By Sam Francis
Political reporter, BBC News
The House of Lords has rejected an attempt by the government to extend the amount of time children can be detained in its migration bill.
The government’s Illegal Migration Bill lengthens the existing legal caps on how long children can be held before being deported for arriving illegally.
But peers voted to reinsert protections more in line with current legislation.
They also voted to reinstate protections for people claiming to be victims of trafficking.
Ministers suffered a series of defeats on the Illegal Migration Bill on Wednesday evening.
Each vote added back in provisions which had been removed by MPs in votes in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
These changes can be removed again when the bill goes back to the House where – unlike in the Lords – the government has a majority. Under usual parliamentary procedure, the House of Lords can require MPs to reconsider bills but cannot force the government to accept changes.
But it raises the prospect of another clash between ministers and Tory backbenchers over contested aspects of the legislation.
The bill, backed by MPs in March, is central to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s high-profile pledge to “stop” small boats crossing the English Channel.
It would place a legal duty on the government to detain and remove those arriving in the UK illegally, either to Rwanda or another “safe” third country.
The government says it is committed to its plan to remove migrants to Rwanda, despite the Court of Appeal ruling it was unlawful. It has already said it will appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.
There has been concern about how children will be treated under the new migration bill, as well as accusations that existing UK regulations to prevent modern slavery would be undermined.
Although the legal duty to deport migrants would not apply to under-18s the bill would give ministers new powers to deport them in certain circumstances.
It would also extend the limit on how long children could be detained from three days to eight. A previous version of the bill proposed allowing children to be detained for up to 28 days.
‘Reasonable’ detention
The government argues detention powers are necessary to ensure migrants destined for removal do not “disappear into the community” – and says no one would be held longer than is “absolutely necessary” to ensure they are deported.
It adds that there is also an over-arching legal duty to ensure the length of detention is “reasonable”, adding that leaving the UK voluntarily will “always be an option for all”.
Ahead of the vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Home Office offered to reintroduce a 72-hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women.
Amendments passed by the House of Lords would also mean a 72-hour time limit on the detention of unaccompanied children – which could be extended to a maximum of seven days if approved by a minister. Detention of accompanied children will be limited to 96 hours under proposals approved by peers.
The government had previously watered down its child detention plans in the face of a rebellion by backbench Conservative MPs.
In other votes on Wednesday, the Lords voted to reinsert a ban on deportations of LGBT migrants to 10 mainly African countries, including Rwanda, Nigeria and Kenya – with a specific ban on trans men and women being deported to Brazil. The same proposals had previously been approved by peers in July.
