My Lords, I speak wholeheartedly in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who I would call our noble colleague. I thank her and the Refugee Children’s Consortium for all they work they have done in putting these amendments together. I want to stray, as I do sometimes, to the words of David Lloyd George in 1919, when he said that he wanted to build a world,
“fit for heroes to live in”.
We want to build a world fit for children to live in. That is what we aim for and that is why here, as elsewhere, we are emphasising the best interests of
children. I do not need to speak to the amendments at great length as the arguments have already been well presented to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.
Amendment 33 would require that the courts must first establish what are the best interests of any affected child before going on to consider other factors. Amendments 40, 42 and 45 would take into consideration children who have been in the UK for less than seven years. Why should a child not qualify for family rights just because they have been here for less? What about children who are under the age of seven? How should we respond to their needs? They do not fall into the Bill’s current definition of qualifying children whose welfare must be taken into account.
Mention was made of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which this week published its second legislative scrutiny report. The report stated:
“We welcome the Government’s acceptance that a deprivation order should not be made without taking full account of the impact on the whole family unit, and with regard to the best interests of any child affected. To ensure that the best interests of the child are treated as a primary consideration, as required by Article 3 UNCRC, we recommend an amendment to the Bill which requires the Secretary of State to take into account the best interests of any child affected when deciding whether to make a deprivation order under the new power”.
As has already been mentioned, there is an impact on so many people in so many different ways. There is the impact on fostered children. Clause 14 invites judges to consider whether an individual has a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a child when deciding whether to deport or remove them. However, this does not take into account children who are fostered. We will speak about them later in Committee. The removal or deportation of their carer would have serious consequences for those children. That should be taken into account.
The Government are arguing that it will normally be straightforward for children who have lived in the UK for less than seven years to accompany their parent and adapt to life abroad, but that ignores the fact that, in two-parent families, the parents may well be divorced. Little children will have to face the appalling choice of leaving one parent behind in the UK or being split from the removed or deported parent for the rest of their childhood. The organisation Bail for Immigration Detainees produced a report in 2013 called Fractured Childhoods. We should all look at that as it contains some compelling and powerful examples.
Why, if the Government believe that children’s best interests will be properly considered within Clause 14, should not the need to safeguard children be made explicit in the Bill?
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