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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I shall certainly write to the noble Earl on the latter point. The system is not exactly the same, but of course private contractors are operating in the field. I shall write to him with further clarification. On Clause 41(6), dealing with issues of committing an offence, we would not apply this provision to children. Children may be frightened, speak little English and have no idea what is going on. They may try to run away or perhaps might lash out—that is always a possibility. One issue to address is to ensure that staff are properly trained to hold a child. The noble Earl knows well from our discussions on children with special needs and behavioural issues that this is an important point. The point about obstruction in paragraph (c) is aimed at lorry drivers who seek to obstruct searches and therefore would not apply to children. We seek to ensure that children are kept in safety if they seek to run away. If the paragraphs apply at all, it would be for those reasons. However, in no sense would they be committing an offence; that would not apply.