Immigration Minister confirms rollout of "scientific age assessment" of asylum seekers in 2023

The Government is to use powers contained in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to begin to roll out scientific forms of age assessment “over the course of this year”, the Immigration Minister has said.

Robert Jenrick told MPs yesterday during a debate on the Illegal Migration Bill that, initially, this would happen concurrently with the Merton assessment.

“We want to ensure that that system is demonstrated to be robust and as swift as possible,” the Minister added.

Jenrick said there were some young adults and individuals who abused the system. “Indeed, some are not so young—as I understand it, the oldest individual we have encountered who posed as a child was subsequently found to be 41 years of age.”

He said: “That is wrong as a matter of principle, and it is also a serious safeguarding risk to genuine children and all the caring people who are involved in supporting them, whether they be foster carers, teachers or members of the general public. We therefore have to take the issue seriously.”

The Minister said that this was why the Bill retained the power to detain an individual who is subject to age assessment for up to 28 days. “During that period, the Home Office or local authorities would conduct age assessment. Today, that is done through the Merton system, which is proving to take longer than we would like, but which we want to be conducted within 28 days.”

On the rollout of scientific age assessments this year, Jenrick said it was “important that we weed out cases of abuse, because they pose such a risk. I am afraid that we have seen some very tragic instances such as the murder that occurred in Bournemouth at the behest of somebody who had posed as a child. The state has to do everything in its power to prevent that from happening again.”

Earlier this month, however, BASW, the professional association for social work and social workers, issued a statement heavily criticising the use of scientific age assessment. It also attacked a provision in the Illegal Migration Bill that would allow the Home Secretary to introduce measures determining that if a person refused to submit to a ‘scientific method’ of age assessment they would be viewed by the Home Office to be 18 years or over and therefore deportable to a ‘safe country’.

BASW said: “The adoption of biological (‘scientific’) methods in age assessment violate long-standing rights in relation to informed medical consent, offer no real advantages in assessing age and produce a procedural quagmire of unallocated responsibilities. Where consent to biological methods is withheld this decision should not be interpreted negatively on an individual’s claim to be a child or on their immigration status.”

It called on social workers, local authorities and immigration and asylum lawyers and advisers to maintain the pre-eminence of Merton compliant assessment in age assessment and age determination decision making.