of middle-class, white, rather bossy women were being appointed”.

In jest I added:

“I cannot think why that should be”.

Of course, I can think exactly why that is, and I am eternally grateful to David Bewers and others at the King’s Fund who pointed out how we were appointing people and made sterling efforts to broaden and widen our pool. However, appointing people in our own image is a natural human reaction. That is why, where the judiciary plays an even greater constitutional role than it did in the past, it is so important that the judges should not be always in the majority—or arguably ever in the majority—in appointing people to become part of their own number. Like Lord Justice Etherton in his evidence to the Constitution Committee, I think that,

“the judges cannot be purely a self-appointing body”.

I am delighted that the most senior judges will not in future be involved in the appointment of their own successors. Having an independent lay person as chair of the selection panels for both the Lord Chief Justice and the President of the UK Supreme Court, rather than a judge, is a very good thing. I am also pleased to see proposals in the Bill to allow for easier transfer between the tribunals and the higher courts, which was one of our main recommendations for increasing diversity, given that the tribunals are by and large infinitely more diverse in their judicial membership than the other courts.

However, and now speaking personally and not as part of the advisory panel, I do not support the measures to give the Lord Chancellor the right to sit as a member of an appointing panel of the Judicial Appointments Commission. The idea of the Lord Chancellor sitting on the selection committee for the appointment of the Lord Chief Justice or the President of the UK Supreme Court worries me greatly. I have no doubt that this Lord Chancellor would be scrupulously fair and bend over backwards to do the right thing but he will not be in post for ever and he cannot guarantee his successors.

There is a constitutional issue here. The principle of judicial independence is an important one and that means that neither the Lord Chancellor nor Parliament should be given enhanced powers to decide who becomes a judge. That means that lay involvement of the highest calibre and the greatest independence is essential in the appointments process. That puts a huge burden on the Judicial Appointments Commission. It is early years for the JAC and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on all the work she has done to enhance diversity in her time, as has her successor, Chris Stevens. My panel was delighted to the see changes in the specific merit criterion about dealing fairly that were made recently by the JAC. One of the changes was to put in an awareness of the diversity of the communities that the courts and tribunals serve and a commitment to justice, independence, public service and fair treatment. We wait with interest to see how people applying to become judges measure themselves against those criteria in the coming few years.

The Constitution Committee argued hard that merit should remain the sole criterion for appointment. We also held that view strongly. The Constitution Committee did not consider merit to be a narrow concept based solely on intellectual capacity or high-quality advocacy. It said:

“We refute any notion that those from under-represented groups make less worthy candidates or that a more diverse judiciary would undermine the quality of our judges”.

We absolutely agreed.

Therefore, we are left with much to do. The advisory panel regarded it as essential to introduce appraisal for the judiciary on diversity grounds, having been told by many more junior judges and possible candidates for judicial office what a difference that would make. The Constitution Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has said, absolutely agreed and supported that. We know there are financial issues here, but we believe that it is possible to have a less than gold-plated appraisal system, fully owned by the judiciary itself—possibly even 360-degree appraisal to allow judges to feel confidence in their performance—which is particularly important for those who do not come from the most conventional backgrounds and legal experience. Benchmarks in the appointment of judges should be set and monitored, and the judicial diversity taskforce should own that benchmarking, examine it and take action regularly. Indeed, today’s Bill is evidence of the Government’s willingness to take these issues seriously. Sustained effort is also needed to improve things, and that needs to be made jointly by the judiciary, the professions and the Government.

I ask the Minister to assure me that the judicial diversity task force will continue to own this field and will benchmark and take action as necessary, with full co-operation with all those who need to be involved. I ask him also to say something about when funding might be found to allow for appraisal in the judiciary.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the chair of the APPG on Drug Policy Reform of which I am also a member, had planned to speak today but has had to attend meetings in Brussels. She asked me to say that she will contribute on that matter at later stages of the Bill, as I imagine will people on all sides of the House.

Immigration: Deportation

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Neuberger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what restraint methods are now used in deportations; and whether there has been any change of practice recently.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the vast majority of people who are being removed from this country depart voluntarily. There is a small category of people who resist. It is known policy that escorts may be used to control and restrain such individuals and that these techniques are accredited by the National Offender Management Service.

Following the death of Mr Mubenga, the UK Border Agency temporarily suspended the use of control and restraint on scheduled flights for a 10-day period between 15 and 25 October. That was for the purpose of carrying out an immediate review to see whether the techniques used on the aircraft were appropriate.

The use has been reinstated. The National Offender Management Service, which conducted this review, has said that there is no substantiation to the claims that have been made that the restraints being used were inherently dangerous. We are now going on to conduct more investigation of the appropriateness and utility of restraint. We do not believe that we have anything like achieved the last word. So I can assure the House that this issue, which I know is a matter of anxiety to us all, will be taken forward and that we are examining what needs to be done very thoroughly.

[Baroness Neuberger]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for her reply. It is very reassuring to hear what she said. Given the news that we are now to have a new contractor, Reliance, conducting these deportations, perhaps I may ask whether its contract will spell out in greater detail than hitherto what control can be used, and, indeed, whether the individual staff members will have to sign up to a code of practice. I think that that would give the House considerable reassurance.