As the House of Commons looks to discuss the amendments that have been made to the Illegal Migration Bill, it remains the unified opinion of all the Bishops in the House of Lords that the detention of children without any limit is simply morally unjustified. The strength of opposition to any change to the current restrictions on the detention of both accompanied and unaccompanied children is because it is one of the most alarming and unedifying provisions of the Bill.
In 2010 a Conservative-led Government took the brave decision to end the routine detention of children for immigration purposes. That’s because the evidence of its devastating effects on children was overwhelming. Restrictions were put into law making clear that unaccompanied children could only be detained for up to 24 hours and children with family could be held for no more than 72 hours.
The Illegal Migration Bill removes these restrictions and allows the Government to indefinitely confine any child with no exceptions – babies, toddlers, child victims of trafficking, children seeking safety alone – all while knowing the devastating consequences this will have on their lives. The Government has an obligation to protect children and indeed all children, unaccompanied or accompanied, British or refugee. The proposals in the Bill fall far short of this.
Ministers have set out their view that we must detain children for immigration purposes to ensure that we do not create incentives for people smugglers to target vulnerable individuals. They have, however, provided no evidence to support this. In fact, in 2011 when the routine detention of children ended, there was no proportional increase in the number of children claiming asylum.
But the stark evidence we do have is of the immeasurable harm detention inflicts on the very children we should be protecting. It remains a fact that the inescapable institutional nature of detention affects both a child’s physical and mental development and leads to their significant emotional and psychological regression. As a young woman, formerly detained as child, shared with Citizens UK: “It is detrimental to the way we think, feel, the way we process things around us”. The documented evidence has not changed. So how can child detention now be tolerated, just as an unavoidable, incidental consequence of the need to control migration?
Strikingly, the Bill’s proposals appear at significant odds with comments made by the Prime Minister. He has stated clearly that the Government’s intention is not to detain children. Yet, this is exactly what the provisions on the face of the Bill allow. Given the Prime Minister’s assertion, it seems at odds that the requirement that child detention be for the shortest time possible has been expressly removed from the legislation.
Children deserve the highest level of safeguards, even if and especially when decision makers believe their protection needs can be overlooked for the purposes of other policy objectives. The commitment that Ministers may legislate for timescales sometime in the future, is simply not a commitment vulnerable children can rely on.
The Government’s own guidance which explains the legal duty to safeguard children makes clear that it requires a demonstration of fair treatment that meets the same standard that a British child would receive. That is the right question which we must ask ourselves; would we tolerate the Bill’s proposals for our own children or grandchildren?
The hard-hitting truth is that the Illegal Migration Bill is asking us to allow the unconscionable and at what cost? Children will be detained after they have fled unimaginable horrors or have been trafficked against their will. Children will be born in detention and others will have their futures shaped by it, when they should be free to play learn and laugh in safety.
We are better than this and we know what is right having banished this immoral practice before. It will take real courageous leadership to change course, but this we must. I am not willing to contemplate the state of the nation’s soul if we do not.
The Lord Bishop of Durham Paul Roger Butler is a current member of the House of Lords
