UK Borders Bill

I support the amendment. It is important that those children receive the protection that it proposes. I was pleased also to see the Minister’s amendment and look forward to learning more about it. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, set out clearly why the Government need not be so concerned about prolonged delays due to recourse to judicial processes. At Second Reading, I pointed out that concerns about application for judicial review are groundless, given that families already have ample and more effective means to do so through the Human Rights Act. I am sure that it is not the Minister’s intention to suggest that the welfare of those children is less important than that of others in this country, but I fear that if they reject the amendment, that mistaken perception may spread. I emphasise the importance of the amendment in encouraging the Government and their agencies more carefully to consider and plan for the vulnerabilities of those children and shall use Yarl’s Wood detention centre as an example. When a group of parliamentarians visited the centre last year, members of staff and the Inspector of Prisons expressed concern at the families’ lack of information on progress of their case. This ignorance greatly increases the distress of the families and seems hard to justify. I should be grateful if the Minister would write to me with details of how families are being informed of the progress of their cases and being given access to legal support. This is administrative detention; they are being held indefinitely without trial; they need information and advocacy for their protection and peace of mind. The Children's Commissioner highlighted that none of the children whom he met on his visit knew why they were detained. He said to the European Union Committee—I quote from column 2 of page 92 of House of Lords Paper 166: "““The starkest example I can give you is that on that morning, in the reception area, we found a distraught black child, impeccably dressed in his school uniform. I sat down and asked him why he was there. He said: ‘No one has told me’. I asked him: ‘What is going to happen to you?’ He said: ‘No one has told me’. I said: ‘What has happened through the day?’ He said that ""that morning he was dressed and ready to go to school. He went to the corner shop to buy a pint of milk and when he came back he saw his house surrounded by policemen and a white van””." With just a little careful thought, much more might have been done to assist children like that boy. Of course, an experience such as that will be traumatic, but the harm could be kept to the minimum. Perhaps I may give another example. Mr Liam Byrne has recognised that it is inappropriate to keep a few families—it is a few—for long periods of time in detention and Jeremy Oppenheim, the children’s champion, also recognises that. Why did the situation of a few families staying so long ever arise? At a visit last year, a random group of families was gathered by the director. Of the small sample that I spoke to, one mother and her two girls aged 15 and eight had completed five months and another mother with two infants had already spent two months there. Those are but a few examples of failing to consider quite simple matters which impinge strongly on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. I share another concern about making those children an exception compared with other children in this country and excluding them from the protection of the Children Act 2004. In, I think, 2001, I visited a children's home in north London. The remarkable manager, who had more than 30 years’ experience, expressed her resentment at having to provide beds to a number of Kosovan young men. I was too surprised to challenge her at the time and had no wish to criticise her while she was undertaking such difficult work with the support of staff, some of whom could barely write. Perhaps she felt that, after decades of neglect, social services were just too stretched to take on strangers. There is no doubt that asylum-seeking children can put an additional strain on a system which still, in many places, is grotesquely underdeveloped for a nation as wealthy as ours. Yet we recognise that such children are vulnerable; they may have been trafficked and may have been traumatised by experiences in their home country or on the journey here or by experiences since their arrival. While they are here, they are among our most vulnerable children and require protection accordingly. Our social care system and our immigration system face great challenges. Those people on the front line, the social workers and perhaps the case managers, often feel distressed by the nature of their work and under-supported. They risk burning out and losing the emotional capacity to continue to care about the vulnerable children and adults they deal with daily. In that context, it is unhelpful to draw such a clear distinction between children in the immigration and asylum system and other children. There are bona fide reasons to wish to attempt to manage the flow of people into this country. There is also the innate fear of the stranger and the need to hang societal flaws on others which manifest themselves repeatedly over time, most vividly to us in 1930s Germany. Distinguishing these children, giving the appearance that promoting their welfare is less important to us, may encourage those antagonisms or suggest that they should be given a lower priority. I welcome Her Majesty’s Government’s proposals but as no good reason has been provided to distinguish these children, I hope that they will think again. We should not exclude these children unnecessarily; as far as possible we should make them feel included while they are here and while informing them that they may have to leave. I also take this opportunity to express my disappointment at Her Majesty’s Government’s decision to keep the option of making failed asylum-seeking families destitute. The prospect of that terrible measure makes manifest the necessity to oblige members of the Border and Immigration Agency to give regard to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.