I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, for becoming the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, this evening, particularly at this late hour. I am grateful for her introduction of the amendments. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for being the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I am still Lord Hanson for the purposes of the discussion before us today.

Age assessment is a difficult area of work and there is no single-combination assessment technique able to determine age with precision. It has already been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that there are serious safeguarding risks if adults are treated as children and placed in settings with children. Similarly, there are serious safeguarding issues if children are treated as adults.

I will turn to the amendments before us and try to weave through them in a way that, I hope, assuages the concerns of the noble Baroness and gives a direction forward. On Amendment 180, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to the completion of age assessments where an individual faces criminal charges, the current approach of the Home Office is that any decision on age made by the Home Office for immigration purposes is not binding on the UK courts. Where an individual is charged with a criminal offence, the CPS is advised of any age dispute issues that have arisen and will decide if it is in the public interest to pursue a prosecution. Once proceedings are instigated, should the presiding judge have doubts about the individual being a child, the courts can take a decision on the age based on the available evidence or request that a substantive age assessment is undertaken.

The Home Office has introduced additional safeguards in criminal cases to mitigate the risk of a genuine child being imprisoned in adult prison for immigration offences. This is something that none of us would want to see. Where an individual who has been assessed to be “significantly over 18” maintains their claim to be a child and is identified for potential criminal charges for immigration offences, the Home Office will provide for an abbreviated age assessment to be conducted by qualified social workers. I hope that on both those counts, the noble Baroness is able to withdraw the amendment before the Committee today.

Amendment 162 is on the suggested use of visual age assessments as part of a safeguarding determination, identifying potential risks and support needs, rather than solely for the purposes of immigration enforcement. The noble Baroness has said that the initial age assessment is an extremely important first step to prevent the detention of children generally, including any accidental detention of someone who is believed to be an adult but subsequently found to be a child, and to ensure that individuals are routed to the correct adult or child immigration process. That is key. It provides that immigration officers may treat an individual as an adult only where they have no credible and clear documentary evidence proving their age, and two members of Home Office staff independently assess that their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that the individual is significantly over 18. This is a particularly high threshold, and the benefit of the doubt remains key. Where doubt exists, individuals will be referred for further assessment.

As the noble Baroness said, a social worker may be present at the initial age decision stage. Where present, they will play a crucial role in the welfare of the individuals in their care and will support our Kent Intake Unit officers with their initial age decisions carried out at Western Jet Foil. Any views expressed by the social worker at this initial stage will be given a strong weighting, given the expertise they have in regularly working with children.

The Home Office has contractual arrangements with the Refugee Council to provide support to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who arrive by small boat and are moved to the Kent Intake Unit. That contract sees Refugee Council advisers working directly with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children providing impartial and independent information, advice and guidance to help them navigate the asylum and looked-after children system. These amendments would make it mandatory for the Home Office to publish guidance that includes mechanisms for independent oversight. I note that the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration already has oversight of Home Office practices and is not short of bringing forward reports about the areas we are discussing.

Amendment 163, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and Amendment 194 were spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuburger, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. They are about whether age assessment in relation to asylum claims should rest with the local authority according to the ADCS guidance. I ask the Committee to bear with me because we need to be mindful of unintended consequences. The amendments as tabled would mean that the Home Office would be bound to immediately notify a local authority in every instance where an individual claiming to be a child has been determined to be an adult and therefore may be placed in adult accommodation. This would apply even when an individual is obviously an adult. This creates the risk that already-stretched local authorities could cause significant safeguarding risks if adults have access, along with genuine and potentially vulnerable children, to children’s services including accommodation and education.

I hope it will reassure the noble Baroness that the Home Office already takes into account best practice within the age assessment guidance issued by the ADCS and the equivalent guidance in Scotland and Wales. Where the Home Office or an accommodation provider have concerns that an individual might be a child, it is now standard practice for a local authority referral to be raised. Even where a referral is not made, this does not prevent the individual from approaching a local authority for further consideration of their age.

As I said at the outset, the Government continue to review all options for age assessment. A parliamentary Written Statement issued to both Houses on 22 July indicated that work was being undertaken in the Home Office to look at science and technology innovation and the age assessment system. We have concluded that the most cost-effective option is to pursue a likely facial age estimation whereby AI technology trained on millions of images is able to produce an age estimate with a known degree of accuracy. Again, I recognise that the noble Baroness raised some concerns about that. I hope I can reassure her that the Home Office is taking this seriously and that further testing and trialling of the technology will be conducted ahead of any integration into the system. It is important that we get that right, but it is also important that we try to find mechanisms to give greater clarity on what that age is over and above the individual eyes-on by a particular officer at the border.

I hope that, with those reasons, the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Hamwee—the substitutes for the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Brinton, respectively—will not press the amendments.