Top Tory blasts Keir Starmer for asylum seeker 'age cover up'

A top Tory has criticised Sir Keir Starmer for refusing to say how many asylum seekers' ages have been disputed since he entered No.10. Matt Vickers, Shadow Minister of State for Policing, Fire and Crime, slammed the Home Office after it refused to publish statistics on asylum seeker age disputes since July 2024.

Home Office Minister Alex Norris has admitted officials can't confirm whether age-dispute cases have risen or fallen since the General Election. He said no data was available from July onwards because of "ongoing work" to a new casework system. The Home Office said "strict" age checks carried out by trained social workers are already in place and AI will be used to modernise the process.

New Government legislation scraps large parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, including powers which allowed scientific age assessments of people arriving illegally in the UK. Labour's Borders Bill rips up safeguards introduced by the previous Conservative government.

Matt Vickers MP, Shadow Minister of State for Crime, Policing, and Fire, told the Express: "This is what happens when Labour let human rights lawyers run the Home Office instead of common sense. Labour's idea of safeguarding is blindfolding officials and praying for the best."

Under the 2023 Act X-rays, MRIs and bone scans could be used to help detect adults posing as children. But Labour's new Bill scraps those powers and removes a provision that asylum seekers who refuse to be tested are automatically treated as over 18.

The Tories say the risks aren't "hypothetical", pointing to a case in which a man who claimed to be 15 was placed in a Year 11 class at a school in Ipswich. An age assessment later confirmed he was an adult.

Parents pulled their children out of the school in fury at the apparent safeguarding failure. It hit the headlines in November 2018 after a pupil posted a picture on social media and asked how a 30-year-old man could be in their maths class.

The case led the Conservatives to bring forward the Illegal Migration Act 2023 to fix legal loopholes under previous legislation.

Mr Vickers said: "Labour have scrapped the very safeguards that stop 30-year-olds strolling into Year 11 maths and sitting next to your 15-year-old daughter. This is precisely why the Conservative government brought forward the Illegal Migration Act 2023, giving the Home Office new powers to use x-rays in scientific age assessments.

"Parents shouldn't have to play guess-the-age with a stranger in the classroom, but Labour tore those powers up, and now they have admitted they don't even keep count of disputes."

The Conservatives insist that under Labour's new Bill adult asylum seekers will be able to more easily claim to be children with scientific tests scrapped. They argue that doing so risks grown men being placed in schools, foster care or children's services, besides fuelling abuse of the asylum process.

Mr Vickers said: "Only the Conservatives have a serious, workable plan to end this madness through our Deportation Bill."

He said the Tories would implement new mandatory age testing of asylum seekers who claim to be children and disapply the Human Rights Act from immigration matters.

The top Tory said his party would also deport all illegal arrivals immediately, close the loopholes exploited by "activist lawyers" and put in place a real deterrent. He added: "Labour are too weak to do this and that is why they have lost control of our borders."

Currently, up to date age assessment data isn't published and is under review to ensure its methodology and accuracy. The Express understands the Government expects to resume published age assessment data early next year.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Robust age assessments are a vital tool in maintaining border security.

"We already have strict age checks that include a National Age Assessment Board, which consists of a team of trained social workers whose task is to conduct full age assessments.

"We will start to modernise that process in the coming months through the testing of fast and effective AI age estimation technology at key Border Force locations, with a view to integrate Facial Age Estimation into the current system over the course of 2026."