Nationality and Borders Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

PUBLISHED DATE: 23/02/2022

I will be brief, as I have just a couple of questions. Ethics aside, as is the want of this Government—if that is not the case, why are they running away from the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central?—I want to look at the issue of estimating the maturity of a child’s skeletal system by comparing images with databases of children of the same age and gender. Do children in Ethiopia develop at a comparable rate to children in the UK, because I understand that that is who they are going to be compared to? Do children in Eritrea and Sudan develop at the same rate? The British Medical Association seems pretty certain that they do not. If that is the case, how long will it take to build databases of comparable images for each country or region, and has that work started?