My Lords, the purpose of this stand part debate is to discover the rationale behind the Government’s disapplying the existing duty to consult the independent family returns panel prior to a decision to detain or make removal arrangements. The independent family returns panel was established to provide advice to the Home Office on safeguarding and welfare plans for the removal of families who do not have permission to remain in the UK. The IFRP comprises professionals with a range of relevant experience across the professions of social care, education, police and medical doctors. They look at the safeguarding and welfare needs of families with children who face an ensured return.
Removing the independent safeguard prior to the detention of children or families with children again increases the risk of arbitrary detention, without adequate regard to the best interests of the child, contrary to the duty in Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to treat the welfare of children who are in the UK as the primary factor in exercising
immigration functions. In its evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody gave the view that
“the removal of this independent oversight … risks the safety of children during potentially dangerous enforced removals”.
The questions I have for the Minister are, first, why did the Home Office consider it necessary to remove this duty to consult, where the panel is purely advisory and has no decision-making capacity? Secondly, if the Bill is enacted and the time limit on the detention of children is brought into force, the IFRP will have an even greater role in ensuring that the welfare and safeguarding of children is properly taken into account in their detention. How can the disapplication of the duty to consult the IFRP be justified in this context?
Thirdly, the IFRP was introduced in the wake of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, when the Government introduced Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, which replicates Section 11 of the Children Act 2004. We already have a sense of the duties which Section 55 of the 2009 Act placed on public bodies to carry out their functions. This is a case where we could very much do with an independent assessment of what the needs are. How does the Home Office propose to meet its duties under the principle of “every child matters”, and under Section 55, in relation to children subject to removal and detention if it gets rid of the expert advice it has been receiving to enable it to do this?
Fourthly, what measures are being put in place to ensure that similar protections are in place once the IFRP’s work ceases? The Home Office’s fact sheet on detention states that the Bill limits
“the duty to consult the Family Returns Panel in relation to the detention of accompanied children”.
Does the Minister acknowledge that this is misleading with regard to what Clause 13 will do? For example, is Clause 13 much broader than what is stated in the fact sheet?
Fifthly, the role of the IFRP is to ensure that any use of detention is for a limited period and only that which is necessary. Given its absence, what measures will the Secretary of State have in place to ensure that detention is used only for a period that is necessary for a child’s removal? What timescale does the Secretary of State envisage to be reasonable to detain a child for the purpose of removal?
Finally, without the advice of the specialist panel, what measures will the Secretary of State put in place to support children not only while they are detained and removed but in the event that they are released after the traumatising experience of a period in detention? Those are a number of probing questions we would like answered in order to judge the impact of this clause.