Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister for his reply and I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendment. I would say to the noble Lord that, listening to his reply, it struck me that there is a whole hotchpotch of bits of protection here and bits of protection there, but the one thing that would ensure that there was someone—an adult who knew what they were talking about—on that child’s side when they were trying to find their way through the morass of rules regarding asylum is the one thing that the Government will not do. That would be a catch-all to make quite sure that the child actually made use of all these various bits of protection that the Minister mentioned. It is a bit like rolling a dice; you either come up with a one or a six; you either land on Park Lane or Go to Jail. It sounds like an awful mess to me, but I am a lay person. Perhaps I may mention one or two specific matters in relation to the Minister’s reply. He slightly mistook me when I referred to the PACE code of practice. I was not suggesting that a child who is an asylum seeker finding himself in a police station would not have the same right to an appropriate adult as a citizen child. I was trying to draw a parallel between that provision when a child might be suspected of committing a minor offence and the protection that the child does not have when addressing the legal system on a life-changing matter such as that child’s asylum status. The Minister mentioned the local authority; it is not adequately resourced to fulfil the effective functions of a guardian, as set out by the UNHCR and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Besides, the guidance to that convention states that, "““agencies or individuals whose interest could potentially be in conflict with those of the child’s should not be eligible for guardianship””." Indeed, there is a potential conflict of interest for local authorities, particularly in carrying out age determinations of young people, because there will be resource implications if it is determined that someone is a child and if the child is in need of other services from the local authority. It is clear that we are not getting anywhere with the Minister, perhaps because of the constraints that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, hinted at earlier. This matter is of great concern and of passionate interest to other Members of this Committee as well as me. Although I will of course withdraw the amendment for the moment, I would not be at all surprised if we heard more about it.