Concerns over Braverman’s X-ray plan for child refugees

Home secretary Suella Braverman has clashed with her party over migration stance

- KATE DEVLIN and ANDREW WOODCOCK

Home secretary Suella Braverman risks inflaming the migration row with plans for vulnerable child refugees to undergo X-rays to verify their age.

The move comes after Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, told cabinet that he wanted Britain to be a "compassionate, welcoming country", distancing himself from the home secretary's controversial claim that the UK was being subjected to an "invasion" by asylum seekers.

As counterterrorist police took charge of the investigation into the firebombing of a separate immigration facility in Kent, it emerged that Ms Braverman’s incendiary remark had not been cleared with No 10. And Mr Sunak’s official spokesperson declined to say whether the PM regarded it as appropriate.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said Ms Braverman had been trying to express “the sheer scale of the challenge” but accepted it was necessary to “choose your words very carefully” and said he himself had not used the phrase.

Refugee charity Care4Calais told The Independent the X-ray proposals raised “serious safeguarding concerns”.

The home secretary faced allegations from a senior Conservative MP that she misled parliament when she denied that dangerous overcrowding at a migrant processing centre was caused by her blocking the use of hotels to accommodate people arriving in the UK by small boat.

And another Tory MP said that Ms Braverman’s focus on tough measures to deter Channel crossings would not work, and the Home Office should instead focus its efforts on clearing the massive backlog of legitimate asylum claims.