UK Parliament / Open data

Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023

I will raise one point which has not been raised. This Chamber should not be legislating when legislation is not required, and the Government have not set out what the problem is and what the statutory instrument will solve. The Minister was very clear in describing the number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum, and he was also very aware of the numbers where there was a dispute over age. He then went on to say that by using the Merton assessment, nearly 49% were deemed to be adults and 51% children. That does not seem to be a system in disarray, but a system that weeds out those who deliberately try to deceive regarding their age.

The key question to determine the problem which the Minister has not answered, and which I would like him to answer, is: of that 51% since 2016 who have been deemed to be children by the Merton assessment, how many have then been found to be adults? That is a key question because if that figure is minimal, there is no need for the statutory instrument because there is not an age assessment problem to be solved.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
834 c975 
Session
2023-24
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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