UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I also support Amendment No. 5 to which my name is attached. Our discussions arise from Section 11 of the Children Act 2004, which put a duty on all authorities with any responsibility for children to safeguard and promote their welfare. Schools are excluded from that Act, but they are covered by a different provision. Children in prisons and police stations are covered. The only children not covered by that protection are children in the immigration system. The history of this approach dates from 1997. The Government charged Sir William Utting to produce a report following many years of scandals in children's homes. The report was People Like Us: The Report on the Review of Safeguards for Children Living Away From Home. In his report he placed strong emphasis on ensuring that: "““Departments of State, and agencies with responsibilities for children, should include safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in their principal aims””." The amendment would ensure that the Bill would promote the welfare of these children. Sir William developed his principles further in later reports. He recognised that safeguarding had to be an active process. We must strive to create an overall environment of excellence if we are to succeed in protecting our children where we have failed in the past. Your Lordships may be aware of the Yarl’s Wood detention centre where families have been held for two years. Originally, it was a category C prison and was simply converted to take families and single adults caught up in the immigration system. Staff from Yarl's Wood were drawn from the custodial sphere. There was little understanding of children in its setting up. It is an example of where children are protected from harm—staff are not allowed sexually or physically to abuse those children, so they are safe enough in that sense. However, it manifests an active process. One should be thinking, ““We are setting up an establishment here for very vulnerable children and families. How can we make sure that the welfare of those children is promoted as far as possible given the circumstances? Of course, we must ensure that there is a strong emphasis on social care professionals in setting up this institution. We would not dream of putting these children in a converted category C prison that has bars””. I am pleased to hear about the hostel that the Government now propose to move families into. But we should be using that active process and thinking through what we should do if we really want to protect children—if we are serious about that. That is what is omitted at the current time and needs to be caught. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, referred to the Government’s concern about judicial review and the legal opinions that have been brought forward by the Refugee Children's Consortium. Of course, the Government have recently tightened restrictions on judicial review. The Government should be reassured by those steps that their concerns are not well founded. The difficulty is that we are distinguishing these children from all the other children in this country. We say that ““every child matters””. The Government’s legislative framework for children in this country is probably the best in Europe in terms of legislative protection, but then we single out these children from all the other children in the country. That cannot be helpful. We are stepping away from the bitter experience of all our failures in the past in children's homes and other settings, which has informed the thinking that found its fruition in the Children Act 2004. To my mind, it would be most ill advised of Her Majesty's Government to choose at this time to separate the safeguarding and welfare promotion in their thinking about protecting children. I hope that the Minister can move some way forward on that. I welcome Clause 21, which is a step in the right direction.