My Lords, I have my name to a number of the noble Earl’s amendments. We have all received a considerable amount of briefing material. He just referred to the work of the Children’s Commissioner. I will use that as the basis for questions—not even that: I will simply read out some of the key questions that it is said need answering. There will be a certain amount of overlap with the noble Earl.
Will the statutory guidance on transition be revised as a result of changes made in the Bill? The noble Earl referred to that. We are all concerned about young people missing from care. The Children’s Commissioner asked:
“Will transfers from local authority accommodation to Section 95A accommodation by adult migrant care leavers be monitored to look at the impact the policy is having on the missing figures and to determine whether the new arrangements have been successful in encouraging former unaccompanied children to leave the UK?”.
I share the noble Earl’s observations about the likelihood or otherwise of these children going back.
Will the Minister clarify what happens to failed asylum seekers without status turning 18 who make further submissions under the Immigration Rules, resulting in either the grant of leave or acceptance of the further submissions as a fresh claim for asylum? Will this group return to being eligible for leaving care support from their former local authority? Will the Minister clarify what provision—whether under the Children Act 1989 or under Schedule 3—will be available to care leavers with no status who do not have a pending non-asylum application or appeal when they turn 18?
Our amendments in this group are all small probing amendments. As I know that the Minister’s briefing will refer to them, I will mention simply three types of amendments. One refers to an “application … of a kind”. This phrase occurs in two places in government Amendment 234G. Does that application of a kind refer to the leave which is applied for? I think that it probably does, but I was not sure about that.
A couple of our amendments seek to replace “may” with “must”. I am beginning to think that I might seek a debate just on this issue; I think that most Members of the House would take part in it. These provisions are about making regulations. The Minister will no doubt tell me that they will be made and therefore I do not need to worry. However, I do worry about these things.
Amendment 234X concerns regulations to be taken into account in making a determination with regard to accommodation and subsistence in new paragraph 10A of Schedule 9 to the Bill. New sub-paragraph (7) states that the regulations may specify factors which the person who is to take the decision,
“may or must take into account in making a determination”.
I would like to take out the words “or must”. I find it a very curious thing to give discretion to somebody to make a determination and then have two categories of factors to be taken into account, some of which the person may take into account and some which he must take into account. If you are giving somebody the job of making a judgment, I do not think that the judgment should be fettered in this way. However, the main points have already been made by previous speakers.