My Lords, I want to show the importance of impact assessments. This goes back slightly to the discussion we were having under the last group of amendments, because only one impact assessment for the Bill has been delivered: the equality impact assessment, which talks about age. That is why I support many amendments in this grouping, particularly those in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.
Once you read the equality impact assessment, it starts giving you a real indication of what the Government’s thinking is for putting children—whether unaccompanied or with families—into this Bill and the impact they believe it is going to have. The first issue, they say, is that it is not direct discrimination against these young people; they call it indirect discrimination. It is quite direct when you are not allowed to stay in the country; it is quite direct when you are going to be detained at the will of the Home Secretary; and it seems quite direct that when you get to the age of 18 you are going to be told to go, never come back and never claim British citizenship. That does not seem like indirect discrimination; it seems very direct.
The equality impact assessment says:
“Any differential impact on these age groups is the result of a person’s conduct and is justified and proportionate in order to achieve the legitimate aims of controlling migration and reducing crime”.
The aim of putting children in is to cut not just migration but crime, which is quite interesting, because on 27 April I asked a Written Question:
“To ask His Majesty's Government, for each police force in each of the last two years, how many crimes were committed by people who arrived by small boat crossings; and for each police force, what percentage of total crimes committed that figure represents”.
Based on the Government’s equality impact assessment, they will have those figures, because it is going to reduce crime. The answer I got from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, was:
“The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. This information can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables. The Home Office does not hold information on perpetrators of crime who have arrived by small boat crossings”.
There is no evidence. I ask the Minister: what evidence do the Government have that including children, either accompanied or unaccompanied, will reduce the crime rate in the UK and by what percentage? It is in their equality impact assessment, so surely the Government have figures for that, otherwise it is just untrue—it is absolutely false.
The great and fascinating thing about this equality impact assessment is that it says: “The Department’s view”—not its evidence or empirical studies, but its “view”—
“is that the Bill should”—
not will but “should”—
“have a deterrent effect which can”—
not will or must, but “can”—
“result in fewer unaccompanied children arriving in the UK by dangerous and unlawful means”.
That is a nice sentence. There is no evidence; there is no study; there are no figures. It is a statement. I did some research, and I am very pleased that the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium has also done some, because the only significant research I can see was done in 2018 by the UNHCR, which was called Destination Anywhere. It was a review on the reasons why unaccompanied children choose the UK. I use the word “choose” inadvertently. The evidence does not support the Government’s assumption—this equality impact assessment is an assumption, not fact, as the words show—that an effective ban on asylum claims for children will stop children travelling regularly to the UK.
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For example, the UNHCR’s extensive research on the reasons unaccompanied children travel to the UK outlined a complex and nuanced picture. It found that children sought protection from violence and following the detention or disappearance of family. Most when they started out did not know where they were going. They did not have a label on saying “Please make sure this child gets safely to the UK”. Many had travelled with groups of youngsters for safety and companionship, often following peers. Those trafficked were susceptible to re-trafficking and even entering state care. Some suffered mistreatment en route. There was no map between their home and the UK.
What empirical evidence—not mere assumptions but facts—have the Government based their equality impact assessment on? The policies that we are now dealing with are based on their facts and their equality impact assessment. Therefore, the Committee must understand whether it is assumption or fact. The provision for young people being in this Bill, based on an assumption from the Government that it will stop them coming here, does not seem to stand up to the evidence when it is examined by others.