By Rob Preston and Mithran Samuel
The government’s overhaul of age assessments of young asylum seekers will go ahead as planned, after peers withdrew their opposition.
The provisions, in the Nationality and Borders Bill, will allow the introduction of “scientific” measures to assess age and enable the government to press councils to have children in their care assessed and refer their decisions for review by a new national body.
Children’s rights, refugee and social work organisations have warned the changes will put children at risk – by leading to them being misidentified as adults – and undermine social workers’ expertise.
Last month, the House of Lords amended the bill to require age assessments to be carried out by council social workers, only be conducted when there are significant reasons to doubt age and only involve scientific methods that are “ethical and accurate beyond reasonable doubt”.
The government used its majority in the House of Commons to overturn the amendment and then, when the bill returned to the Lords last week, opposition peers did not revive it. Liberal Democrat Baroness Hamwee tabled a weaker amendment that she later withdrew.
Though the two houses still need to agree a final version of the bill when Parliament returns from its Easter recess next week, this means the age assessment changes will go ahead as the government plans once the bill becomes law.
‘Undermining social workers’
The legislation will create a national age assessment board (NAAB), appointed by the home secretary, to oversee the system, review local authority assessments and carry out its own in some situations.In cases where the government doubts the age of a claimant under the care of a council, the authority will have to refer the case to the NAAB for assessment, assess the claimant’s age itself or inform the home secretary it is satisfied the person is the age they claim to be.
In the latter two cases, the council will have to provide the home secretary with reasonable evidence. However, the provisions also allow the NAAB to carry out an assessment if the home secretary doubts a council’s decision regarding a claimant’s age – though the board’s decision as to age will be binding on the government.
These measures led the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium (RMCC) to claim the changes would undermine social workers’ knowledge and expertise, following their introduction last October.
The legislation will also enable the home secretary to make regulations specifying scientific methods that can be used for age assessments, including x-rays or analysis of saliva or other bodily samples.
These will only be permissible with the consent of the person being assessed, or someone able to consent on their behalf. However, the legislation allows officials to take a refusal to give consent as damaging the person’s credibility.
‘Culture of disbelief’
Following the latest round of parliamentary debate, the Refugee Council, which provides support to unaccompanied children at entry points to the UK, warned the government’s plans risked more children being misidentified as adults. In that event, they would not be educated, and supported and accommodated within the care system, but simply housed and given £40.85 per week to live on.“We have seen first-hand the additional suffering and trauma which is caused by this culture of disbelief,” said Helen Johnson, head of children's services at the charity.
“We are really concerned that the government is pushing forward with these new plans – which risk more children and young people being ascribed the wrong age, losing the support they need and exposing them to danger.
“These 'scientific methods' are not supported by the scientific community and can be stressful, intrusive, frightening and re-traumatising for the young people involved.”
