Immigration Bill: Lords are re-establishing limits on child detention

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Sam Francis Political correspondent, BBC News

2 hours ago

Image source, Getty Images

The House of Lords rejected an attempt by the government to extend the time period in which children could be detained in its Immigration Bill.

The government’s illegal immigration bill extends existing legal ceilings on how long children can be detained before being deported for arriving illegally.

But their peers voted to reintroduce the protections in line with existing legislation.

They also voted to restore protections for people who claim to be victims of human trafficking.

Ministers suffered a string of defeats over the illegal immigration bill on Wednesday night.

These changes can be removed again when the bill returns to the House of Representatives where – unlike the House of Lords – the government has a majority. Under usual parliamentary procedure, the House of Lords can ask MPs to reconsider bills, but it cannot force the government to accept changes.

But it raises the possibility of another clash between ministers and Tory MPs over disputed aspects of the legislation.

The bill, which MPs backed in March, is central to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop” small boats crossing the English Channel.

This would place a legal duty on the government to detain and deport those who arrive in the UK illegally, either to Rwanda or to another ‘safe’ third country.

The government says it is sticking to its plan to take the migrants to Rwanda, despite an appeals court ruling that it was illegal. She has already said she will appeal the decision in the Supreme Court.

There was concern about how children would be treated under the new immigration law, as well as accusations that existing British regulations to prevent modern slavery would be undermined.

Although the legal duty to deport immigrants will not apply to those under 18, the law gives ministers new powers to deport them in certain circumstances.

It will also extend the maximum detention period for children from three days to eight. An earlier version of the bill proposed allowing children to be detained for up to 28 days.

The government says the detention powers are necessary to ensure that migrants slated for deportation do not “disappear in society” – and it says no one will be detained longer than “absolutely necessary” to ensure their deportation.

There is also an overarching legal duty to ensure the length of detention is “reasonable”, he adds, adding that leaving the UK voluntarily “will always be an option for everyone”.

Ahead of the vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Home Office offered to reintroduce a 72-hour deadline on the detention of pregnant women.

The amendments passed by the House of Lords also mean a 72-hour limit on the detention of unaccompanied children – which could be extended to a maximum of seven days if approved by the minister. Detention of accompanied children would be limited to 96 hours under proposals approved by their peers.

The government had previously softened its plans to detain children in the face of a revolt by Conservative MPs in Parliament.

In another vote on Wednesday, the House of Lords voted to reintroduce a ban on deporting LGBTQ migrants to 10 mainly African countries, including Rwanda, Nigeria and Kenya – with specific bans on transgender men and women being deported to Brazil. Peers previously agreed to the same proposals in July.

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