UK Borders Bill

It may help the Committee if I speak to Amendment No. 30, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in this group. That probing amendment would take children out of the new requirements on reporting in the Bill. Its purpose is to discover the Government’s intentions. I regretted not being able to take part in the previous debate, and would like to comment on what happens when we make the sort of mistakes highlighted in it, which we might be encouraged to make by implementing the clause without thinking about the needs of children. The right honourable Iain Duncan Smith recently reported about the impact on this country of the fragmentation of families, and if we intervene incorrectly there is a danger that our interventions will backfire on us. I think particularly of the four young men convicted recently for an attempted terrorist attack on the United Kingdom. One of them was an unaccompanied child seeking asylum from the civil war in Somalia at the age of 12. He was a Muslim, and was placed with devoutly Christian foster parents. I do not cast any aspersions at all on those foster parents, but for a Muslim child to be placed in a family so inappropriate to his culture perhaps demonstrates a lack of thought and a desperate shortage of foster parents. When we implement legislation of this kind, we must think of the need to manage migration but also the need to give children the right surroundings to thrive and contribute to society. They must not be left to feel downgraded, worthless or alienated. Another of the young men in the trial spent five years in Feltham young offender institution. I understand that that institution has improved recently, but he was caught up with an imam in it. That was an opportunity to give a young man a better education, training and hope for the future and, when we intervene in such ways, we must always seek to try to make the intervention positive and to not inadvertently undermine the development of children. I return more specifically to the amendment. I wonder why the social worker cannot perform the role of communicating with young people, to reassure the Government that they are not disappearing from the system. If the intention is to prevent absconding, why cannot the social worker prevent that by keeping in touch? It appears that the intention is to enable immigration officers to secure young people more easily for removal. If so, I would appreciate the Minister making that explicit. It is fairer to the young people to explain that the purpose is to facilitate their return. I hope that the Minister will consider whether the measure might prove counterproductive. We are talking about usually intelligent young people. If the purpose is to make detention and return easier, they will see that and may seek means to make themselves invisible. Is there a particular problem in deporting young people? If so, what does the Minister have to say about this possibly driving children underground and making the problem worse? It will certainly be distressing for them and may interfere with their education if they have to report in person. A more constructive approach might be for social workers and case managers to make the possibility of return clear from the earliest stage—provided that a child is not too troubled to be acquainted with that truth—to encourage continual contact with the child’s family in his home country where that is possible and safe, and for the Border and Immigration Agency to build on existing arrangements for voluntary assisted returns. Will the children and young people be near reporting centres, or be asked to travel long distances to report to the immigration officers? Will they be expected to be accompanied by a social worker, and will that add further stress on a system that is already overstretched? Will the travel costs be reimbursed? Will account be taken of the educational commitments of children and young people in these situations? I look forward to the Minister’s response.