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UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 23: 23: Clause 21, page 13, line 29, at end insert ““and their welfare is promoted”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, these amendments have been drafted, like my previous amendment on safeguarding children, by the Refugee Children’s Consortium. The unfortunate and very close defeat on my earlier amendment on Tuesday has ensured that the Border and Immigration Agency will not be given a legislative duty to promote the welfare of children. We have heard nothing encouraging from the Government about inserting the duty into the code of practice, on which this amendment would insist. I hope, however, that we can prevail upon the Minister to rethink his position on this. The importance of this duty has been much discussed during previous stages of the Bill, and the Government’s objections on the grounds that it would interfere with the agency’s ability to carry out its primary function have been effectively dismissed. I assure the Minister that we do not intend to give up our efforts on this and I hope eventually to extend this protection to cover the whole of the Border and Immigration Agency. We will be looking to raise this matter at appropriate points in the future. I look forward to hearing again what the Minister has to say on Amendment No. 24 following his hint on Tuesday. I hope that, in this matter at least, the Government have decided to accept what the House was saying and address our concerns. I set out my thinking on this issue in the debate on Amendment No. 5 and I shall not go through those arguments again. Suffice it to say that it will be illogical and irresponsible if non-governmental organisations which provide government services are not held to exactly the same standards as government agencies. The Minister gave us a copy of the high-level code of practice and we understand that this will be included in some way. I hope very much that he will be able to give us further reassurances on that this afternoon. I beg to move.