My Lords, I support Amendment 35. In Committee, I and a number of other noble Lords asked various questions to which the Minister responded that she promised to write to us. Well, I have not received a letter. I contacted her office this morning, checked with our Whips’ office, and—the right reverend Prelate is also shaking his head—there was no letter.
I was going to raise the question of children, but the right reverend Prelate has already dealt with that very well. The fact sheet came out at the end of last week. My reading of it was that, yes, families with children will potentially be offshored—which is, as the right reverend Prelate said, very troubling.
I simply return to a question I raised at the very end of our debate in Committee, when I said that
“a whole range of noble Lords asked a question, in different ways, about what happens to the asylum seekers if they are granted refugee status in the country to which they have been offshored. Are they allowed back into this country or are they just left there? If they are left there, they have, in effect, been deported.”—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1421.]
That seemed to me a rather basic question, and I was rather surprised that the Minister said that she could not answer it. I took her at her word that she would write to us, and she has not—so could she answer that question today, please?
5.30 pm