My Lords, my starting point is the treaty, which makes it clear that it does not cover unaccompanied children, as emphasised by the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration on Monday. My sole purpose has been to ensure that, in so far as it is possible, this treaty intention is upheld: that no unaccompanied child is removed to Rwanda because they have been mistakenly assessed as an adult. Wrongful age assessment happens all too frequently, given that the only safeguard, referred to repeatedly by the Minister, is that two immigration officers independently
determine age on the basis of a brief assessment of physical appearance and demeanour, which the Home Office itself concedes is notoriously unreliable.
The original amendment would have ensured the status quo ante: that no age-disputed child would be removed to Rwanda until any legal challenge through domestic courts and tribunals was exhausted, and it would have enabled such a challenge to be made on the basis of the facts, not just the law. This amendment in lieu is much more modest and in effect meets the Commons’ formal objection to the original amendment. It would permit an age-disputed child to be removed to Rwanda with a pending challenge on a limited basis, but only if a proper age assessment has first been carried out by a local authority. This would ensure that a Merton-compliant assessment is undertaken, and it is only at this point that so-called scientific methods would come into play.
It was clear that MPs including Dame Priti Patel and Mrs Elphicke, who argued against the original amendment by lauding scientific methods, did not understand that age-disputed children would be sent to Rwanda without any use of scientific methods, never mind the existing Merton-compliant methods. Yet as the Minister in the other place himself acknowledged on Monday,
“assessing age is inherently difficult”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/24; col. 666.]
In this House, the Minister stated on Report that this is “a challenging task”, and that a
“combination … of … methods will deliver more accurate age assessments”.—[Official Report, 6/3/24; col. 1584.]
However, without this amendment, there could be no combination of methods, just a brief, visual assessment that belies the challenging and difficult nature of the task.
6.30 pm
I will not repeat all the arguments—they were addressed on Report to the satisfaction of noble Lords, who voted in support of the original amendment by a majority of 84 from all Benches—but I point out that, if an adult pretends to be a child, as feared by some Conservative MPs and Ministers, they will still be sent to Rwanda, but following a proper assessment of their age. This is not an opening of the floodgates, as the Minister put it.
On the new argument—that it would be wrong to treat differently those to be removed to Rwanda from those to be removed elsewhere—I simply quote back the official response to the Constitution Committee:
“It is legitimate to treat people differently in different circumstances”.
The different circumstances here are that there is a treaty that makes clear that unaccompanied children are not covered by it.
This boils down to a simple choice that we face: either we can risk unaccompanied children being sent to Rwanda on the basis of unreliable, quick, visual assessments—despite the treaty making it clear that they should not be—or we can introduce a minimum safeguard to ensure that, at the very least, there is a proper age-assessment process that reduces the risk of such children being removed erroneously to Rwanda.
If we believe in safeguarding the best interests and welfare of children, surely the least that we can do is pass this compromise amendment. I beg to move.