Contribution
My Lords, I was too late to put my name down to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I am sure she will understand that the points that have been made on the second amendment in this group largely apply to hers as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Harper, tells us that adults game the system. I agree, but safeguarding applies both ways, both if someone is assessed as a child when he is an adult—it is usually a he—and if he is assessed as an adult when in fact he is a child. The question that we have is: where do you start from? How do you approach this: that claimants are fraudulent, or that claimants should be believed until the contrary is shown—the benefit of the doubt, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, has said? Where is the greatest danger? It will be obvious from my signature to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, where I believe it is.
I think, too—I will accuse myself of this; I do not want to accuse others of it—that there is a cultural bias. I say that even though I have a lot of Middle Eastern blood in me, so I should not be as biased as someone who is an ancient Briton, but I have detected it in myself.
I accept that this is a hugely difficult area and that technology is advancing almost as fast as we can draft amendments, which makes it all the more difficult. I am sure it has advanced a long way since the time I was stopped at the Gare du Nord because I seemed not to be the same as the person shown in the photograph in my passport because I was wearing earrings, which meant that the distance between my ears was not the real one.
I asked a couple of Questions for Written Answer recently. On the first one I got generalised assurance, so I asked some very specific questions, which inevitably got an Answer about the Home Office providing further updates regarding testing “in due course”. In a way, the thrust of my question today is to ask the Minister how and when Parliament is to be updated on what is going on—not just Parliament but all the stakeholders. It is not word I particularly like but it describes the variety of people concerned with this.
The Answer to my Question of 6 October included:
“If and when this technology is used in live cases, full information and guidance will be available to those undergoing”
facial age estimation
“as well as to staff involved in the process”.
That suggests that the Home Office will stay in its silo looking at the issues and at the process, without involving all those stakeholders who need to be included—social workers, for instance. In the case of the second amendment it is social workers in local authorities, because it the local authorities that have to carry the can and look after children under 18.
I accept that the figures reported on GOV.UK are only up to quarter 2 of 2024, so I am making the point as a general one for all of us and not accusing the Government of anything, but they show that in three of the quarters the issue was resolved with the claimant being over 18. In fact, the numbers show that there was very little difference between those under and those over 18 in the particular quarters, but in the other five quarters considerably more were found to be less than 18, including 240 at less than 18 compared to 18 plus, 744 at less than 18—I am fudging my figures. I do not mean to fudge them; I am just making a mess off them because I have not written them out properly. But the differences in the numbers at less than 18 were considerably more than those found to be over 18.
The inspector made a number of recommendations. The formal response is that the Government have accepted them all. That is then followed by an explanation which, again, does not seem to be as precise as I, for one, would like it to be. I hope, in particular, where the Home Office has said in response to the inspector that the date of implementation will be December 2025—next month—that the Minister will agree to report on those various points very soon, perhaps in February, because December is not very far away. If things are going to happen in December, and I can see he is checking this, it would be very helpful for the House to know that a system is in place for reporting on what is going on.