My Lords, I will speak to Motion N1. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for tabling Amendments 22B to 22F.
I simply seek some assurances from the Minister on behalf of the British Dental Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium.
First, when the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, sought the opinion of the House on Report, she noted that
“we need to know more about the ethical response”.—[Official Report, 8/3/22; col. 1285.]
I and others raised concerns voiced by the BMA, the BDA and others that to use dental X-rays in particular where there is no clinical justification is unethical. Yet neither in Committee nor on Report did the Minister really address this concern. Can he please do so now and provide some reassurance to these bodies and to us?
Secondly, following on from what the Minister said, can he provide an assurance that the statutory guidance will continue to make it clear that there must be reason to doubt an age claim before any age assessment is made?
Thirdly, will the Government seek and publish the agreement of the relevant medical bodies before any scientific method is approved for use? I was partially reassured by the meeting the noble Baroness referred to with the interim chair of the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee, but it is still important that formal agreement is sought from the relevant medical bodies. Can he confirm that the Minister accepts the interim committee’s recommendation that scientific advice should be used to decide whether a claimed age is possible rather than specify what that age is? Will the same principle apply to the holistic decision made in any age assessment?
With reference to the committee—this echoes what the noble Baroness said—in the Commons the Minister agreed to take away the call for it to include a practising dentist. Is the Minister in a position to give a commitment on that point today?
Finally, can the Minister provide some reassurance with regard to the insistence on the use of Home Office social workers? That has caused considerable concern among members of the consortium given their record hitherto, which has been found wanting by the courts. The lack of independence is even more worrying given Wendy Williams’s update on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, which suggests that progress in reforming Home Office culture has some way to go. Her report says:
“I have seen limited evidence that a compassionate approach is being embedded consistently across the department”—
that is, the Home Office. Is it surprising that there is considerable suspicion of the lack of independence in what is proposed?