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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I am enormously disappointed with the Minister’s reply. As he read out his brief he might have anticipated that I was going to be disappointed. I found the response bland and I found it completely unsympathetic to the points that were being raised. There seems to be an absolute lack of comprehension of the reason behind this amendment. It has been found that you cannot prosecute for the trafficking of babies—which happens—and the very young child who cannot be in the position to know they are being trafficked. They are being exploited, not necessarily for drugs, but they may very well be being exploited for sale, adoption or another reason. This is so important that there is no question that I will not come back to it. We are being advised strongly by people who represent those who have to deal with this problem and who understand the legal situation that the law is not strong enough. The law cannot do what it says it is meant to do. Simply, for the Minister to think that I will walk away from this is probably to misunderstand me. We will not walk away from this; we will come back to it on Report. If, in the mean time, the Minister would like his officials to help us to get an amendment that will absolutely close this loophole, I will be very happy to discuss it with anyone. If we do not get that situation, we will divide the House, and I think that we will win. For today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 112B withdrawn.