My Lords, I express the Green group’s support for everything said by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee, Lady Lister, Lady Neuberger and Lady Ludford, and for all the attempts to rein in the Government’s intention here. We have all received many briefings addressing this, but I shall refer to that from the British Association of Social Workers, which speaks of the Government
“ploughing ahead despite warnings from the sector”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, those warnings of course include the absolute medical experts in this area. If we were to take advice here from either the medical experts or Migration Watch, I know which I would take.
I want to make one observation and take the Chamber back 12 hours to when the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, in an Oral Question on international development, spoke about a child being born in Sudan on the floor, with the umbilical cord severed with a stick. Think about what the life of a child growing up in those circumstances is like. That child will probably look, sound and behave differently from a gently nurtured child in the British environment. It may be hard to identify their age, but they are still developmentally a child. They still have the vulnerabilities of the British child; indeed, given all the experiences that they have likely been through, it is not hard to imagine that they have far more vulnerabilities, which we have a responsibility to protect. That responsibility is moral, but also legal.