UK Borders Bill

I am not going to express a general view on this, because it would be unwise to do so. One has to look at these things on a case-by-case basis. Destruction of documents relating to someone’s immigration status is a very serious criminal offence. Sometimes, it can be indicative of a general desire on the part of an individual to escape the effects of our legislation. It makes it much more difficult for immigration law enforcement purposes. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to a debate that we had last week on reporting restrictions. We had a full-ish debate on that, and I am not going to go over the points that I rehearsed then. I made the point during that debate that there was a child protection benefit to the placing of reporting restrictions and there was a general encouragement to keep in contact with services as a product of that, which was accepted as being a beneficial move forward in some regard, even to critics of our approach. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made some useful points about retrafficking in particular, which I will come to in a moment. She also raised the issue of giving assistance in the production of evidence. I have made a poor note there, but will try to find an answer to that—if not today, then certainly in correspondence. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked what efforts we were making to trace missing children. The Border and Immigration Agency is currently working to tighten up our policy and the process of reporting missing children. A working group has been set up, led by Kent Police, a procedure has been agreed to, and a pro forma has been developed to report potentially missing children. The noble Lord will have picked up on my concerns, and those of others, about children who go missing from care. I remain puzzled as to why and how that could happen. However, I know that it is difficult in those circumstances to provide absolutely as full a protection as the authorities charged with that responsibility would like. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made reference to victims being retrafficked. We recognise and acknowledge, as do other European states, that it is impossible to guarantee absolutely the safety of individuals on their return, but we can take steps to minimise some of the risks which may be present. In every case where we are considering the possibility of returning an individual, we will very carefully take into account our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and a full consideration of the case will include an examination of the assessment for that country. We look at evidential matters. To achieve that, we must work closely with NGOs such as the International Organisation for Migration, which runs a voluntary returns programme to offer those who return voluntarily the support they need to be safely reintegrated. Of course the Government provide reintegration assistance to that end as well. In addition, individuals accepted on to the Poppy Project scheme will have the option of returning to their country of origin and are given information and support about organisations in their country of origin which can assist in that process. The noble Baroness also asked about how we identify victims of trafficking and how we can improve this. We have developed a best practice toolkit with NGOs which is now working to the benefit of immigration staff, police officers and other professionals who come into contact with victims. The important thing about that checklist/toolkit is that it aims to raise awareness of the difference between trafficking and smuggling. There is clearly a distinction there. I made reference earlier to training that was undertaken. That is clearly an important work in progress and something we need to do more of. I hope that I have answered most of the points. This has been a very useful discussion and debate, building on the debate that we handily had the other week, instigated by the noble Lord, Lord Sheik. I had hoped that I was going to be able to say to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that I had despatched the correspondence to which he referred. I thought that I had, but it is possible that I have not. I will go back and check my correspondence record again, redoubling my efforts. I know that there were a lot of issues which ran quite widely in that debate. I fully acknowledge that it is an important debate to fully respond to.