Minister Laura Farris says the tests are ‘well evidenced’ and discourage adults from pretending to be children to access benefits they are not entitled to.
The government has reasserted its support for using scientific methods such as x-rays and MRIs to verify the age of asylum seekers claiming to be children.
Home Office minister Laura Farris said in the House of Commons on Friday that the government is “not going to abandon scientific methods for age assessment” because it is “well-evidenced,” discourages adults from misrepresenting themselves as minors, and ensures that genuine children are not treated as adults.
Ms. Farris made the statement in response to questions from Andrew Western, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, who had secured a debate on age-disputed asylum-seeking individuals. Mr. Western had asked the government about safeguards for asylum seekers presenting themselves as children and asked whether the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee (AESAC) had encouraged the government to “abandon” scientific methods for assessment.
“I will gently repeat we’re not going to abandon scientific methods for age assessment,” Ms. Farris said, adding, “We are one of the only European countries who doesn’t deploy any scientific methods and we are working towards implementing that.”
“Age assessment is critical to the integrity of our system, but also to the protection of genuine children. We understand that it’s crucial that these assessments are robust, they’re consistent, and they’re well evidenced to ensure that genuine children are not incorrectly treated as adults, but also that adults are disincentivised from knowingly misrepresenting themselves as children,” she said.
The AESAC’s report published in January 2023 recommended four measurements for establishing the age of asylum seekers, including X-raying wisdom teeth and the bones of the hand and wrist and MRIs of the knee bones and collarbone. In January of this year, the Immigration Age Assessment Regulations 2024 came into force and specify the use of X-rays and MRIs of certain body areas, including the wrist to aid in age estimation, as per the AESAC’s recommendations.
Adults Pretending to Be Children
The minister said there were well-known instances of adults pretending to be children, highlighting the high-profile case last year of an asylum seeker who was assessed as being 14 years old when he was, in fact, 18 and wanted for a double murder in Serbia.
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Afghan national Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai was jailed for life for the murder of 21-year-old Thomas Roberts who was stabbed to death in a Subway sandwich shop in Bournemouth, Dorset, in March 2022. Abdulrahimzai had also been convicted in absentia in Serbia for the murder of two fellow Afghan migrants in August 2018, following an argument about people-trafficking.
Ms. Farris told the Commons that “we are aware of other examples where pupils in schools raised an alarm at an obviously mature adult who has joined their class purporting to be a child, in one case where they were actually reassessed to be 10 years older than their claimed age.”
There have also been reports of genuine children being erroneously categorised as adults, including an Afghan teenager deemed to be over 25 years old, based largely on his physical appearance, behaviour, and demeanour. In September 2023, a senior judge at the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber examining the case called into question the quality of Home Office assessment tests.
Ms. Farris argued that introducing scientific assessments would protect genuine children from being miscategorised as adults.
She said: “The government has always been clear that there are serious equivalent safeguarding risks if true children are treated as adults.”
The minister continued that there are also “incentives” for adults to claim to be under 18, including receiving a higher level of support and care. Being classified as a minor also affects whether the asylum seeker can be detained in immigration detention.
“The legislative reforms that the government is bringing forward aim to make these assessments more consistent, more reliable, and more robust from the outset,” she said.
Asylum Seekers Who Refuse Testing
Scientific advisors have recommended the tests be voluntary and recently the Society of Radiographers also questioned whether there would be issues around the asylum seeker consenting to an examination.
Addressing the issue, Ms. Farris said that “where an individual refuses to consent without reasonable grounds to the use of those methods, a decision maker must take that refusal to consent as damaging the credibility of the age disputed person.”
“That is referred to as a negative inference,” she said.
A group of illegal immigrants are brought by a Border Force vessel to Dover, Kent, on July 18, 2023. (Gareth Fuller/PA Media)The minister continued that the negative inference “wouldn’t automatically preclude an individual from being considered as a child,” but it would be “taken into consideration alongside other evidence” as part of the wider age assessment process.
“Nonetheless, it will be relevant,” she said.
She added that Section 58 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 “could, in the future, specify that a person who refuses to consent without reasonable grounds is to be treated as if the decision maker decided they were over the age of 18.”
“This power will not be used unless and until the home secretary determined that the science and analysis is sufficiently accurate to support providing for an automatic assumption of adulthood,” she said.
Testing ‘Inaccurate and Unethical’
The debate follows a vote by the Society of Radiographers—a union which represents 33,000 professionals working in radiotherapy and medical imaging mostly for the NHS—to oppose the assessments, calling them “inaccurate and unethical.”
The society’s chief executive had also suggested that some union members may object to conducting the tests, arguing that they fall outside of the scope of the employees’ contracts.
Undated photo of signage for the Home Office. (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)Richard Evans said: “Conducting these scans falls outside the terms of the contract of a clinical radiographer. This means that any radiographer conducting the scans would have to agree to it voluntarily and be paid separately.”
“No radiographer should feel coerced to conduct these scans during clinical time,” Mr. Evans added.
Responding to the society, a Home Office spokesperson said: “Our methods are supported by scientific evidence provided by the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee and scientific age assessments are already widely across most of Europe.”
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