UK Borders Bill

I am grateful to all who have spoken to the amendment: my noble friend Lord Roberts, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who was in favour of the spirit of the amendment although she believes that the same purposes can be achieved via Clause 11, to which we will come at a later stage. I should like to put on record the fact that I appreciate the difficulties the Minister mentioned in seeking compatibility between the obligations to safeguard our borders and to get those who do not qualify to remain back to their country of origin, including children and families, and reconciling that duty with the need to look after the best interests of the child. I was interested that at one point in his response the noble Lord said that the Border and Immigration Agency did look after the best interests of the child. That is precisely what we are asking it to do by making the convention applicable to the BIA. If the amendment is wrongly worded in that it would interfere with the specific functions of the BIA, we can discuss that. I should like some conversations offline with the Minister to see whether we could extend the exceptions to the application of the convention so that the other duties of the BIA, which he said the amendment would interfere with, could be included in the wording. In that way, if decisions were made on matters other than deportation, they would also be exempt from the judicial review challenges, which is what the Minister fears. I am interested not in the decisions of the BIA but in the BIA’s conduct. The Minister’s remarks about the duties of the local authorities, healthcare professionals and others towards these children were perfectly reasonable, but they are all bound by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I am feeling my way towards the application of the convention to officials of the BIA, except when they are exercising decisions on the removal of the child. If we can come to a formula that covers that, we will have achieved something even more extensive than Clause 11—and I look forward to conversations with the Minister on that subject. When we come to the conversations, I hope that the Minister will be armed with the information that I sought, which is on what has happened in other countries that have signed up to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly countries in the European Union, and whether they experienced any difficulty in controlling their borders as a result of having signed up to the convention and are putting in reservations similar to those that the United Kingdom has. If we find that France or Germany, for example, have signed up to the convention without reservations of the kind that we have entered into and have nevertheless not encountered the sort of difficulties with immigration control that the Minister fears would happen if we did so, that would have to be taken into consideration. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 16 [Conditional leave to enter or remain]: