UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I am delighted that the Conservative Party has embraced these amendments. There is huge support in the country for them and the Minister will have to take note of that. We need this in legislation. When the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked whether the Minister had read the code and had found the words ““children in detention””, I could not help but look at the Bill and I could not find anything about children in detention. I do not think that the Government have grasped this potentially major election issue. I hope that the Minister will not give us a smokescreen. The draft code of practice is a smokescreen and not the real thing. Who are these children? I shall comment briefly on them because I have just returned from Afghanistan. My eye was caught by the Home Office statistics for the first quarter of this year which shows that 1,000 Afghan unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are coming here every year, amounting to 38 per cent of the total and the highest percentage in eight consecutive quarters. Having just come back from that country, I appreciate why families are trying to get away. I do not appreciate why the Government are not taking account of individual groups of children. Perhaps the Minister can make reference to that. There is a duty of care. I mentioned a case from Kosovo in Grand Committee where a family was divided in a dawn raid and taken to Yarl’s Wood in various components—some were in hospital and some were not. The Home Office is not taking this issue seriously enough. I warmly support the amendment.