Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)

Amendment No. 136 would remove the Secretary of State's ability to decide a person's age or to draw attention to the issue. The Law Society is among many that are concerned about the implications of clause 19(2) with regard to children. As it says, assessing age accurately is difficult, so the benefit of the doubt should be applied to children unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.

The British Medical Association has also said that accurately assessing the age of the child is extremely difficult, and almost impossible when the child is between 15 and 18. A Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report also found that it is not possible to make an accurate assessment of a child's age within five years either way. Those assertions indicate that there should be safeguards to the effect that in a difficult decision in the case of a child, the benefit of the doubt should be applied unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.

Amendment No. 137 is designed simply to ensure that the process is conducted in the child's best interests and in accordance with the internationally accepted norms and procedures. Like the others, amendment No. 241 is a probing amendment designed to safeguard against a practice that is not uncommon: distressing questioning of minors. Apparently, there is considerable evidence of that as a current practice, and the amendment would ensure that children have access to a lawyer and legal advice before they are questioned.

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