Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 7B in lieu—

7B: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—
“Age assessment of unaccompanied children
In section 57 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Decisions relating to a person’s age), insert after subsection (6)—
“(6A) If a person is to be removed to the Republic of Rwanda, subsection (6) does not apply and in this section “relevant authority” means a local authority, within the meaning of Part 4 (age assessments) of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which has conducted an age assessment of the person under section 50(3)(b) of that Act.”””

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, my starting point is the treaty, which makes it clear that it does not cover unaccompanied children, as emphasised by the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration on Monday. My sole purpose has been to ensure that, in so far as it is possible, this treaty intention is upheld: that no unaccompanied child is removed to Rwanda because they have been mistakenly assessed as an adult. Wrongful age assessment happens all too frequently, given that the only safeguard, referred to repeatedly by the Minister, is that two immigration officers independently determine age on the basis of a brief assessment of physical appearance and demeanour, which the Home Office itself concedes is notoriously unreliable.

The original amendment would have ensured the status quo ante: that no age-disputed child would be removed to Rwanda until any legal challenge through domestic courts and tribunals was exhausted, and it would have enabled such a challenge to be made on the basis of the facts, not just the law. This amendment in lieu is much more modest and in effect meets the Commons’ formal objection to the original amendment. It would permit an age-disputed child to be removed to Rwanda with a pending challenge on a limited basis, but only if a proper age assessment has first been carried out by a local authority. This would ensure that a Merton-compliant assessment is undertaken, and it is only at this point that so-called scientific methods would come into play.

It was clear that MPs including Dame Priti Patel and Mrs Elphicke, who argued against the original amendment by lauding scientific methods, did not understand that age-disputed children would be sent to Rwanda without any use of scientific methods, never mind the existing Merton-compliant methods. Yet as the Minister in the other place himself acknowledged on Monday,

“assessing age is inherently difficult”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/24; col. 666.]

In this House, the Minister stated on Report that this is “a challenging task”, and that a

“combination … of … methods will deliver more accurate age assessments”.—[Official Report, 6/3/24; col. 1584.]

However, without this amendment, there could be no combination of methods, just a brief, visual assessment that belies the challenging and difficult nature of the task.

--- Later in debate ---

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not wish to intervene in this little local argument. I thank noble Lords who have supported my Motion E1 with very strong arguments. I thank the Minister for reading into the record Article 3(4). I did not do that because I wanted to save time, but he makes my case for me: the treaty makes it clear that we should not send underage or age-disputed unaccompanied children to Rwanda. That is what this amendment is about.

However, the Minister has shifted his ground, because in previous iterations, he talked just about the two independent immigration officers who were going to provide the assessment based on appearance and demeanour. Now, he is talking about social workers, but how many of those poor children get that far? I do not know whether he can answer that question; I suspect that he cannot. I have not heard anything from the Minister that undermines the case that I and others have made on behalf of these children. I therefore wish to press my Motion and seek the opinion of the House.