UK Borders Bill

I support this amendment. During the previous day in Committee, we discussed how we establish the age of a youngster who can be assumed to be 18 years old. How certain is that assumption? People often come from places without birth certificates or documentation, and we could be committing a massive injustice if we assume the worst as far as age goes. We must always presume that a youngster was not of a certain age when an offence was committed. We discussed the difficulty of ascertaining a person’s age. Even now, in the UK, people are asked to show ID because they may not look their age: they might look much younger or much older. We are uncertain about age. When I was a boy, the film categories were A, U and X. In order to get into an A film, you tried to look as old as you could, and you never got into an X film because you could never look quite that age. There was always uncertainty about age. In parts of Asia and Africa, malnutrition and the ageing effect of poverty can often make age open to dispute. We know that half of applicants’ assumed ages were disputed in the UK. There are also cultural differences. The age of responsibility, of decision-making or of moral awareness might be more important that the physical age. In a place such as Zimbabwe, life expectancy is 34 years, whereas in Iran it is 71, and here it is about 77 or 78. Ages change in different places. I wish something other than the assumed anno domini age could be taken as the level with which we deal with these particular problems. I suggest that whenever we are imprecise or uncertain, we should take the kindly, compassionate way out and always presume in favour of the person who is supposed to have committed an offence, and never take the harsher way, which can result in tremendous injustice, as I said earlier.