Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful for this amendment, which provides an opportunity to explain more clearly what we mean by welfare in Clause 53. This is an important point, which we have not yet explored in our debates on the clause. Perhaps I may stick to that and not range so widely into the numerous areas raised by the noble Lord, which I do not think are exactly pertinent to the point on welfare. However, I should like to offer the noble Lord and the noble Baroness a meeting with officials to talk through the number of things we are doing to address quite a number of those issues that have been raised. They are not directly pertinent to this, but if that would be found to be useful, I should be very happy to do that. I am sure that can be arranged with officials. It is valuable to bring up the point about welfare. As noble Lords know, the intention of Clause 53 is to mirror as closely as possible the effect of Section 11 of the Children Act 2004. We want the border force to be on the same footing as other public bodies which have significant dealings with children so that we can improve interagency working and be more effective in the way in which we jointly safeguard and promote the welfare of children, which I think all of us in this House will agree is extremely important. For that to happen, all agencies involved need to share the same understanding of what we mean by welfare. In fact, DCSF’s statutory guidance on Section 11, the guidance on which we intend to draw heavily for Clause 53, already defines the word ““welfare””. It may help if I quote from paragraph 2.7 of that guidance which states: "““In this guidance, welfare is defined … in terms of children’s health and development, where health means ‘physical or mental health’ and development means ‘physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development’””." The following paragraph states: "““Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children””," is defined as, "““protecting children from maltreatment; preventing impairment of children’s health or development; ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully””." The existing definition of welfare focuses on those elements which are most crucial to children’s well-being. It is a tried and tested definition and well understood by those in the field. I see no merit in creating a new definition specific to the border force, which I am sure is not what the noble Lord intended. I am also sure that this is a probing amendment. Not only would this risk distracting staff from the priority areas I have just outlined, but it would also risk causing confusion in relations with other bodies working with children and thus undermine the very objective we are seeking to achieve with the clause in the first place. I hope the noble Lord feels I have justified the Government’s position and understands that we wish to focus on the most crucial needs of children. The duty in this Bill is a significant step forward in the way that the border force will deal with children and it should be as closely aligned to the expectations of other organisations as possible. I shall be very happy to write to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on the point that he raised. I hope with this explanation that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.