Contribution
I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister for her Amendment 57, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her Amendment 27, which has stimulated a discussion. I am grateful for the letter that I received today from my noble friend Lady Longfield, in which she asked me to support my noble friend Lady Lister’s Amendment 57. We have had a number of contributions, and I will try to refer to the issues that have been raised. I was grateful for the chance to have a meeting with the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Brinton, to discuss these amendments. I do not think my noble friend Lady Lister was present—I have had so many meetings that I lose track.
There is general consensus to date that age assessment is a difficult area of work and that no single combination of assessment techniques is able to determine chronological age with precision: Members from all sides of the House have raised that issue. The Government take it extremely seriously and the amendments are right to press the Government on the issues we have raised. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put her finger on the difficulty, sometimes, of age assessments, and this is self-evidently a difficult area for us to examine in detail.
I will mention the report from the independent borders inspectorate. It is important to say at the start of this discussion that the Government accepted all eight recommendations, several of which are in progress—the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and my noble friend Lady Lister, among others, referred to that. They include plans to proactively engage with local authorities—a point the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made—social workers and key stakeholders to advance progress on the recommendations. I hope that, throughout this, Members of the House will recognise that the Government take this issue extremely seriously.
Amendment 57 seeks to incorporate an age assessment measure into the Bill. The proposed clauses would change the current age threshold for a “significantly over 18” policy from 18 to 21, with written reasons, and would put this on to a statutory footing. Initial decisions on age are an important first step to ensure that individuals are routed to the correct immigration process. Immigration officers currently treat an individual as an adult only where they have no credible and clear documentary evidence proving their age and two Home Office staff members independently assess that their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are significantly over the age of 18. This approach to initial decisions on age has been considered by the Supreme Court and held to be lawful.
The Government believe that “significantly over 18” is the right threshold, and that raising this even higher would present significant safeguarding risks by putting adults into settings with children. The principle of doubt remains a key element of the policy. Where there is doubt that an individual is not significantly over 18, they will be treated as a child pending further assessment by the local authority—the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised this. This is extremely important because, obviously, if an individual is deemed to be over 18 and is not, that presents safeguarding risks—and vice versa: if an individual is deemed to be under 18 and is actually over 18, that equally presents safeguarding risks. So it is extremely important that we examine this individual point in some detail.
The important question of data has been raised, and I gave assurances in our meeting with the noble Baroness and the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, that we are collecting data and that the Government expect to resume publishing age assessment data in early 2026. We have developments now representing a significant advancement in technical infrastructure, enabling the more accurate and consistent recording of key activities. Therefore, the up-to-date age assessment data is not currently published, but work is under way to develop improved recording and reporting on those issues. I hope that addresses the amendment seeking to place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to lay annual reports on this data. We will have that data very shortly and I hope we can publish it.
There has been significant discussion—the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Harper, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, made reference to this—of the facial age estimation technology and its use in age assessment processes. I refer noble Lords to the Written Ministerial Statement on this subject issued by my colleague the Minister for Border Security and Asylum in July 2025. Facial age estimation is indeed currently being explored by the Home Office as a potential assistive tool in the age assessment process.
To go back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Harper, mentioned, further testing and trialling has been commissioned, with the intention of developing this technology further in late 2026. The results of this testing and the necessary validation are required before any final decisions are made on how best to implement this technology. However, the exploratory work that we have undertaken has shown that the technology is continuously improving, as evidenced in the emerging scientific literature, including the recent report issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which shows that the potential is there for this to be of assistance.