My Lords, Amendment 84C would provide for a trauma-informed approach to assessments of persons subject to immigration control or relating to modern slavery or human trafficking—not the first time this has been referred to during the course of the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for adding her name to this amendment. She has had amendments regarding codes of practice, but the whole issue has been central to much of the Bill. Government processes and actions should be trauma-informed.
Both the Ministers who have responded on these points have rested their arguments on asylum seekers having access to healthcare, but the point is much wider. I have attempted to spell it out in an amateurish way, but the point must be emphasised, even at what I described when making my notes as “stupid o’clock.”
1.45 am
The amendment would require guidance for caseworkers, among others, because they make assessments and assessments mean decisions. The guidance should follow consultation with the relevant professional bodies and it would also require training, with—I emphasise this, too—knowledge about trauma integrated into policy.
A point that has not been mentioned in this debate is that of achieving best evidence. I have based this on the MoJ and National Police Chiefs’ Council guidance on interviewing victims and witnesses of crime, Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings. To quote the MoJ, it
“promotes a strong victim-centred and trauma-informed approach.”
With the appendices, that guidance amounts to almost 250 pages, so I will not read it to your Lordships—or perhaps I should, to curry a little favour. It stresses the importance of this approach to interviews, including considering how trauma might affect the emotional well-being, behaviour and memory recall of those being interviewed.
Given the long-standing and very respectable genesis of ABE in that context—in fact, a psychologist who works with victims of torture told me it works very well as an approach—I hope the Government might accept that work on applying it in the immigration and asylum context would be valuable. I beg to move.