Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

Perhaps the Minister will indulge me further. I am concerned to know whether it is the Government’s view that unaccompanied children should be interviewed on their own rather than be accompanied by a representative, a guardian. I say this particularly because the recent report says that there is sometimes a culture of disbelief among some of the officers when they conduct interviews. The report gives as an example the case of a girl who was 12 years old when she arrived in the UK. She was raped and made pregnant by the man who brought her here. The UKBA refused to believe that she was trafficked even though it knew that she had had a termination and that the police were investigating the case. This is obviously a fairly serious charge. But, above all, if children are to be detained—that horrifies me enough—in these circumstances, at the very least, they should have someone to represent them and to speak on their behalf, if necessary.