I am grateful to be called to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will make sure that I leave the Minister sufficient time to respond to the points that have been made. I will keep a close eye on you, and if you think I am not leaving adequate time, I am sure you will indicate firmly that I should sit down.
I support what the Minister said in rejecting Lords amendments 16 and 24. I very much want us to deal with those who have been trafficked and victims of modern slavery, but I want us to implement a system that will apply to all children who have been trafficked, and a system that works. I want that decision to be informed by the pilots that the Minister is conducting.
That is because in England and Wales the local authority has the legal responsibility to look out for the best interests of those children. In some local authorities, that system works very well, but in many it does not. The legal position is clear, but what is important is not what the law says, by itself, but how it is implemented.
That is why I want to make sure that the Minister runs those pilots and looks at their results. He has clearly stated that he will make sure there is an enabling power in the draft modern slavery Bill and that the detail of how we bring these powers into effect can be informed by the pilots. He gave a very clear commitment at the Dispatch Box to use what is learned from the pilots to bring that into force. That is a sensible procedure. I agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field): I think there is no disagreement in the points made by him, by the Minister and by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who has long experience of these matters. We all want to achieve the same thing, and I want to make sure that it is done in the most practical way possible.
I welcome the moves in amendments 5 to 9 and 29 to 34 to put on to the Statute Book the Government’s current policy on the family returns process. I previously gave some commitments at the Dispatch Box when this matter was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and when the Bill was going through Committee, in saying that the Government would bring forward those amendments in the House of Lords. I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleague, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, were able to do so. That is a great step forward that locks these provisions into place.
The manuscript amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) are not helpful. The issue of an individual living in a household with the child is important. Otherwise, those who have no right to be in the United Kingdom but who happen to have a child here for whom they have no parental responsibility and with whom they have no contact will use that child as a legal tool to avoid being removed from the UK. What is worse, it would encourage people who have no right to be in Britain—a judge set this out clearly in his legal judgment on a specific case in which he jailed the relevant couple—to have children for the specific purpose of avoiding removal from the country. That is not in the interests of children or of the proper working of the immigration system, so I urge the House not to support the manuscript amendments.
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My hon. Friend also addressed the provisions in Lords amendment 8 on the detention of unaccompanied children. I can think of a clear example. She mentioned the need to put children in contact with social services, but relevantly qualified officials are not always immediately available if a child turns up. If there is a delay of a few hours while waiting for a social services person to turn up, the child will, for their own protection, be detained by a Home Office official. That is, technically and legally, detention. If Home Office officials did not have the power to do that, there would be nothing to stop the child leaving the port of entry and potentially coming to harm. I do not think the Minister would be carrying out his duty to protect such children if he allowed that. It is a common occurrence. If Members talk to staff at
ports, they will realise that social services officials are frequently not available immediately when unaccompanied children turn up. Technically, therefore, those children are detained. There is a limit on that detention and I think the proposal is sensible.
Overall, the bulk of the Lords amendments are sensible and I hope they will be accepted. I think that the Minister has good reason for wishing us to reject two of the Lords amendments, and I do not think the manuscript amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central would improve the Bill. In fact, I think they have the potential to damage the interests of children and I hope the House will reject them.