Lord Davies of Gower:

Moved by Lord Davies of Gower

114: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—“Decisions relating to a person’s age(1) This section applies if a relevant authority decides the age of a person (“P”) who meets the four conditions in section (Duty to make arrangements for removal) (duty to make arrangements for removal), whether that decision is for the purposes of this Act or otherwise.(2) If the decision is made on an age assessment under section 50 or 51 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, P may not bring an appeal against the decision under section 54(2) of that Act.(3) Subsections (4) and (5) apply if P makes an application for judicial review of—(a) the decision mentioned in subsection (1), or(b) any decision to make arrangements for the person’s removal from the United Kingdom under this Act which is taken on the basis of that decision.(4) The application does not prevent the exercise of any duty or power under this Act to make arrangements for the person’s removal from the United Kingdom. (5) The court or tribunal must determine the application on the basis that the person’s age is a matter of fact to be determined by the relevant authority; and accordingly the court or tribunal—(a) may grant relief only on the basis that the decision was wrong in law, and(b) may not grant relief on the basis that the court or tribunal considers the decision mentioned in subsection (1) was wrong as a matter of fact.(6) In this section “relevant authority” means—(a) the Secretary of State,(b) an immigration officer,(c) a designated person within the meaning of Part 4 (age assessments) of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022,(d) a local authority within the meaning of that Part, subject to subsection (7), or(e) a public authority within the meaning of that Part which is specified in regulations under section 50(1)(b) of that Act (referral of age-disputed person for age assessment).(7) This section applies in relation to a decision of a local authority which is a decision within subsection (1) only if it is for the purposes, or also for the purposes, of the local authority deciding whether or how to exercise any of its functions under relevant children’s legislation within the meaning of Part 4 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.(8) For the purposes of this section, the cases in which a relevant authority decides the age of a person on an age assessment under section 50 or 51 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 include where a relevant authority is treated by virtue of regulations under section (Age assessments: power to make provision about refusal to consent to scientific methods) of this Act as having decided that a person is over the age of 18.(9) This section applies only in relation to a decision which is made after this section comes into force.(10) The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 is amended as follows.(11) In section 54(6) (appeals relating to age assessments)—(a) omit the “and” at the end of paragraph (a), and(b) at the end of paragraph (b) insert “, and(c) section (Decisions relating to a person’s age) of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (decisions relating to a person’s age).”(12) In section 56(1) (new information following age assessment or appeal), for paragraph (b) (and the “and” at the end of that paragraph) substitute—“(b) an appeal under section 54(2)—(i) could no longer be brought (ignoring any possibility of an appeal out of time),(ii) has been finally determined, or(iii) may not be brought as a result of section (Decisions relating to a person’s age)(2) of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (age assessments relating to removal under that Act), and”.”

My Lords, we all agree that our system must be fair, and that there must be opportunities for proper dialogue and challenge when decisions are made about an individual’s age. That is right, and it is in keeping with our values. However, it is equally clear, and can be argued, that the balance has shifted too far in one direction. We have seen repeated last-minute legal challenges which have little merit but which succeed in frustrating or delaying removals. These are not genuine safeguards; they are tactical devices often deployed to prolong a person’s stay and undermine the integrity of our borders.

Amendment 114 seeks to restore the balance which we identified in government by reintroducing Section 57 of the Illegal Migration Act. It would ensure that factual decisions on age made by the appropriate authority could not be endlessly relitigated as a matter of opinion before the courts. Legal errors could still, rightly, be challenged, but the endless recycling of disputes over fact would no longer come at the cost of our border security. The Government would retain the power they currently have to remove those who they determine should not remain in the United Kingdom.

If we are to reduce the numbers and regain control of this issue, the Government must have the flexibility to act decisively once the facts have been properly determined. That is the balance we strike here: a system that is fair but firm; that is open to genuine challenge but closed to vexatious delay.

Furthermore, Amendment 115 is about ensuring that we have the tools to make accurate, authoritative determinations on the age of those who arrive here illegally. This information is not a minor detail; it shapes the protections a person is entitled to, the facilities in which they may be placed and the level of safeguarding that must be applied. To make decisions that are safe, appropriate and in the best interests of both the individual and the wider community, we must have reliable information.

If someone is genuinely under 18, it will be reflected in a scientific assessment. These methods are objective, evidence-based and independent of political or personal bias. If an individual refuses to take such a test without reasonable grounds, it is right to assume that they are an adult. If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to refuse. The Government must be able to act on accurate data, not guesswork, which means having the power to require credible scientific verification of age. I do not understand why the Government are removing this set of powers from their remit with the passage of the Bill. I hope the Minister can take this opportunity to update the Committee on what mitigating measures, if any, the Government are proposing if they are insisting on removing the powers they already have, which were introduced by the previous Government.

Finally, Amendment 200 would require the Secretary of State to make regulations to specify scientific methods for assessing a person’s age and to disapply the requirement for consent for scientific methods to be used. This amendment speaks to the principle that I have already outlined: if a person lands in the UK illegally, the Government have a right and duty to understand how old that person is. If the person in question refuses to co-operate, this cannot be a way for them to frustrate the determination and removals process. The balance that I discussed earlier can be reached only if these powers are maintained and if the Government retain the authority to take action, whether a person consents to an age assessment or not.

These amendments are about maintaining the tools the Government need to act decisively on the basis of authoritative information and without being hamstrung by vexatious delays. We cannot afford to slip into a system in which removals are paralysed by endless backlogs, where spurious challenges proliferate and where factual determinations are relitigated to no end. We struck the right balance when these provisions were first drafted: fair but firm; open to genuine challenge but closed to tactical obstruction. If the Government truly believe that removing these powers will have no adverse effect, they must explain why to the Committee. Otherwise, they should reintroduce them, so that those who they themselves have determined have no right to remain can be removed swiftly and the integrity of our immigration system can be preserved. I beg to move.

My Lords, I support the amendments on age assessments moved by my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower.

When we ventilated these issues in 2023, when we were looking at the then Illegal Migration Bill, we had a very good debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, was very voluble and passionate about this issue, as one would expect of her, and as we have come to know and love during the course of these debates. However, I think the public have moved on. When we debated the earlier clauses of the Bill, we talked about the crisis of confidence and the lack of public support for any actions taken by parties in government, whether Labour or Conservative. That crisis of confidence is worse than ever now. I do not think that it is improved by anecdotal and media portrayals of people who are quite obviously young men and not children, but who are purporting to be children and using various methods to thwart the reasonable expectation of most people that they should be removed because they should not be allowed to settle in the United Kingdom on a permanent basis as asylum seekers.

Therefore, we have to use our common sense here. I regret the fact that the Government seem to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said earlier that it was a moveable feast, but in fact, she is now a compatriot of the Government on many of the proposals. I know she has always been a compatriot of the Minister, as they both hail from north Wales. However, we have moved on significantly since we debated this issue two years ago. People expect fair and equitable treatment of minors and people purporting to be minors. Therefore, we have to use our common sense.

Often, it is young men—disproportionately so—who are arriving without any identification. They will have disposed of their passports or ID cards and will therefore be able to make the case that they are children or very young people, and there is no identification to disprove that notion. The appearance of young people over 18—facial growth, bone structure, beards and so on—decries the idea that they are allegedly children. They look over 18. Across the world, artificial intelligence and scientific methods are used to ascertain the precise age of young people.

The Government should look more favourably on these amendments, because they were put in the earlier legislation for good reason. I specifically support my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth’s Amendment, and Amendment 200, because this is not being done surreptitiously; it is being done in the open. You will be able to test the veracity of the scientific assessment, judge it against international comparators and get scientific experts in anatomy to test whether these scientific assessments work. A blanket ban on a reasonable scientific assessment is not the right way to proceed, particularly as this will be a relatively small number of people. There will be a relatively small number of young men claiming they are children. A robust scientific regime to test that and, more importantly, parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of the regulations the Minister will lay before the House for this scientific assessment and method, is a reasonable position to adopt.

If the Government are seeking to persuade the electorate that they are serious about and committed to tackling the egregious abuses of our border, they must recognise that people pretending to be children—forcing often cash-strapped local authorities to find them a school place or provide a statement of special educational needs and other contingent liabilities and funding—is an issue of public importance, safety and security.

I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is champing at the bit to disabuse me of my notions. It is unfortunate that the Government and the Minister, for whom I have huge respect, as he knows, have seen fit to remove this provision for no particular reason. He has not made the case for why he is doing that. Therefore, he needs to think again. Hopefully, he will have better news for us on Report. In the interim, naturally, I support all four amendments.

My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly, before the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, because I am unhappy about these amendments. I was very relieved when the Government put forward a situation that would not support them.

I was invited by the charity Safe Passage to attend a drop-in session at its drop-in house in London, where I met two young men. Safe Passage was absolutely satisfied that both of them were 16. They were Afghans; one had a beard, and the other had a moustache. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, seems to me to be unsafe, because what we are looking at is Europeans. Europeans do not normally get beards and moustaches under the age of 18, but those who come as refugees and asylum seekers come from all over the world, where they grow up and mature much more quickly.

I was extremely relieved to see the approach of this Government and very disturbed to see these amendments, which I hope will not succeed.

Before the noble and learned Baroness sits down, if I may, for the avoidance of doubt, I was not arguing that it would be merely a subjective assessment or value judgment of appearance: it would be complementary to a robust scientific method, which would be tested both in this House and by other scientists in the course of the work. It would not just be a border officer saying, “You look like a 21 year-old”. The amendments make reference to scientific assessment, which would be an important complementary safeguard that might address the particular concerns of the noble and learned Baroness.

I am very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, says, because he did talk about common sense and looking at a person. That is what encouraged me to speak. When I met those two young men, I absolutely took the view that they were over 18, but I was disabused, not only by their age, which was identified, but by the fact that I had been thinking in European terms. That is the danger of what is being said by the Opposition.

My Lords, I had better rise at this stage to introduce my Amendment 203H. As with my last amendment, the mysteries of grouping have left me slightly confused, because this amendment does not actually relate to the Illegal Migration Act. This is an amendment which I offer to the Home Office as a sensible amendment that will save public money. It will be a sensible and useful use of time, and I implore the Minister, who I know to be a sensible and reasonable person, to look at this carefully.

Amendment 203H refers to the National Age Assessment Board, which was set up under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, before I was in this House—I know there are some noble Lords here who remember the debates about that particular Bill. The Bill presently before the Committee does not repeal any provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act. The National Age Assessment Board was set up by the 2022 Act to bring into the Home Office the system whereby those who claimed to be minors would be assessed. Prior to these provisions coming into force, that was done by local authorities. What had routinely been the case was that a person who purported to be younger than 18 and who wished to challenge a decision would then seek a judicial review of the assessment made by the local authority. There is a whole run of cases in which the courts considered what the test should be, on judicial review, of a social worker’s evaluation of the person’s age. Across the country, different local authorities had different approaches.

In a case called A v Croydon, the Supreme Court, led by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, determined that age assessments would not be made on the usual basis of a judicial review. As noble Lords will be well aware—and I am sorry that I am teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, but in case there is anyone watching who does not know this—a decision on judicial review is not normally taken by means of a court looking at the decision afresh, considering the evidence and taking a decision for itself; instead, what the court does is to look at the decision to see whether it is lawful and not unreasonable in the public law sense, which is classically defined as being so unreasonable that no decision-maker could have reached that decision —the “Oh gosh” test, as it has been described previously.

What the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, said in the case of age assessment was that the age of the individual was a question of precedent fact, and so it should be determined by the consideration of evidence, which is incredibly rare in the Administrative Court. Because it was set by the Supreme Court, that is still the law. What happens today is that, if somebody seeks to challenge a decision of the National Age Assessment Board, they go to the Administrative Court, which, in accordance with the practice direction, transfers it to the Upper Tribunal, and it goes off for oral and expert evidence, at enormous expense. So the Upper Tribunal judges have to listen to the evidence and then evaluate for themselves what the age is.

I suggest to the Committee that that is not the correct approach, and I do so for this reason. The National Age Assessment Board was specifically set up in the 2022 Act and has been carried on, I am glad to say, very sensibly, by this Labour Administration, to bring in-house the making of age-assessment decisions, to gather together expertise and to provide training to those who make age assessments of those who claim to be under 18. These are the experts in assessing age—I see the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, shaking her head, but I am afraid I disagree with her. These are the people who know exactly what is going on, in a way that when it was diffused across the local authorities was not the case. So the National Age Assessment Board is the expert body. As such, the conventional position in public law is that the court should defer to those expert bodies and overturn their decisions only in the event that they have done something which is illegal in public law terms—so either Wednesbury unreasonable or otherwise unlawful in public law terms, without an assessment of the evidence.

With that little bit of background, let us just look at the amendment. I really want the Minister to consider this carefully. It seems to be a cross-party point, but it will accelerate the pace at which disputes about age assessments can be resolved, save a huge amount of public money and use the resources that are available to the Home Office in the best way.

The proposed new Clause says that it applies to all decisions taken by the National Age Assessment Board. There is an option in rare cases for local authorities still to make decisions; those, of course, would not be caught by this clause—that is in subsection (1). Subsection (2) says that this applies only if there is a judicial review of the age-assessment decision. Subsection (3), as I am sure the Minister will have seen, requires the court or tribunal determining the judicial review application to determine that application on the basis that the person’s age is a matter of fact to be determined by NAAB and not by the court—this has the effect of reversing the decision in A v Croydon—in light of the new statutory regime which this Government have enacted. Accordingly, as it says at subsection (3)(a), the court or tribunal

“may grant relief only on the basis that the decision was wrong in law, and … may not grant relief on the basis that the court or tribunal considers the decision mentioned in subsection (1) was wrong as a matter of fact”.

That provision restores the law to where it was prior to A v Croydon, and it appropriately reflects the level of deference to the expert decision-makers in this field. As a result, I strongly commend Amendment 203H to the Government.

My Lords, I am very grateful to both noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Jackson, for thinking that they absolutely know where I am coming from, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, at least, might be relieved to find that we are on slightly more common ground than he believes. I am going to start backwards; I am going to start with the Amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray. I happen to have with me the SI on age assessment of asylum-seeking minors, because a number of us did regret Motions for that on 27 November 2023. Initially, the Home Office, of which I think he was a Minister at that point, said that, as per the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee report from October 2022,

“the Home Office will not use the scientific methods to determine an age or age range, but rather use the science to establish whether the claimed age of the age-disputed person is possible”.

Possible is not scientific fact.

Forgive me for intervening. I should clarify that the National Age Assessment Board is not using scientific methods, so my Amendment has nothing whatever to do with scientific methods. The National Age Assessment Board is using conventional social work methods to identify age.

I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s Intervention. One of the problems is that social workers are using exactly those techniques—perhaps not in full, but they are. What is more, the NNAB social workers are paid through the NNAB by the Home Office. They are not independent, which is the other key point we wanted to make. I am very grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said at the start. He said that the public had moved on. But, as a former trustee of UNICEF, I say that my priority has to be the protection of young people who are under 18, and an arrangement for those where it may not be possible to decide that exactly—and we have had many debates about all that.

The issue is not just one of public satisfaction. The public may be very irritated by the young men who are clearly over 18 who are doing this, and that is fine for the system. Those of us who are bringing back amendments, probably on Monday, want to make sure that it is not happening the other way round: that people under 18 are being deemed to be adult. We know that this has happened and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me that we might finally see some data on this. Every time I have asked over the last three or four years, there has been no data about those who are deemed to be 18 and over who were under, and, indeed, the other way around. That is important for the Home Office, because it needs to understand about provision for those who are in this very small group, who need to be looked after in a slightly more special way.

By the way, not every young person who is under 18 who goes to a school is going to have special needs. They may need some language support, but not necessarily special needs. They may need emotional support if they have come from a war zone such as Sudan but, if we are saying that they are awaiting assessment as asylum seekers, that is something that this country really ought to be prepared to look at. So I am much more cynical about the NNAB being as truly independent and clear as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, was making out. Those of us who have amendments will go over this in detail next week.

I want to go back to Amendments 114 and 115. Young people having no right of appeal contravenes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child. They absolutely must have support in complex issues, particularly in a country where they may not speak the language. When the official Opposition were in power, they also refused to let young people who were having age assessments carried over have any access to legal or advisory support during that process. They said it was not necessary. But I have to say that those European countries that use age assessments all have independent support for these young people from that Government’s own process. I particularly pray in aid the Netherlands, because it was cited by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, when he was at the Dispatch Box in the past.

These protections are built in because we have a formal duty to look after those under 18 and, yes, it may be difficult to work out if some are, but we will know about most of them. I really think that the first two amendments need to be reviewed, and I do not think we can support them. I can remember when I read the first full report: it is not as clear as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said. There is always talk about ranges. I do not know about noble Lords, but I have a son of six foot four and he was certainly sprouting a beard by 16 or 17 and was already over six foot. We make mistakes, and I absolutely support what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was saying. You cannot just assume that that is right and, if we get it wrong, you have a young man—they usually are young men—who is put into an adult centre. They then are at risk, and that is on us as a country.

I absolutely applaud the laudable work of UNICEF. The point that I was attempting to make was that we must focus our efforts on weeding out those who are clearly, as she concedes, not reaching the age criteria, so that we can focus on those in most need, who have suffered terror, despotism, trauma et cetera.

Taking the noble Baroness back to the appeals, what is the alternative? If you have an open-ended, liberal, permissive appeals system, it will be gamed by many people. She might want to think about this before she tables an Amendment: can you have an appeals system that pays due regard to the universal human rights of children but does not allow the system to be gamed by endless appeals that take months and years?

The problem is that Amendment 114 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, says there is no appeal—full stop, end. None. Therefore, that young person, who probably has English as a second language, whichever side they are and who will be arguing that they are under 18, does not even have the right that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, was talking about, and that worries me. I have argued this for some time, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, knows, to his cost. I agree that the public are concerned. I have no doubt about that. However, are we only concerned with what the public are concerned about? Do we not need to focus on children who are seeking asylum in this country and can get some help? If we go by, “Well, actually the public don’t want it”, it will all start going the wrong way.

I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that she is balancing two things here. First, a problem arises if a young person is put into adult accommodation, as she identifies. However, a bigger problem arises if you put an adult who is fraudulently claiming to be a child into facilities for young people. At that point, there is a very significant risk to those young people.

As a House, we have a significant responsibility in this area to ensure that we do not gullibly take people’s claims to be young people, which can put other young people in those homes and facilities at risk. It is very important that the Home Office has a coherent system, which it does, and that the system is capable of review, which of course it is by judicial review. The noble Baroness will agree that there is a balancing act to be performed here.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his Intervention. I have argued before to him, and I say it again, that there is a very straightforward answer. You have smaller group homes for those who are around the borderline, because the protection we need is for the younger ones. The noble Lord is absolutely right that, if we put a load of people in who are over 18, those younger children are at risk. But we do not have to, given the number of children that there are.

Does the noble Baroness have any figures for the number of young people whose ages are in dispute, because I suspect that there are not that many? We may be worrying about a relatively small number of people compared with the huge number who are seeking asylum.

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness and say again to the Minister, who will probably curse me for it, that there is no data and we need that data to understand the size of the problem. It must be not just pure data about age. It must also be about the response when children or young people are placed in the wrong one, and what support they need. I will leave it there.

My Lords, I support the amendments of my noble friends Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Murray. They are interesting amendments because they seek to tackle the same problem by different means. The aim is to have accurate information about age and to require that it be secured.

At the moment, as we have heard, the cases go on and on. My noble friend Lord Murray’s Amendment, proposing the NAAB, and my noble friend Lord Gower’s, proposing scientific methods, both aim to deal with a difficult problem. We have to decide on as near a factual way as possible, for the very reasons that have been stated—the danger we pose by putting people who are over 18 into a category with younger people in all the circumstances that the local authority oversees, and the cost to the taxpayer of protracted proceedings and judicial review. It is unsatisfactory and undermines confidence in our judicial system, the courts and, indeed, the way we organise our democracy. There will never be a perfect solution, but we must work towards whichever amendment is judged to be better for securing the best available evidence on age.

My Lords, I concur with the noble Baroness’s point about proceedings lasting for ever, but one must not take that point too far. It takes one into authoritarian territory where we really should not be going.

All the points I wanted to make were made much better by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I vividly remember our 2023 debates. Indeed, we are in a time warp with this whole debate. We have been here several times and there are no new points to be made. I remember the ethical, moral and practical arguments about scientific methods being debated.

Although I am sure we did, I cannot remember whether we discussed the equity of the point made in Amendment 115, which says that if the young person refuses to subject himself to a scientific test, because he is scared or whatever, the law will say that he is an adult and a liar. In equity, that seems to me to be a strange thing to put into a statute book. The process of going to law takes a long time, but it is our tradition. To cut it all short by saying, “If you don’t agree to be tested in this particular way then you’re an adult and a liar” seems quite extreme. I cannot remember if the point was debated before. I think the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is going to tell me that he answered it in lapidary terms in 2023.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is of course right to remember those happy exchanges. I draw his attention to the fact that, obviously, there are many examples in the law of presumptions being made if people do not do things: for example, the breath test, as the noble Viscount sitting next to me has just observed. If you say “no comment” in a police interview, inferences will be drawn. It is the same presumption system. There is nothing unusual in terms of the drafting.

There was discussion about consent, because a child cannot consent. I do not know whether the noble Lord recalls it, but we talked about that fairly extensively.

I am grateful—again—for the amendments which have elicited this discussion. I want to put a central premise before the Committee: that age assessments, as has been proved by the contributions of noble Lords today, are a difficult area and no single or combination assessment technique is able to determine age with precision. But as the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, said, there are serious safeguarding issues if adults are treated as children and placed in settings with children. Similarly, there are serious safeguarding risks in treating children as adults. We have to try to improve the performance on age assessment and get it right. The Government treat this issue with real seriousness and with the importance it demands, and we will continue to explore with partners how we can improve the robustness of age-assessment processes by increasing the reliability of the methods used.

That leads me to the amendments before the Committee today. Amendment 114 seeks to incorporate Section 57 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which is subject to repeal, into the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The fact that we are already repealing that means that we are revisiting again, as we are on a number of amendments, things that the Government are seeking to repeal. The provision—the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, referred to this—concerns decisions relating to a person’s age and would bring into effect measures to disapply the statutory rights of appeal in the Nationality and Borders Act, which, if commenced, enable a person to bring an appeal challenging a decision on their age. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the difficulties of that. The provision applies only to individuals subject to the Section 2 duty to remove in the IMA, which itself is under repeal in the Bill.

I know what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr has said, and I feel that I am going around in a number of circles, but the impact is the same. We are repealing these sections; the official Opposition are trying to put them back in. We cannot put them back in because we are repealing these sections. At the end of the day we are still trying to improve the performance on age assessment for the public and the immigration system. We are committed to focusing on delivering long-term, credible policies and will try to ensure that we do that by retaining only measures of the IMA which we have assessed as offering operational benefit. As I have said, we are repealing most of the measures, including Section 2, the duty to remove. Therefore, Sections 57 and 58, relating to age assessments, which this amendment seeks to reinstate, are both unworkable and indeed irrelevant without the duty to remove. The circular movement continues.

There are robust processes in place to verify and assess an individual’s age where there is doubt. It is important that we do so, and I again emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, the Opposition front bench, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, that these are important matters to get right. Where an individual claims to be a child without any credible documentary evidence and where there is reason to doubt the claimed age, immigration officers will currently conduct an initial decision on age to determine whether the individual should be treated as a child or an adult. Where doubt remains following the initial decision, which occasionally it does, individuals will be treated as a child and transferred to a local authority for further consideration of their age, in the form of the acknowledged Merton-compliant age assessment.

The Government are committed to improving age-assessment practices to enable all individuals to be safeguarded and treated appropriately, for the very reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Murray has mentioned. We have retained—as again the noble Lord, Lord Murray, has referred to—the National Age Assessment Board, which was launched on 31 March 2023 by the previous Government. It is now being rolled out nationally, continues to offer significant improvements, and has the support now of over 55 expert social workers whose task it is to support local authorities by conducting comprehensive age assessments, increasing capacity, and putting expertise in the system. Since its launch, 77 local authorities have signed up to the work of the NAAB. Greater consistency in age-assessment practice is now the case; improved quality of decision-making is there. Well over 1,137 individuals, predominantly social workers from local councils, are responsible for conducting age assessments, and the training has received positive feedback from local authorities.

Those are all positive things, and I again pay tribute to the hands that laid on those regulations and efforts previously. It is all very good, positive stuff. The Home Office, with the support of the Department for Education, has also commissioned user research into age assessment processes, with participation from Home Office members of staff, non-governmental organisations, local councils, accommodation providers and others. It has already started to implement positive change following the research that we have undertaken, and we are currently reviewing initial decisions on age training that have been received by Home Office staff at, for example, the Western Jet Foil premises in Kent.

Amendment 203H, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, would, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and others have said, restrict the jurisdiction of the court to determine applications for judicial review brought against a decision on age made by the National Age Assessment Board on conventional public law grounds such as rationality, reasonableness and procedural fairness. The court would be unable to grant relief because it considers that the board’s decision on a claimant’s age is wrong as a matter of fact. It would also prevent the court from substituting its own decision on age. This is an important point, as it is contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court which held that the court is required to determine for itself the age of the claimant as an issue of fact.

In addition, this amendment would result in a court treating challenges brought against decisions on age made by the board differently from challenges brought against decisions on age made by a local authority.

I am very grateful to the Minister for his thoughts on that. That is the whole point. The thrust of my submission was that the Supreme Court got the law wrong in that instance. The creation of the National Age Assessment Board as an expert body means that the situation is different from that which pertained when the Supreme Court made that earlier decision. That is why the Home Office should trust its own expert social workers and grasp this opportunity to accelerate the pace and change the test that the court is using.

I think we are going to have an honest disagreement on this Amendment. I am grateful for the thought that the noble Lord has put into this, but I again put it to him that the amendment would result in a court treating challenges brought against decisions on age made by the board differently from challenges brought against decisions on age made by a local authority. We are going to have to part company on that, for the moment at least.

Amendments 115 and 200, tabled by His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, concern scientific methods of age assessment. Repealing Section 58 of the Illegal Migration Act, which the Bill seeks to do, will not affect the provisions related to scientific methods of age assessment set out in the NABA and the Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2024, such as the power to use X-rays and MRI scans and to take a negative inference on the credibility of a person who refuses consent where there are no reasonable grounds to do so.

Amendment 200 looks to have the Secretary of State lay regulations under Section 52 within six months. Regulations have already been made under this power. It would also place a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations under Section 58 of the IMA. Again, the Bill will repeal that section, although Amendment 115 would reintroduce it as a Clause in this Bill. We are going round again in the circle of life on the amendments to this Bill.

In any case, the Secretary of State would not make regulations to the effect that these amendments seek to achieve unless and until satisfied that the scientific methods in question are sufficiently accurate to mean that applying the automatic assumption in cases of refusal to consent would be compatible with the ECHR. The specified methods do not currently meet this threshold. Again, we can have a debate about the ECHR, but that is where the Government currently are.

The Government will continue to explore the latest developments in things such as artificial intelligence and age assessment technologies to ensure that we have the most accurate information available. Facial age estimation is promising and potentially cost effective, allowing early assessments, and it could produce useful results far more quickly than potential methods of scientific age assessments such as the bone X-rays mentioned by noble Lords and MRI scans. It requires only a facial image, and we will look at how that develops.

Again, the IMA was part of the previous Government’s initiative. We are repealing the IMA but will not compromise on border security. We remain fully focused on long-term credible policies. For that reason, I invite the noble Lords, Lord Davies, Lord Cameron and Lord Murray, not to push these amendments at this time.

On the data point of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we are trying to keep data separate between the Home Office asylum side of the business and the Home Office NAAB side of the business. There is a sort of wall between them, and that data is not shared. I will reflect on her points and examine them in detail, but that is where I am coming from at the moment.

Is there a plan to publish this in annual form at some point in the future? We need that data.

I have heard what the noble Baroness said. I will reflect on that point. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson.

The Minister anticipated my point, and the noble Baroness put it much more clearly. I was going to ask whether there would be periodic production of qualitative and quantitative data around the numbers coming in. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, we are debating in the dark on numbers—we need the numbers. But the Minister answered the question, for which I thank him.

I am grateful for our agreement on the answering of the question and I retain my position. I hope noble Lords will not press their amendments.

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions from noble Lords. That was an informative if not intriguing debate, and I shall be brief in closing our discussion on this group. I return to the central principle that has underpinned all my remarks: our immigration system must be balanced. It must allow for proper dialogue, proper challenge and proper safeguards, but it must also be able to function effectively. The system serves a vital purpose: it protects our borders, it maintains public confidence in our Government’s ability to protect us and it upholds the rule of law. If we allow it to become paralysed by delays, backlogs and spurious challenges, it fails not only in its legal duties but in its duty to the British people.

We on this side of the House are rightly concerned that removing these clauses will jeopardise that balance and that, without them, the Government’s ability to take timely authoritative decisions and to act on them will be weakened—

I do not want to break the noble Lord’s chain of thought, but information has just been supplied to me that we now have on the government website the number of age disputes raised, the number of age disputes resolved, the number of adults found to be children, et cetera. That information is available now on GOV.UK, and I will supply further details to the noble Baroness in due course.

The Government should either reintroduce these provisions or make it clear to this House here and now how they intend to prevent the harm that their removal will cause. Without such assurances, we cannot be confident that our borders will be secure, that our processes will be respected or that the British public can have faith in the system that serves it. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 114 withdrawn.

Amendment 115 not moved.

Clause 39: Sections 37 and 38: consequential amendments

Amendments 115A to 115E not moved.

Clause 39 agreed.