My Lords, I have two amendments down, and I very much support Amendments 14, 18 and 27 in particular. “The best interests of the child” has become well known across the United Kingdom. It probably started in the United Nations’ rights of the child. It is to be found, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, in the Children Act 1989, and all lawyers who deal with children work with it. It has become a guiding light, even for Governments of all sorts. It really is quite extraordinary that the current Government have gone almost exactly opposite to the rights of the child and, more important than the rights, the best interests of the child.
I have to say that over all the years that I have seen the Conservative Party, with all my family before me as Conservatives, and one a Minister, I cannot believe I have ever seen a situation where children were as disregarded and downgraded as this Government have done in this Bill. I cannot believe it represents what I might call the basic philosophy of a great party that has been in power, this time, since 2010. I am truly sad about it.
I have put down Amendment 16A, which is a probing amendment, as I need to know what the impact of the law is. I believe this came, though not to me, from the Children’s Commissioner for England. The scenario that she had in mind was a mother who was pregnant, who came to this country, the child was born and the mother died. The child was placed in care as a baby—I would be surprised if the Government kept a baby and did not put it to the local authority; at least I would hope so—and the local authority, because there was no family, placed the child for adoption with a British family or a family resident in this country. What happens to that child under this Bill at the age of 18? As far as I understand it, a child adopted by a British family would not automatically have British citizenship or may not have it—I am no expert on immigration—at the age of 18. Is that child, by now a member of a new family in this country, to be removed at 18? That is a legal question to which I do not know the answer, and it is crucial that that answer is given to us before we get to Report.
It is not only the children who are probably adopted at birth. I rather hope the Government are not going to keep young children, because there will be other parents who die and leave a child without a parent in this country, particularly younger children. Are younger children, not 16 or 17 year-olds, going to be kept by the Government in some sort of accommodation? Surely those children would be put into the care of a local authority under the requirements of the Children Act 1989. I would be astonished if they were not taken. If they go into care and they are young, they
are very likely to be placed in a foster family. If they are placed in a foster family as a young child, they will grow up going to an English school, like the baby, and living an English life.
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If they come from Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq or another country from which their family has fled, are they to be sent back there, where they may or may not have family? Or are they to be sent somewhere else, such as Rwanda? They may not necessarily be of white extraction, but they may not be of the extraction of the country to which they go, and they will not know a single person. When they have been brought up in a happy family in this country—most foster families are happy—I cannot believe that this Government can bring themselves to remove them at the age of 18. That is why I have put these two amendments down and strongly support the others.