Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I cannot think of a more important amendment for our deliberations than this one. I was previously a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and both in our examination of legislation and its practice in the context of UK immigration policy—and more specifically and more recently in our examination of the UK Borders Bill, now Act—I do not misrepresent the situation in saying that we, as a committee, became disturbed by the predicament of children. Children in that situation have sometimes been through unimaginably traumatic experiences. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has put the issue so well: if certain principles apply to children in our own immediate society, those principles should apply at least as much to children in this kind of predicament. I toyed with whether I should make this point because it is seen within the internal politics of my own party—no more widely—that perhaps I am trying to score points: I am not. I was very moved in the autumn when the Prime Minister made his remarks in his speech to conference about children. He said that he wanted to live in a society in which all children were included in the provisions to be made, not some children. I do not believe that this legislation, as proposed, meets the Prime Minister’s passionate pronouncement on that issue. For that reason, if for no other, I urge my noble friend to consider how he can turn the Prime Minister’s personal commitment and passion into a specific reality on the face of the Bill. In our deliberations in the Joint Committee on Human Rights, we began to fear that children would be seen primarily as part of the immigration problem. Children are children; everything else is secondary. They are children and, as such, what we as a civilised society have spelt out as appropriate conduct and support for children must apply to those to whom the amendment refers. I express my profound gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for having moved the amendment. I sincerely hope that my noble friend can respond to it.