Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

Noble Lords will note, being terribly observant, that I am not my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Around about now, I hope, she is emerging from theatre, having had an operation on her foot. She will not be in the House for a few weeks, so I am afraid that I am picking up amendments from my noble friend. I apologise for not having taken part at Second Reading, but the timing of the operation was uncertain, so this is where we have got to. I am moving Amendment 136 and will speak to Amendment 187, both in the name of my noble friend. They propose two new clauses which would address the rights of children. Most of us will understand—and I hope and believe that most of us accept—that we in the UK regard the rights of children as enormously important and that, when making decisions, we have always to keep in mind the best interests of the child. These will often be British children or children resident in Britain. To set out a couple of points of context for this, I note that, as many will be aware, Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is about the best interests of the child being at the centre of decisions. Article 5 talks about the importance of parental guidance for children and children’s rights, and Article 9 says that separation from parents should be avoided wherever possible. Let us think about what it means for the child if a parent is deported. I refer to some testimony from an organisation called Bail for Immigration Detainees which talks about what it is like when a child sees their parent facing deportation. Obviously, it is devastating when families are torn apart and children face never seeing their parent in the flesh again. If a parent is deported to, say, Jamaica or India, it will be extremely expensive, perhaps impossibly so, for the child ever to be in their arms again. There are also the practical considerations. Families have arrangements. They take children to school, with employment fitting around it—one parent takes the children to school while the other is working. All those arrangements fall apart very suddenly, and the child is the one who suffers. That is the context of these amendments, which the two proposed new clauses seek to ensure that the Bill addresses. Amendment 136 would amend the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act to address the rights of the child. As the explanatory statement sets out, it “seeks to ensure that an Article 8 ECHR human rights claim by a foreign criminal sentenced to less than 4 years’ imprisonment can succeed if certain conditions are met”. This is about a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a qualifying child. It is about the reality of children’s lives, not just this year or next year but for the whole of their childhood. Amendment 187 would insert into the Bill a new clause providing a “Duty to have due regard to family unity”. Again, this would put the rights of the child front and centre in the exercise of all immigration and asylum functions. It would apply to the Secretary of State, to immigration officers exercising immigration and asylum functions and to the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal in deciding human rights appeals. We hear a lot about the problems and difficulties in our society. If we are to be a caring society that prepares our young generations for the future, I put it to the Committee that these two amendments would be a step in the direction of making sure that—as we so often claim to do—we put the rights of children first for the future, for all of us. I beg to move.