UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I understand that this amendment has been tabled because of concerns about proposals contained in our consultation paper, Planning Better Outcomes and Support for Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children. I am not going to duck the question, as the noble Lord suggested, but it might be helpful if I set out some of the background for those noble Lords who were not present in Grand Committee when a similar amendment was debated. The consultation paper put forward a number of proposals to reform the arrangements for how unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are treated through the asylum and care process. One of our proposals is to make greater use of dental X-rays for the purposes of assessing the age of young asylum seekers where there is doubt about the person's claimed age. As some noble Lords may be aware, in recent years there has been clear evidence of a rising level of serious abuse of the asylum and support system by adults claiming to be children. We believe that this can lead to very serious child protection issues, with adults potentially being placed among vulnerable children in the care system or children being wrongly routed into an adult system which can lead to their being detained. It is therefore imperative that we and local authorities work closely together to improve the reliability of age-assessment procedures. We have been working to that end. In recent years we have relied heavily on the skills and knowledge of social workers. While it is still our view that a social worker's assessment of age should be an integral and essential part of the age-assessment process, we believe that a dental X-ray can be a useful additional tool in the overall decision-making process, particularly where there is a continuing dispute as to the outcome of the age assessment. As noble Lords will be aware, some local authorities already arrange a dental X-ray and subsequent report by an expert in the field to assist in their final decision.