UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I am certain that my noble friend will not accept the amendment; it is not difficult to make that reckoning. However, I urge him to get the message, which is very clear. I congratulate the noble Earl on his deep commitment to these matters and on once again having challenged the House. I simply make the point that either children are central to our policy considerations or they are not. If children are central, each individual child matters. They are not just statistics. At all stages in the treatment of children, when they are confronted with officialdom, a primary concern in the ethos should be, ““Here is a child caught up in this situation; what are our responsibilities to this child?””. I do not believe that we begin to fulfil that ethos unless we are prepared to get on record exactly what we are doing and how it is being done. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made the point again—it has been made in our deliberations on previous amendments—that there can be a big difference between policy, genuinely and sincerely made with real commitment, and its application. That means that one has to win the ethos; one has to win the commitment of people at all levels. If one is to do that, people need to know what is required of them.