UK Borders Bill

I pay tribute, as ever, to my noble friend Lord Judd for his diligence and passion on these issues. He has been consistent throughout our debate on the Bill, for which I applaud him. I have a fair measure of sympathy, if not to say empathy, with the position from which he is coming. I well appreciate the way in which the Committee dealt with these amendments. I was taken by what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said about detention, the necessity for it and the fact that in some instances it is probably in the welfare interests of young people and children that they are held in a form of detention when they are first caught up in the asylum and immigration processes. That was a mature reflection of his, and I expected nothing less. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said that we needed fewer statistics but a greater adoption of good practices. I entirely agree with him on that. As ever, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her observations on this issue. She is right that we need to ensure that we have the right package of measures in place so that child welfare issues are, and can be seen to be, dealt with properly in a decent and civilised society such as ours. Having said all those things, which I hope Members of the Committee will view positively, I am sure that they will not be surprised when I say that I must resist the amendments. However, I want to explain our policy on the immigration detention of children and some of the rationale behind it. I accept that the detention of children is an emotive issue and not one that should be approached lightly. Regrettably, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, it is necessary in certain circumstances. There are two limited circumstances in which children may be detained under immigration powers. The first, and most usual, circumstance is as part of a family group whose detention is considered necessary, most often as a precursor to removal. The second, and wholly exceptional, circumstance is where it is necessary to detain a child while alternative care arrangements are made, and then normally only overnight. I have made that point many times before, not only in this Committee but at Question Time and in some of our debates in the past few years. Our normal policy on unaccompanied minors is that they should not be detained. The one very limited exception is where children are encountered at, for example, ports of entry late at night, and there are no responsible adults in whose care they might immediately be placed. Such a child would be detained very briefly, usually for a few hours or no more than just overnight, until alternative care arrangements can be made with relatives or through local social services. The Government have been clear for many years that we cannot accept a fixed upper time limit to immigration detention, whether for families or for single adults. Our position has not changed. The current position is in line with the ECHR and associated jurisprudence, which require that detention should be for no more than a reasonable period and should not be prolonged unduly. What is reasonable will vary from case to case, and the actions of parents may of course prolong their detention. In practice, the vast majority of families are detained for periods of seven days or fewer, most often just before their planned removal from the UK. A fixed upper limit, as proposed in my noble friend’s Amendment No. 61, would serve to encourage individuals to frustrate lawful removal attempts in order to reach the point at which they would be released from detention. That is simply unacceptable. However, I reassure noble Lords that we are not complacent about the concerns about the detention of children. Children detained with their families are given a health-led initial assessment on arrival in detention and their welfare is monitored routinely thereafter. Detention is kept under rigorous and frequent review to ensure that any welfare concerns can be taken into account in deciding whether it should continue.