My Lords, Clause 13 disapplies the duty to consult the Independent Family Returns Panel in respect of those families who fall to be removed under the provisions of the Bill. The Independent Family Returns Panel provides independent advice to the Home Office on how best to safeguard children’s welfare during a family’s enforced return. The panel has no decision-making responsibility, as the noble Lord, Lord German, observed, in respect of whether a family is returned. Instead, the panel considers how the specific welfare needs of the children and family are met and comments on the suitability of detaining a family in pre-departure accommodation pending their removal from the- United Kingdom.
While I recognise the valuable role performed by the Independent Family Returns Panel, a key feature of the scheme provided for in this Bill is that those who arrive in the UK illegally are promptly returned to their home country or removed to a safe third country. It follows, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, observed, that the intent is underlined by the fact that we need to remove all barriers to such prompt removals, and it is therefore necessary to disapply the duty to consult the panel in the case of those families to be removed pursuant to the duty in Clause 2.
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That said, as Mr Jenrick said in answer to Caroline Nokes, we remain in open dialogue with the Independent Family Returns Panel about the role it can have in the removal of those families with children who fall within the remit of the Bill. I remind the Committee that the Independent Family Returns Panel will continue to play an important role in the removal of families with children who do not fall within the remit of the Bill—for example, those who are to be removed having overstayed their leave to remain.
All that having been said, I ask that Clause 13 stand part of the Bill.