My Lords, as the mover of the lead amendment in the middle of the night on 9 February, I will speak only briefly to support Amendment 64 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Green. I do not support Amendment 64A, however well intentioned, because I worry about its perverse effects and the huge costs involved.
The background to my concern is that I have been utterly appalled by the number of asylum seekers pretending to be children—1,100 migrants in the 12 months to September 2021, as reported in the Daily Mail. I do not apologise for the fact that it first drew
my attention to this dreadful situation. The numbers are growing as the numbers crossing the channel in boats grow, allowing for seasonal variations, although the Home Office is trying to reduce the focus on this by scrapping regular figures. This is the subject of my later amendment.
The incentives to cheating on age are substantial in terms of treatment, housing and support. I am worried about the wider implications: mature boys put alongside vulnerable girls in school can wreck their progress and even lead to abuse. Mixed ages in social care are a recipe for disaster and it can be worse than that: remember the Parsons Green bomber pretending to be 16 when he was much older?
The Government are right, therefore, to introduce new processes for conducting age assessments and to set up a system in support in the Bill. There seems to be agreement on this but, as has been said, much is left for regulation.
I was very glad that my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton acknowledged on 9 February —in the middle of the night—that we had raised a valid safeguarding issue. I thank him for that. I was pleased to hear that the Government are planning to monitor and evaluate the impacts of the policy and to develop the evidence base further. Unfortunately, that does not solve the problem the House of Commons amendments sought to address. We will have missed the boat for clarifying the law and introducing the certainty that authorities need to run a fair and safe system.
I am clear that we must have an effective and rigorous system of age assessment, not one that gives the benefit of the doubt to those saying, without documentation, that they are minors and encouraging the traffickers. The noble Lord, Lord Green, has exposed the problems with the system proposed and I feel that we need a better response.
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