As I said on Second Reading, I support the premise of the Bill. Too many people’s lives are put at risk on small boats, and it is important to break the model of the people traffickers. We are also spending millions of pounds—indeed, billions—of our aid money on hotels for tens of thousands of people in the UK. That money should be spent on helping millions of people elsewhere in countries such as Sudan. I have just met representatives of Save the Children from South Sudan, who told me of their expectations that children who need help will be coming across the border. Without help, such countries will become even more unstable. More people will be forced to flee their homes, so more people will try to get on the small boats.
The small boats route is also extremely unfair. No country has an unlimited capacity to support asylum seekers. Those who arrive by illegal routes reduce and limit our capacity to provide the safe and legal routes that will help the most vulnerable. As I said on Second Reading, the introduction of new safe and legal routes needs to go hand in hand with closing down illegal routes. I am extremely grateful to the Government for listening to that point, and I have co-signed new clause 8.
On the issue of how children should be treated, I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration for meeting me and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and listening to our concerns. I know that the Minister takes the welfare and safeguarding of children very seriously. I understand that we must be careful not to create perverse incentives for people traffickers that force them to target even more children and send them on small boat crossings, but depriving a child of their liberty is a very serious issue.
We have very strict rules in this country regarding the protection of children. I am very proud of those rules, many of which were introduced by this Conservative-led Government. Depriving a child of their liberty can have a serious and long-lasting effect on their mental health, so there need to be very strict rules. That is why I am a signatory to amendment 183, which makes it clear that a child’s liberty can be restricted only for a very limited period.
I am grateful to the Minister for listening to my concerns on the subject and to those of other former children’s Ministers. I listened closely to what he said at the Dispatch Box. I thank him for his assurance that he will work with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to set out a new timescale on the deprivation of liberty issue. That timescale needs to be clear, and it needs to be set out in the Bill. It should be a handful of days, not a number of weeks. That is necessary to make sure that children are prioritised, because children are often those who are most at risk.
I agree that we need to be wary of the risk of creating an increased incentive for more adults to claim to be children. I recognise that some of those who claim to be claiming asylum are actually adults. However, roughly 50% of those whose ages are in dispute are children, and many of them will be very vulnerable. We need to ensure that there are short timescales for genuine, known children, but also that there is proper safeguarding for those whose age is disputed.
Another point of concern that has been put to me is that children who know they could be removed when they turn 18 may be at increased risk as they near their 18th birthday. They may be tempted to abscond from care, and may then fall into the hands of deeply worrying people and become subject to the modern-day slavery about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) speaks so eloquently. Members need to consider these risks, and to ensure that the Bill and the way in which it is implemented will not make vulnerable children even more vulnerable.