Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Tuesday 12th December 2023
(1 year, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 269 / Noes: 337 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:12 - The House divided: - Ayes: 313 / Noes: 269 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:29 - The House divided: - Ayes: 332 / Noes: 61 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
The reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition has been selected.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Before I speak to the Bill, let me say that the House may well be aware that, tragically, there has been a death on the Bibby Stockholm barge. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House, like mine, are with those affected. The House will understand that at this stage I am uncomfortable going into any more details, but we will of course investigate fully.
This Government are stopping the boats. Arrivals are down by a third this year, as illegal entries are on the rise elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, small boat arrivals are up by 80% in the Mediterranean, but they are down by a third across the channel. The largest ever small boats deal with France, tackling the supply of boat engines and parts, the arrest and conviction of people smugglers, and a 70% increase in raids on illegal working are having an impact—a positive one. We have signed returns and co-operation agreements with France, Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, Georgia and Ethiopia. Fifty hotels are being returned to their local communities, and the initial asylum backlog, which stood at 92,000, is now under 20,000. We have sent back 22,000 illegal migrants, and the UK’s arrangement with Albania proves that deterrents work.
James Cleverly
I will not give way yet, as I have just started.
Last year, a third of all those arriving in small boats to the coast of this country were Albanian. This year, we have returned 5,000 Albanians, and arrivals from Albania are down by 90%. But in recent years, some of the Government’s efforts to tackle illegal migration and deport foreign national offenders have been frustrated by a seemingly endless cycle of legal challenges and rulings from domestic and foreign courts.
James Cleverly
I will give way in a moment. Of course, this Government respect court judgments, even when we disagree with them, but Parliament and the British people want an end to illegal immigration and they support the Rwanda plan.
Debbie Abrahams
The Home Secretary points to deterrence. He has often used the Australian model of offshoring detention centres as a gold standard. What are his comments, then, on the fact that Australia has recently shut down its offshore centre because of the high financial and human costs?
James Cleverly
The hon. Lady raises the case of Australia. It had 55,000 illegal migrations by boats and that has trended pretty much down to zero—deterrence works.
Mr Baron
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that the British are world champions at queueing. We do not like queue jumpers, which is why illegal immigration grates with us. Will he confirm that the Government will take all steps to ensure that we remain within international law, not just now but going forward? In that case, I will certainly be supporting the Bill tonight. Does he also agree that some colleagues in this place need to be careful what they wish for?
James Cleverly
I am confident, and indeed the conversations I have had with the Government’s legal advisers reinforce my belief, that the actions we are taking, while novel and very much pushing at the edge of the envelope, are within the framework of international law. That is important because the UK is a country that demonstrates to the whole world the importance of international law. We champion that on the world stage and it is important that we demonstrate it.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I am going to make further progress. Judges of course play an important role, but they are not policymakers and they should not be policymakers. When the courts find a particular formulation of policy unlawful, it is the job of politicians to listen to their views, respect their views and find a solution.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I will make further progress. Thanks to the efforts on the part of the UK Government and the Government of Rwanda, that is exactly what we have done in response to the verdict from the Supreme Court. The new treaty that I signed last week with Rwanda and the Bill that accompanies it are game changing. The principle of relocating people to a safe country, to have their asylum claim processed there, is entirely consistent with the terms of the refugee convention. Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal unanimously confirmed that point.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend was an excellent Foreign Secretary, so he will know the extraordinary tensions that exist between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The Democratic Republic of the Congo accuses Rwanda of sponsoring the M23 terrorist organisation, which is violating Congolese women and killing Congolese soldiers. This week, the Congolese President named the Rwandan President as a Hitler-like figure. What is my right hon. Friend’s response to the concerns of our Congolese friends in that regard?
James Cleverly
In my former role, I had extensive conversations with the Governments of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. We do not agree with that assessment of the Government of Rwanda. More importantly, other international organisations also rely heavily on Rwanda, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the European Union. They would not do that if they believed that Rwanda was an unsafe country.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I intend to make further progress—this is Second Reading and there will be plenty of opportunities for colleagues to speak—but I give way to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Just yesterday, I received correspondence stating:
“EU Council Directive 2005/85/EC is caught by Article 2(1) of the Protocol, therefore can be relied upon in NI (but not GB).”
It added that article 7 of the directive
“confers the right to remain in the territory”
while a claim is being processed, which
“creates additional ‘rights’ in NI”
that do not apply in GB and
“expressly frustrates the core intent of the Rwanda Bill from applying in NI”.
Has the Home Secretary had the opportunity to look at that?
James Cleverly
The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about differential treatment in different parts of the United Kingdom is one that we are conscious of. As the Bill progresses, he and others will have the opportunity to raise concerns about specific details. We will, of course, listen to his concerns and those of others. When passed, the Bill will address the practical implications. At the moment, the challenge of the number of refugees is not as significant in Northern Ireland as in other parts of the UK, but, as the hon. Gentleman has heard me say before, we are always conscious to make sure that all parts of the UK are, and feel that they are, in the thinking of the Government as we move forward.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I will make further progress. As I say, the principle of relocating people to a safe country to have their asylum claims processed is entirely consistent with the terms of the refugee convention. The High Court and the Court of Appeal unanimously confirmed that, and the Supreme Court did not dispute those findings in own findings three weeks ago.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is clear in international law and in relation to the question of the rule of law that in this country, with our unwritten constitution, a clear and unambiguous use of words, clearly establishing the intention of Parliament in the enactment of a law, takes precedence over international law, in accordance with the judgments of Lord Hoffmann, as well as judgments and statements by Lord Judge, Lord Denning and other very distinguished jurists, including in paragraph 144 of the judgment made last month?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an important point. He is right that when the wording of a Bill is clear and unambiguous—where there is a deeming clause—that is the express will of Parliament, that Parliament is sovereign, and that that thinking must be adhered to through the legal process.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I am going to make some progress.
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal, meaning that we cannot yet lawfully remove people to Rwanda. That is because of concerns that it expressed that relocated individuals might be refouled. I am sure the House knows that that means that those individuals might be re-deported to a third country. The Government disagreed with that verdict, but, as I have said, we respect the verdict of their lordships. It is important to understand that the Supreme Court’s judgment was based on the facts as they existed 18 months ago and that the Court said the problem could be remedied. As I told the House last week, we have worked on and found that very remedy. Our asylum partnership with Rwanda sets out, in a legally binding international treaty, the obligations of both the UK and Rwanda within international law.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. As he says, international law and domestic law are both important, but they are different. The Bill seeks to give this House the power to deem Rwanda a safe country. Can he confirm for me that what it does not seek to do is suggest that this country, or this House, has the power to deem itself in compliance with international law? My worry stems from clause1(5) of the Bill, which, of course, reflects the Government’s intention to deem Rwanda a safe country, but then goes on to describe the safe country as one
“to which persons may be removed…in compliance with all of the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law”.
Will he confirm that it is not the Government’s intention to suggest that it falls to any country to deem itself in compliance with international law—he does not need me to explain what the consequences of that might be elsewhere in the world—and that he will look again at the language and whether it needs to be changed to clarify that point?
James Cleverly
I can reassure my right hon. and learned Friend that that is absolutely not the intention of the Bill. The deeming clause is specifically about the safety of Rwanda, because of our response to their lordships’ position at the Supreme Court hearing. We are not seeking to redefine through domestic legislation international law.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
If the right hon. Gentleman is right and the treaty with Rwanda meets the concerns of the Supreme Court, why is this Bill necessary? If Rwanda is now a safe country as a result of the treaty, why is this highly controversial Bill, which is clearly causing great problems in his own parliamentary party, necessary?
James Cleverly
We are putting forward legislation that will be clear and unambiguous, so as to support the treaty. The treaty addresses the concerns raised by their lordships.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
With the indulgence of the House, I intend to make some progress. I want to make sure that others have a full chance to speak in this debate.
The Bill sets out to Parliament and to the courts why Rwanda is safe for those relocated there. The treaty that I signed last week puts beyond legal doubt the safety of Rwanda. It provides the basis to end the merry-go-round of legal challenges that have second-guessed the will of Parliament and frustrated this policy, this House, and the desire of the British people.
Rwanda will introduce an even stronger end-to-end asylum system, stronger still than the one that underpins its relationship with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It will have a specialist asylum appeals tribunal—
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for giving way. Since we last spoke in this House, it has been confirmed that the Government have given the Rwandan Government £240 million, with a further £50 million to come in April—all independently of anybody be being sent to Rwanda. Will he now confirm that the Government’s deal also means a further £50 million in 2025 and a further £50 million on top of that in 2026?
James Cleverly
The right hon. Lady is asking me to confirm figures that we have put in the public domain. Unsurprisingly, I am totally comfortable confirming what I have already said. Rwanda will introduce an even stronger—
James Cleverly
The right hon. Lady has the chance to make a speech in just a few moments.
The system of specialist asylum tribunals to consider individual appeals against any refused claim within Rwanda will have one Rwandan and one other Commonwealth co-president and will be made up of judges from a mix of nationalities, selected by the co-president. To the point the right hon. Lady is making about the money spent by the British Government, as is the case with many countries around the world, the Government spend money capacity building with our international partners, and we have been working extensively with Rwanda to build capacity too.
The treaty makes clear that anyone relocated to Rwanda cannot be removed from Rwanda to another country except back to the United Kingdom. It is binding in international law and enhances the role of the independent monitoring committee, which will have the power to set its own priority areas for monitoring. The committee will have unfettered access to monitor the entire relocation process, from initial screening to relocation and settlement in Rwanda. Relocated individuals and legal representatives will be able to launch confidential complaints directly with that committee. It is that treaty and the accompanying evidence pack that enable the Government to conclude with confidence that Rwanda is safe. We will need to be certain that domestic and foreign courts will also respect the treaty, and that is why we have introduced this Bill.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
On that point on foreign courts, clause 5(2) says:
“It is for a Minister of the Crown…to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the interim measure.”
Is the advice from the Attorney General that it will be compatible with international law for a Minister to refuse to comply with such an indication?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend, who is an expert proceduralist in this House, will know that advice from the AG to Government is privileged, and I am not going to share it at the Dispatch Box, but he will also know that the Government’s position is clear and unambiguous that this is in accordance with international law. He can rest assured of that.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as a matter of law, an interim measure under rule 35 is directed not to the courts of the UK, but to the Governments of the member states? Therefore, what the Bill says simply restates what is the position anyway: it is the member state that it applies to, not the courts.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Home Secretary give way?
James Cleverly
I will give way one more time, and then I will make more progress.
Dame Meg Hillier
The Home Secretary says he will not reveal to the House the Attorney General’s advice, and that is fine, but on the issue of the money, his permanent secretary was in front of the Public Accounts Committee yesterday and told us that, as well as the payment of £50 million due next year, there are payments planned for years four and five. Is he willing to share with the House how much will be paid to Rwanda in years four and five of the programme?
James Cleverly
The hon. Lady will know that we have committed to a reporting schedule that is completely consistent with other Government Departments and with the reporting schedule of the Home Office in other areas. We intend to commit to doing that.
This Bill builds on the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and complements all other measures that this Government are employing to end illegal migration. The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill makes it unambiguously clear that Rwanda is safe and it will prevent the courts from second-guessing the will of this sovereign Parliament.
James Cleverly
I have to make progress.
The Bill gives effect to the judgment of Parliament that Rwanda is a safe country, notwithstanding UK law or any interpretation of international law. For the purposes of the Bill, a safe country is one to which people
“may be removed from the United Kingdom in compliance with all of the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law”—
I hope that will reassure my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright)—
“that are relevant to the treatment in that country of persons who are removed there.”
It means that someone removed to that country will not be removed or sent to another country in contravention of any international law, and that anyone who seeks asylum or who has had an asylum determination will have their claim determined and be treated in accordance with that country’s obligations under international law.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I am going to make progress. I have been generous, but I want others to have the chance to speak.
Anyone removed to Rwanda under the provisions of this treaty will not be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom, in a very small number of limited and exceptional circumstances. Should the UK request the return of any relocated person, Rwanda will return them. Decision makers, including myself or the holder of the post of Home Secretary, an immigration officer and the courts must all treat Rwanda as a safe country. They must do so notwithstanding the relevant UK law or any interpretation of international law by courts or tribunals. That includes the European convention on human rights; the refugee convention; the international covenant on civil and political rights; the United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings which opened at Warsaw on 16 May 2005; customary international law; and
“any other international law, or convention or rule of international law, whatsoever, including any order, judgment, decision or measure of the European Court of Human Rights.”
The Prime Minister has been crystal clear that he, and the Government he leads, will not let foreign courts destroy this Rwanda plan and curtail our efforts to break the business model of the evil people-smuggling gangs.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend makes the point about foreign courts, but what about domestic courts? Is there not a danger that, in pursuing quite stringent measures in this Bill, we are really testing the principle of comity to breaking point? This House and this Parliament are sovereign, but we also have the independence of the courts and the rule of law to bear in mind, and restraint on both sides—by the judiciary and by this place—is essential if we are to maintain the balance of our constitution.
James Cleverly
My right hon. and learned Friend knows I have a huge amount of respect for him, not just as a friend and an individual, but for his experience at the Bar at a very high level. He raises an important point, and I want to give him complete reassurance that we have looked very carefully at that balance he speaks about and we respect the importance of that. We genuinely believe this Bill gets the balance right, although, because of the growing nature of this extreme and perverse trade in human misery, we have to take firm action. We are therefore acting in a way that maintains that balance. It is novel. He says it is contentious, and that is true, but we are doing it because we have to break this business model. We have to do this.
When the European Court of Human Rights—this speaks to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) just a moment ago—indicates an interim measure relating to the intended removal of someone to Rwanda under, or purportedly under, a provision of the Immigration Act, a Minister of the Crown alone, not a court or tribunal, will decide whether the UK will comply with that interim measure.
In order to further prevent individual claims to prevent removal, the Bill disapplies certain relevant provisions from the Human Rights Act 1998 in particular circumstances, including sections 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. This is lawful, this is fair, this is necessary, because we have now addressed every reason that has been used to prevent removal to Rwanda. We have blocked asylum claims from being admitted with legislation that has already passed through this House: when the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is enforced, modern slavery disqualification provisions will assist with speedy removal.
The only possible blocking of removal is if an individual can demonstrate, with compelling evidence, that there is an immediate risk of serious and irreversible harm to them in particular under their individual circumstances. That sets the bar rightly very high, so that the chances of that happening are rightly extremely small. The only way to deter people from coming here illegally is to convince them that if they do, they will be unable to stay. Instead, they will be detained and swiftly removed to a safe third country, or their home country, if it is safe to do so.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I will conclude, as I have been on my feet for a while.
This is how we will save lives at sea. This is how we will deter illegal migration. And this—the House should take note—is how we will break the business model of the most evil and perverse trade that we currently can see: the trade in vulnerable people. The people smugglers are not humanitarians; they are vicious criminals, and we must take action to stop them. This is how we restore confidence in our immigration system and assert full control over our borders.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly
I am nearly done; let me conclude.
This is how we will overcome the intolerable pressure on taxpayers, public services and local communities that illegal immigration creates. That is how we will ensure that the system is fair: fair to those who play by the rules and fair to the British people, who are rightly sick of people arriving here from France in small boats—from France, a safe and wonderful country. Rwanda stands ready to welcome those new arrivals. It stands ready to work with us to find a solution on this global issue, rather than being part of a problem, and for that, I believe, it should have our thanks and admiration. This is an innovative and humane solution to a growing global problem. Other countries are looking at what we are doing and making similar plans of their own. A new treaty and this Bill make it clear in law that Rwanda is a safe country to which to relocate illegal migrants.
I want to extend an offer to the whole House. Colleagues across this House must know how much this matters to our constituents. Our voters, no matter which party they vote for, are warm and welcoming people to those in genuine need. We have seen that in the way in which people across this country have opened their homes to many of the half a million people who have come here via safe and legal routes in the past decade. But the British people rightly expect everyone to play by the rules, and they expect us in this House to do what it takes to stop the boats. That is what voting for this legislation means. Our voters are horrified when they see images of people drowning in the channel. They are horrified when they see people smugglers taking advantage of people. They want an end to illegal migration. This Government have a plan that will provide an alternative home for illegal arrivals to the UK and deter others from coming here illegally. I commend the Bill to the House.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House, while affirming support for securing the UK’s borders, reforming the broken asylum system and ending dangerous small boat crossings, declines to give a Second Reading to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill because the Bill will not work to tackle people smuggling gangs, end small boat crossings or achieve the core purposes of the Bill, will lead to substantial costs to the UK taxpayer every year whilst applying to less than one per cent of those who claim asylum in the UK, threatens the UK’s compliance with international law, further undermines the potential to establish security and returns agreements with other countries and does not prevent the return of relocated individuals who commit serious crimes in Rwanda back to the UK.”
I join the Home Secretary in expressing our sympathy for the family and friends of the asylum seeker who has apparently died on the Bibby Stockholm. I understand that the Home Secretary cannot say more about that at the moment.
This should be a debate about how we prevent lives being lost, about how we strengthen our border security, about how we stop dangerous boat crossings, and about how we fix the broken asylum system. Instead, we have just got total Tory chaos. What a fine mess this weak Prime Minister has got them all into, and got the country into as well. They are tearing lumps out of each other over a failing policy while letting the country down.
A Home Secretary has been sacked, an Immigration Minister has resigned, and the Tories have spent almost £300 million of taxpayers’ money on Rwanda without sending a single person. The Home Secretary seemed to confirm today that, in fact, it is £400 million without a single person being sent. More Home Secretaries have been sent to Rwanda than asylum seekers—that is about £100 million per trip. The climate Minister, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), has been called back from the Dubai COP for the vote. Well, I guess the Government can say that at least one flight has taken off as a result of the legislation.
We have had the third Tory Home Secretary sent to Rwanda in two years, the third bilateral agreement with Rwanda in two years, and now the third Tory law on asylum and Rwanda in two years. And they are about to write their fourth cheque to Rwanda. It turns out that they set up a direct debit: hundreds of millions of pounds for a failing scheme that is only ever likely to cover a few hundred people—less than 1% of those claiming asylum last year—and has become a proxy for the deep civil wars in the Tory party.
In this carousel of Conservative chaos, we have the European Research Group, the Northern Research Group, the New Conservatives, the old Conservatives, the One Nation group, the implausibly named Conservative Growth Group, and if you thought that was an oxymoron, Mr Speaker, we also have the Conservative Common Sense Group. Seriously, there are so many fighting factions, but they all have one thing in common: they do not believe in the Bill.
The Prime Minister was forced into an emergency breakfast meeting this morning—less a smoked salmon offensive; more buttering up his MPs with bacon butties, and sides of briefing and backstabbing—promising his MPs amendments and then rowing back, telling them that he really wants to break international law but that the Rwandan Government will not let him. He is hiding behind the Kigali Administration because he is too weak to even defend his plan. Weak, weak, weak.
The Prime Minister says that his patience is wearing thin. Well, how do the Tories think the country feels when watching this chaos? He is hoping that his party will calm down over Christmas, but they all know who the Christmas turkey is, and he is sitting in No. 10.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman hopes that his Prime Minister has a plan, but no Back Bencher on either side of the House seems to agree with it. We are clear that what we should be doing is using the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Government are wasting in cheques written to Rwanda for nothing—for a scheme that will send, at best, only a few hundred people—to strengthen our border security, go after the criminal gangs, and make sure that we clear the asylum backlog and save the taxpayer billions of pounds. [Interruption.] Actually, he has not. The Home Secretary likes to claim that he is doing that; he likes to claim that he is bringing down the number of people in hotels, but in fact that number has gone up to a record high of 56,000. Since the Prime Minister said he was going to end asylum hotel use, it has gone up by a further 10,000, because he is failing.
I welcome the new immigration Ministers to their posts, one of whom, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), has been an immigration Minister before. I think that during the time he was immigration Minister, net migration trebled and the number of boat crossings also trebled, but I am sure nobody will hold that against him. The Government have obviously appointed two immigration Ministers this time in case another one resigns because he thinks their policy is totally failing and too weak. In the words of the ex-immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), this new law will not work, “doesn’t do the job”, and is
“both legally and operationally fundamentally flawed.”
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the hon. Member if he can say whether he agrees with the previous immigration Minister or the current one.
Paul Holmes
I am grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for asking me questions; she overestimates my ability. Talking of Christmas turkeys, this morning the Leader of the Opposition gave an interview on Radio 4 that, typically, contained no policy whatsoever. Can she outline how she would reduce immigration and tackle the problems that she is castigating this Government for, given that everything she says she would do, the Government are already doing?
Yvette Cooper
The trouble is that they are not—they are just not. The scale of the Government’s operations to go after the criminal gangs is tiny. The £300 million that the Government have already committed to Rwanda is a third of the budget of the National Crime Agency. They are prepared to put that investment into Rwanda—into this tiny scheme that will affect only a couple hundred people—but are totally failing to invest sufficiently in tackling the criminal gangs, working with Europol and going after the supply chains. There are warehouses of boats across Europe that the European police forces are totally failing to go after, which our party has said we would go after. We would work with Europol and get new security arrangements in place, which again, the Government are failing to do.
Instead, we have the former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), who signed the last agreement and brought forward the last piece of legislation, saying that the Bill is fatally flawed and will not stop the boats. Yesterday we had Back Benchers saying that the Bill should have been pulled because it is partial and incomplete, and the Home Secretary—who privately called this whole thing “batshit”—is out to bat for it today, even though he knows it will not work.
This is the Tories’ asylum crisis. Five years ago, we did not have a major problem with dangerous boat crossings, but they let criminal gangs take hold along the channel. They failed to work with France at the beginning when they had the chance, and they let smugglers spread their tentacles along the coast, organising dangerous boat crossings that undermine border security and put lives at risk.
At the same time, the Tories let Home Office decision making collapse. They decided to downgrade the skills and experience of caseworkers, then shrugged their shoulders when productivity dropped. They failed to return people—they have let returns collapse, down by 50% compared with the last Labour Government. The next Labour Government, if we are elected, would set up a new major returns unit with, 1,000 additional staff to increase returns. Rather than the total number of returns collapsing and the Government failing to return people who have no right to be here, our party would introduce a new returns unit to make sure we have proper enforcement. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Just shouting at the shadow Home Secretary is not a good look. You should be listening to what she has to say.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Will the right hon. Lady give way on the last point?
Layla Moran
I am extremely grateful. Is this not just a fig leaf for a completely incompetent Home Office? I have a constituent who has exhausted his leave to remain and wants to go back to Fiji. He applied to the voluntary returns service in September and gave his passport to the Home Office in December—that was in 2022. The local church is going to pay for his ticket, yet he still cannot return. If the Home Office cannot deal with cases like that, how can we trust it with anything else?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member is totally right. I have now heard of a series of failed asylum cases in which people want to return to their home countries and have applied to the Home Office to be able to do so, and the Home Office has told them that they will have to wait six months because it is so incapable of getting a grip. In the case that the hon. Member has raised, somebody has been waiting for 12 months to be able to return to their home country. There has been a 50% drop in returns compared with the last Labour Government, because the Tories always go after gimmicks and they never get a grip. There are 40,000 people whose asylum applications have failed and who have not been returned, and 17,000 people the Government have just lost—they do not even know where they are. It was their policy to let the backlog soar and put 56,000 people in hotels. This is the Tories’ asylum crisis, and they are failing to fix it.
The Prime Minister has made this legislation—this policy—the Tories’ flagship. It is extortionately expensive, and it is failing. Ministers have repeatedly tried to hide the cost: just 10 days ago, the Home Secretary was trying to suggest that it was only £140 million. It has already cost twice that for nobody to be sent, under a scheme that Home Office officials have described as unenforceable and at high risk of fraud. Those hundreds of millions of pounds could now be £400 million, and I would like whichever immigration Minister winds up today’s debate to explain whether this is now, in fact, a £400 million plan. That is hundreds of millions of pounds that could have been spent on thousands more police to boost our border security and smash the criminal gangs. It could have been used to clear the backlog entirely, end hotel use and save us a further couple of billion pounds, or train 1,000 doctors or 4,500 nurses.
Of course, if the Government manage to send people to Rwanda, they will have to spend further money, probably around £200,000 per person—perhaps the Minister could also confirm that figure. That is more than twice as much as it costs here in the UK, so can the Government confirm that by the time they have finished, close to half a billion pounds will have been paid to Rwanda for just a few hundred people, around 1% of those arriving in the country? The Court of Appeal has said that there is only capacity in Rwanda for around 100 people; even the judge who agreed with the Government said that talk of thousands is “political hyperbole”. The asylum system in Rwanda is also limited: it has only processed an average of 100 people a year for the past three years, so at most, it will be a few hundred people. Some 56,000 people are in hotels, 100,000 applied for asylum last year and 160,000 are waiting in the backlog, so potentially less than 0.1% of those people will be covered by the scheme. It is no wonder that the permanent secretary said yesterday:
“We don’t have evidence of a deterrent effect”.
The Government are now on their third new law in two years. The Home Secretary said that the Bill means
“if you enter Britain illegally, you will be detained and swiftly removed…to a safe third country, such as Rwanda”—[Official Report, 7 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 152.]—
except that was not the current Home Secretary, but his predecessor, talking about the last Bill: the Illegal Migration Act 2023, passed four months ago. The main section of that Act has not actually been enacted, because the Government know it will not work. The Home Secretary has also said that the Bill will
“deter illegal entry into the UK”—[Official Report, 24 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 922.]
and that anyone who arrives illegally will be sent
“to the country they arrived from or a safe third country”,
but that also was not this Home Secretary or this Bill: it was his predecessor but four, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), when she introduced the main provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, passed 18 months ago. The main section of that Act has been revoked because it made things worse. The first Act was largely revoked because it made things worse, and the second one is not yet in force because the Government know it will not work, so forgive us for not believing a single word about the Bill that is before us today. We have heard it all before.
When he responds to the debate, the immigration Minister should explain what is going to happen about clause 2 of the Illegal Migration Act, which requires the Home Secretary to remove everyone to Rwanda or elsewhere if they arrived after July. The Government have put that provision on hold, apparently until after Rwanda gets off the ground, but even if they do manage to do that quickly, more than 15,000 people will have arrived in the country on small boats since then, all of whom the Government have now promised to send to Rwanda. If Rwanda is only going to take a few hundred people a year, it is going to take the Government over 100 years to send those 15,000 people who have arrived since they passed the last law. It will take them 10 years to send everyone who has arrived in the last fortnight alone. In the meantime, while they focus on this gimmick, they are failing to get a grip and they are failing to bring down the backlog. Instead, we have people in asylum hotels at the taxpayers’ expense at the astronomical cost of £8 million a day.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I have listened with interest for almost 15 minutes to hear what the shadow Home Secretary’s solution is to this incredibly difficult problem. She rightly refers to the fact that we have asylum seekers in hotels at considerable cost, and to the considerable difficulty when it comes to their distribution to our local authorities for all of us as constituency MPs, but I have not heard a single word about recognising that the Government are coming up with a solution that, while it may not work completely, may have a deterrent effect and may be a welcome step in a series of steps to help reduce illegal immigration into our country. Does she not recognise that?
Yvette Cooper
Well, £400 million for a failing plan is a hell of a lot of money. What we need to do is clear the backlog, and Labour has set out a proposal for 1,000 new caseworkers to clear the backlog and for a new returns unit to make sure that, instead of this 50% collapse in returns, we actually return people who have no right to be here. Do that—clear the asylum backlog and end the asylum hotels—and that will save the taxpayer £2 billion. Instead of throwing away hundreds of millions of pounds, it will save the taxpayer billions of pounds.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to my former colleague on the Home Affairs Committee.
Rehman Chishti
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, and we did indeed work together on the Home Affairs Committee. I am a Kent Member of Parliament, and we need to make sure that we take firm and decisive action to deal with illegal migration. I am open-minded in looking at this Bill to see whether it delivers that. Does she agree—I tried to intervene on the Home Secretary on this point—that there are a number of people in the UK who have lost their asylum claims, yet are still in the UK? What are we going to do, and what is the Opposition’s plan to ensure that those people are removed, which would be a deterrent? I have not been given the numbers of how many of those who have lost all their claims have been removed in the last year, over the last two years or over the last three years, but if we want a deterrent, we need to look at that as well as at this Bill.
Yvette Cooper
I totally agree with the hon. Member. That is why I hope there will be cross-party support for a plan to have a major new returns unit to turn that around. We have 40,000 people here who have had their claim rejected and should be returned, and they are not being returned. There has been a 50% drop in returns under the Conservatives over the 13 years of the Conservative Government, and a further 17,000 people have just disappeared into the system altogether, where there should be proper enforcement. However, the Government are not taking action on any of those things. There is no grip on the system, so Labour would set up a major new returns unit, with 1,000 staff, to make sure that we have proper enforcement in place. The combination of that and the caseworkers will save the taxpayer £2 billion.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Yvette Cooper
I will make some progress first.
On the treaty and the Bill before us, the treaty says that numbers are limited by Rwandan capacity. The number of vulnerable refugees sent here, of course, is not limited. The treaty says Rwanda can terminate the deal at any time and does not have to take anybody. The treaty also says the UK will fund support for asylum seekers and people granted refugee status for five years. That includes accommodation and three meals a day for five years, which is more than here in the UK. It says that people cannot be sent anywhere else, but can be sent back to the UK, and the immigration Minister—or one of them at least—has confirmed that if someone commits a terrible crime in Rwanda, the Rwandan justice system does not have to deal with them, but can just send those criminals back to the UK. You could not make it up: we have trafficking and torture victims and Afghans who helped our armed forces and fled the Taliban sent to Rwanda, but convicted criminals sent back here.
The Bill before us is a total mess, which is why all sides of the Conservative party do not like it, even though most of them will still vote for it because they are in such a mess. Some of them want to stop all court challenges. Actually, I think some of them probably want to stop all courts, because they have long ripped up being the party of law and order or of the rule of law. Some of them want the UK to pull out of the European convention on human rights, no matter the consequences for the Good Friday agreement, the Windsor framework or the prospect of any future security or returns agreements with other countries. Then we have the really astonishing scene of the British Prime Minister claiming that somehow the Rwandan Government’s commitment to the ECHR is the reason why he cannot possibly breach it, and that they are keeping the British Prime Minister on the straight and narrow, even though the Rwandan Government were found by the British Supreme Court to be in breach of international law. This is kind of through the looking glass now.
Do the Rwandan Government suddenly care about the European convention on human rights, or did the Prime Minister ask them to say that they wanted the European convention on human rights to be complied with, because he was too weak to tell his Back Benchers that he actually thinks our great country should abide by the international laws that we helped to write and that we currently urge everyone else to follow?
Sir Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
The shadow Home Secretary will understand the passion and anger that many of our constituents feel—in my own constituency, we have four hotels full of people waiting for their asylum determination—and they want this sorted out. The Government have come forward with a plan, and she is eloquently explaining her reservations about that plan and committing to cancel it. She is also explaining what she would do if she were charged with responsibility for this policy in the Home Office. We have 12 months until the country has to face a general election. What timeline would the right hon. Lady put on ending the boats if her policy was enacted, and will she give that date to the British people from the Dispatch Box today?
Yvette Cooper
I think the right hon. Member is just highlighting the failure of those on his Front Bench. All of us should want to stop these dangerous boat crossings. They are undermining border security and they are putting lives at risk. We should be seeking to smash the criminal gangs and we should be seeking to strengthen our border security. We should be seeking to return people who have no right to be here, and we should be seeking to fix the chaos in the asylum system. Most people want to see both strong border security and a fair, effective and properly controlled and managed asylum system, which we do not have at the moment. That means clearing the backlog, setting up a new returns unit and seeking to work with France and Albania. We actually agree with the Government on that and support the work the Government have done, but the work with France, Albania and other countries should be going much further so that we have European co-operation in place. All of us should be seeking to do that, instead of having this total chaos on a gimmick that is not about getting a grip.
Yvette Cooper
I will make some progress, and then I will give way to the right hon. Member.
The problem is that, even as the Bill stands, it risks breaking international law, and that makes it harder to get further returns agreements and to get the further security co-operation that we need with our nearest neighbours. It is also why, if the One Nation group supports it, that puts its members in a pretty impossible position. Clause 1(5) says that a safe country is
“a country to which persons may be removed…in compliance with…international law”.
Clause 2(1) says:
“Every decision-maker must…treat…Rwanda as…safe”,
even if it is not. So even if Rwanda does what it did over the Israel-Rwanda deal and breaches international law and sends people back for refoulement, even if Rwanda introduces new policies to send people abroad, even if there is a coup in Rwanda, even if Rwanda fails to stop organised gangs moving people to the border, even if asylum seekers are shot at in Rwanda—all things that the Supreme Court found had happened in the past—and even if the treaty is designed in good faith, if it fails, the Government are still saying that British courts cannot consider the facts.
Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Yvette Cooper
I will give way. I did promise to give way to the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke), and I will come back to him in the moment.
Sir Geoffrey Cox
Is there a fundamental difference between the Government deeming Rwanda safe and the Labour Government, as they did in 2004, deeming a whole list of countries safe in precisely the same way and with precisely the same legislative technique?
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that that is not the case, because what the Government have done is both to deem and to remove any capacity for the courts to consider the facts.
We can see how absurd even Government figures think this is. The Home Office’s legal guidance, published yesterday, quotes legal judgments. One says that
“the court should not shrink from applying the fiction created by the deeming provision”.
Another states:
“The statute says that you must imagine a certain state of affairs; it does not say that having done so, you must cause or permit your imagination to boggle when it comes to the inevitable corollaries”.
The mind does indeed boggle. The problem for the Home Secretary and the One Nation group is that, even as it stands, the Government are effectively admitting that they are creating legal fictions. They are saying that rather than following the facts, the courts will have to follow those fictions instead, for the sake of a tiny scheme that costs not just £300 million, but possibly £400 million. It also sets a precedent.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, as I said I would come back to him, and then I will come back to the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox).
Sir Simon Clarke
There are two points to correct in the right hon. Lady’s narrative about what Labour would do that the Government are not doing. The first is that the Government are already doing much of what she lists, and I can attest to that, having funded it in various different capacities. She also misses the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) made a moment ago. We are dealing in this instance with the consequences of large numbers of people coming to this country, not with the cause. Rwanda seeks to address the incentives driving this evil trade. It is only by getting Rwanda to work that we change the calculus not only for the people making the crossing, but for the people expediting it, who are the criminal gangs. Does the right hon. Lady not recognise that that is why this scheme is so important?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the right hon. Lady, I stress that when people make interventions, not only should they be fairly short, but having done so, it is important to stay for the rest of the speech. Some people have been wandering out, having made an intervention. Anyone who is thinking of making an intervention, please bear in mind that you then have to stay for the entirety of the speech.
Yvette Cooper
The problem for the right hon. Member is that he has a scheme that is likely now to cost £400 million and that is only likely to cover less than 1%, and perhaps less than 0.1%, of the people arriving in this country. That is why the permanent secretary has said that there is no evidence of a deterrent. We need the practical measures to take action to go after the criminal gangs and to work with our neighbours. He says that the Government are doing that already, so how come there has been a drop of 30% in the number of people convicted for people smuggling? If they are really going after the criminal gangs when we know that people smuggling across the channel has rocketed, how come convictions for people smuggling have plummeted by 30%? That is the evidence that the Government are failing to do the basics to tackle those practical things.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The right hon. Lady is making a powerful case that seeking to legislate by assertion that Rwanda is safe is as dangerous as it is ridiculous. Does she agree that those who claim that this is about parliamentary sovereignty, and that that is why this sinister attack is justified, are wrong, because Parliament can be meaningfully sovereign only within a functioning legal and constitutional system, which this Bill totally undermines? Without the courts being able to interpret law, the legal system does not work, and it undermines this place, too.
Yvette Cooper
We have constitutional roles for Parliament and the courts. It is right for Parliament to respond to court judgments, to adapt and to change policy, but this Bill instead puts at risk the compliance with international law that we need to be able to make further agreements.
I do not think that, in the end, all of this is about Rwanda; it is about the deep divides in the Conservative party. It is about their chaos. It is about the Prime Minister’s inability to show leadership. It is about the fact that they just want to tear lumps out of each other. They are creating chaos while letting the country down.
The former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark, has said that the Government are now aiming for just
“one or two symbolic flights off before the next election with a handful of illegal migrants on them”.
That is not the same as stopping the boats, strengthening border security or fixing the asylum chaos.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way, because I know that the right hon. Member likes to think of himself as the leader of the Common Sense Group of Conservatives.
Sir John Hayes
The right hon. Lady is right; I am the very personification of common sense, as she has just acknowledged. The real divide is between those people, very largely on the Opposition Benches, who believe that international law trumps the supremacy of this place, and those who believe that the reason this place is supreme is that our legitimacy is derived from the people. For that reason, only a polity can make law. International treaties matter, but they do not matter as much when it comes to this kind of legislation and the people expressing their will through those they elect to speak for them.
Yvette Cooper
I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we are discussing this legislation not because of a European court, but because of a decision by a British court: the Supreme Court. It made a decision based on British laws. I know that there are Members on the Government Back Benches who want to make everything about the European courts, and that is the heart of their dilemma. They want to get rid of the European convention on human rights. The Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have all said that they do not and they will not. That is at the heart of the Conservatives’ divides and chaos. That is what their row is all about. It is not about having a workable solution to the serious problem of our border security being undermined, of dangerous boat crossings that are putting lives at risk and of criminal gangs whose profits have soared as a result of effectively being allowed to let rip along the channel, because the UK and France have failed to work together sufficiently to stop them.
Marco Longhi
I will quote article 21 of the ECHR, which clearly the right hon. Lady likes to support in so many ways:
“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government”.
I do not understand how the will of the British people is being expressed within the European convention on human rights and through European courts—perhaps she can explain.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member’s problem is with those on his Front Bench. His problem is with his own Home Secretary, his own Foreign Secretary and his own Prime Minister. He wants to make all of this about Europe, rather than about our having a proper border security plan, a proper plan to clear the backlog and a proper plan to fix the asylum chaos that the Tories have created.
Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money, instead of these performative rituals and instead of all the deeming, boggling and scheming, we should be trying to build cross-party consensus on what needs to be done. [Laughter.] The Tories cannot even build consensus within their own party, so I accept that that is particularly hard for them at the moment. We should be trying to build a cross-party consensus on what needs to be done to stop the boat crossings that are undermining border security and putting lives at risk.
We should be strengthening border security, smashing the criminal gangs that have spread their tentacles and going after the supply chains, instead of ignoring these warehouses and these lorryloads of boats crossing Europe unchallenged. We should be getting real-time security information, instead of carrying on with the ludicrous situation where we do not even know when suspected smuggler operatives are flying into our country. We should be getting prosecutions and convictions for the smuggler gangs and their vile trade. We should be clearing the backlog, not making it bigger, and ending asylum hotel use. We should be doing more of the things we support, such as the co-operation with France, the deal with Albania and getting more workable deals in place. We should be working together across this country and with other countries to stop dangerous boats, to smash the gangs, to strengthen our border security and, ultimately, to save lives. It is time to end all this chaos, time to ditch the gimmicks, and time for the Government to get a grip.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is obvious that a large number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. I therefore ask that, to start with, Members speak for a maximum of eight minutes. I will not put on a time limit, but I am relying on colleagues to stick to that.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The decision to leave office is always a difficult one. The decision to disagree with the Prime Minister—someone I want to support in good times and bad—is always a difficult one, but politicians are sent here to make difficult decisions. No one is forced to be a Minister. With high office comes responsibility, and no responsibility is greater than protecting our borders and securing us from untold damage as a result of mass illegal migration.
We have made huge progress as a country over the last year as a result of the work that the former Home Secretary—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman)—the Prime Minister and I have done, and I wish my right hon. Friend the new Home Secretary and his Ministers all the best in taking that work forward. Our record stands among the best of any European country. We have, as my right hon. Friend said, reduced the number of small boat arrivals to our country by one third. That compares with a one-third increase across Europe, and an almost 100% increase on Europe’s southern border in Italy, so the plan that the Prime Minister set out a year ago is working. It is the most comprehensive plan of any European country.
We have just heard from the Opposition that they have no plan at all. They said that even if the Rwanda scheme was working and having the deterrent effect we all want, they would still scrap it, because ultimately they do not believe in border security and they cannot be trusted to protect our borders. But this problem is not going away. It is going to be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. There are millions of people on the move—some are fleeing climate change and persecution, while others are economic migrants understandably in search of a better life. It is a great compliment to our country that so many want to come here, but it is not sustainable.
Robert Jenrick
I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment.
We have to secure our borders, which means that all the good work that we have done over the course of the last year—the Albania deal, the asylum backlog work, and the deals with Bulgaria, France, Italy and others—is not enough. We are not going to stop the boats purely through that work. We have to interject the strongest possible deterrent, and the best deterrent—the only deterrent—that we can use in the course of the next 12 months is the Rwanda deal. That is why it is so critical that we get it up and running.
I genuinely believe, having immersed myself in this issue for 14 months, that this is a good policy, that it can work and that it will help our country to fight back against this great scourge. In my job, I have seen the consequences of that every day. I have gone with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) to meet her constituents whose homes have been broken into and whose lives have been ruined by illegal migrants. I have spent time with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Sir Conor Burns) and read about his constituent who was murdered by an asylum seeker, who posed as a child and then killed somebody on the streets of Bournemouth. I have worked with almost every Member of this House on their determination to close asylum hotels. Even the greatest advocates for open borders change their minds when there is an asylum hotel in their constituency. Hypocrisy is all over this issue.
That is why we have to fix this problem. When I said “whatever it takes”, I meant it, and I honestly believe that that view is shared by all of us on this side of the House and many good colleagues on the other side as well. To do that, we have to make sure that this policy works. This is a good-faith disagreement—there are good people on both sides of the House, and certainly within my party, who have disagreements about how we can make the policy work—but my point of view is this: untold damage is being done to our country and this issue will be with us for years, if not decades, to come. If we do not operationalise this policy correctly, we will see the numbers rise for many years to come. If, God forbid, there was a Labour Government, there would be a decade of small boat arrivals. I want to stop that.
To my mind, there are two big flaws with this Bill. First, as I have said to many who have asked me, including on the media, it does not address the question of individual claims. If I have learnt anything in this job, it is that those seeking to frustrate their removal from our country will stop at nothing. The small-boat-chasing law firms and legal representatives will help them to fight, each and every way. Give them an inch and they will take a mile. Even the best-meant things the country has done in recent years, such as our world-leading modern slavery laws, are abused. Some 70% of the people we are seeking to remove put in a modern slavery claim at the eleventh hour.
Robert Jenrick
I will not give way at the moment.
This is proven to be correct every time, so why would we not put into the Bill a provision that says that those people cannot bring forward individual claims?
Robert Jenrick
I will give way in a moment.
First, such a provision would bring legal certainty; secondly, there are operational reasons for it. I have met no one who really understands the operationalisation of the policy who does not believe such a provision is crucial. Those advisers have told me time and again that the scheme will be seriously impeded. People will put in claims and go to court. The upper tier tribunal, which is already under pressure, will be overwhelmed. Our detention capacity—just a few thousand spaces—will be full. In a single week in August, 2,000 beds in our detention facilities could be filled. Those arrivals will go on to our streets. They will abscond, as they always do, never to be seen again, and the scheme will be brought into quick disrepute. I do not want to see that happen. I will give way to the right hon. Lady.
Dame Meg Hillier
The right hon. Gentleman casts aspersions on Labour’s approach to this issue. He is in the presence of two former Immigration Ministers: myself and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). At the end of the last Labour Government, there was one person being returned every eight minutes. I know from my own caseload that people who have reached the end of the line are still dribbling around the system, even though, as others have raised, they want to leave the country. What was the right hon. Gentleman’s record after 14 months as an Immigration Minister?
Robert Jenrick
There has been a tenfold increase in the pace of asylum decision making, so we have absolutely transformed the decision-making system. We have massively increased the number of returns—the hon. Lady is on rocky ground on this one, I am afraid—as 22,000 people have been returned. The difference between our side of the House and hers is that we have the guts and the determination to fix this problem once and for all, which means interjecting the strongest possible deterrent. Were there a Labour Government, I would worry for this country, because we would see a massive increase in the number of small boat arrivals, and the people smugglers would be celebrating. That is why it is so important to Conservative Members that we—
Robert Jenrick
With all due respect, I will not give way, because I only have a few minutes left.
We need to use the time that we have left in government before the general election. Of course, I hope we win the next general election, but the public are watching us. They expect us to fix this problem, so why would we not put into the Bill all the strongest protections at our disposal?
On the second important thing that needs to change in the Bill, it is inevitable, in the light of the Supreme Court’s judgment, that the Strasbourg Court will impose further rule 39 interim measures. That is, after all, what bedevilled the flight arranged by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) a year or so ago. We have to stop that. It is a matter of sovereignty for our country that Ministers, acting on the instructions of Parliament, do not allow the flights to be delayed.
The provision in the Bill is sophistry. It is the express policy of the Government that rule 39 injunctions are binding and that to ignore them would be a breach of international law. We are being asked to vote for a provision that it would be illegal to use. I do not want to be in the position that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, whose determination I do not doubt, was in. I do not want my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary or my successors as Immigration Minister to be in that position. We as a House are giving them a hard deal and doing them a disservice if we allow the Bill to continue in that way. They must have the full power of Parliament to ignore those rule 39 injunctions and get those flights in the air.
There are things that others will contribute, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on his work drawing out some of the other challenges with the Bill, so I will close with this. This is not a bad Bill, but it is not the best Bill. I want the Bill to work. The test of this policy is not, “Is it the strongest Bill that we have done?”, or, “Is it a good compromise?” It is: “Will it work?” That is all the public care about. They do not care about Rwanda as a scheme; they care about stopping the boats, and we are sent here to do that for them. I will never elevate contested notions of international law over the interests of my constituents or vital national interests such as national security and border security. The Bill could be so much better. Let us make it better. Let us make it work.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I wish to speak to the reasoned amendment that stands in my name and that of my hon. Friends.
Before I do so, I want to remark on the tragic news that has emerged that an asylum seeker aboard the Bibby Stockholm was found dead this morning. We do not know yet what the cause was, and we sympathise for that person and everybody who loved them, but what I do know is that our words and our policies in this place have consequences. We should all reflect on that in the debate.
The UK’s approach to migration, both legal and illegal, has been nothing short of chaotic, with poisonous rhetoric swirling around the plight of the world’s most vulnerable at the channel on a stormy night. Let me take a moment to reflect on how the Tories have brought us to this parlous state. A former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), doubled down on Labour’s hostile environment policy in a speech 11 long years ago. She promised to make life really difficult for those who came to our shores, deporting first and hearing appeals later. The Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 fostered a toxic culture of suspicion and disbelief in the Home Office, turning health staff, employers and landlords into border guards. That led to the Windrush scandal, the test of English for international communication scandal, and lives fractured and still not put back together. It led to “Go home” vans and the highly skilled migrants paragraph 322(5) scandal. It led to people being forcibly removed despite having done nothing wrong. It led directly to the dehumanisation found by the Brook House inquiry and to the rampant spread of covid and scabies in Napier barracks.
The Tories tightened up on the lorries, and then we had small boats. The talk got ever tougher. The cry of “Stop the boats” went out, and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 came and went. The boats kept coming. The Illegal Migration Act 2023 was passed and, oddly enough, did not prove to be much of a deterrent, either. Today, we have the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill before us, which the Tories claim will be the one to do it. Well, they think that the third time is the charm, so maybe it will or maybe it will not. I am not terribly convinced, but the permanent secretary told a Committee yesterday that there is no evidence that it will be a deterrent, either.
This is policy in a death spiral, tougher and tougher, turning the screw and threatening people with rendition flights to Rwanda. It will not work, because nothing the Government have done before has worked. Why? Because it does not deal with the reason why people are coming here.
People will continue to put themselves in small boats because they feel there is no alternative. They come to reunite with family because of historical ties and because of the English language. It is all too easy to dehumanise, to speak of scourges, swarms and hordes, to speak of those who try to come here with no papers as somehow wanting to cheat the system and skip the queue. As the MP with the highest immigration caseload in Scotland, I see many of those people referred to by Ministers at my surgeries week in, week out. I have to look them in the eye, as I know so many Tory Members do not have to. I have 138 outstanding immigration cases—would the Home Secretary care to look at his inbox once in a while?
I will speak instead briefly about some of my constituents. I will call the first constituent Mohammed, to protect his anonymity. He came here from Sudan and got refugee status. He applied for his wife to come and, after nine months of waiting for that application, he came to my surgery in March. In April, conflict broke out in Sudan. His wife’s family fled to Egypt, but, because her paperwork was in the closed visa application centre, she could not go. In May, I was told that the case was allocated to a decision maker but that the visa application centre in Khartoum was still closed. By October, the case was still with a decision maker, but there was no timescale for a decision, I was told.
On Friday, Mohammed came to my advice surgery to show me pictures of a gunshot wound to his wife’s leg and video footage of those who had been killed in the same incident. I ask Tory Members what they would do if it was their wife. There is no safe and legal route from Sudan, and the family reunion route is demonstrably not working in the face of an ongoing conflict. Would they advise her to sit tight and wait for a year and a half for the appropriate paperwork, or should she try to cross international borders, by whatever means, to get to her husband and to safety in Glasgow? She is not wanting to skip the queue; she just wants the paperwork done by the Home Office.
How about the constituents who I will call Mr and Mrs R? They were unlucky enough to be visiting family in Afghanistan with their five children when it fell. With significant difficulty and scant assistance from UK officials, they were eventually able to return to Glasgow several months later, yet they contact me regularly about the family members they had had to leave behind. Despite the much-touted Afghan schemes, there is no route for them. Their relatives fled to Pakistan and had to leave everything behind, including their paperwork. The Government of Pakistan are now sending people back to Afghanistan—into the hands of the very Taliban they fled from. I ask Tory Members again: what would they advise Mr and Mrs R’s family to do? Should they ask the Taliban for a passport, wait for the Taliban to come to their door, wait for the Pakistani Government to arrest them, or should they try another route?
It is no accident that Afghans make up the greatest number of people in small boats. As Safe Passage has pointed out, in the first nine months of this year, just 279 Afghans came through official routes. For every person arriving through the Afghan schemes, 17 Afghans are crossing the channel in a small boat. This week, we have heard about how the Afghan relocations and assistance policy is leaving those who served with our armed forces at risk of execution.
I recently travelled with the Home Affairs Committee to hear more about what is happening in France and Belgium and their response to small boat crossings. The French Red Cross said that it works with the young unaccompanied asylum seekers it finds who are trying to cross the channel to reach family members in the UK. It tries to convince them of the merits of a family reunion application, but the backlog is so long and the casework so slow that they will inevitably wait for many months. Members in this place tend to forget that the channel is not the beginning of somebody’s journey but the end; it is the last leg. The channel holds little fear, given the dangerous journeys that some have already made to be here. It could not be more tempting to know that they are so nearly to safety.
If a humanitarian travel document existed, those same young people could avoid the perilous journey in a leaky rubber dinghy. They could get the same train or ferry that many millions of travellers do every year. They would not need to pay people smugglers at all—that would kill the business model at a stroke. It is the denial of that logical option that is placing people in danger. What are the Government offering instead? They are saying, “If you make that long and dangerous journey to our shores, your case will not be heard at all and you may be sent to Rwanda.”
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
The hon. Member is making an excellent speech and bringing real humanity to the debate. Is she aware that the people in Calais who are trying to cross the channel are homeless, poor, desperate, and often victims of war and human rights abuses, and that walking away from international law and international conventions will not offer protection to them or to any other desperate people in the world and will send a terrible message to the rest of the world that this country is turning its back on the international law that it established in 1948?
Alison Thewliss
The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Through the Bill, this country is turning its back on its international obligations. It is a pathetic excuse for policy—a foghorn signalling to the far right. It is too weak for some of the Home Secretary’s colleagues, but too harsh for a few exceptional others. For all the talk of full fat versus semi-skimmed, it is more akin to milk that has gone stagnant and sour—utterly repellent to decent people and best binned altogether, for everyone’s safety. For the SNP, the Bill is an abhorrence that undermines the UK’s international obligations and the principles of human rights. It costs a fortune and it is highly unlikely to achieve even its tawdry aims. We shall be tabling a prayer against the Rwanda treaty.
The legal experts I have heard from are appalled by the implications of proceeding with a Bill that, by the Home Secretary’s own frontispiece to it, cannot be declared compliant with the ECHR. The Home Secretary claims that he respects the Supreme Court’s decisions, but he comes here today with the sole purpose of overturning them and preventing the Court from ruling on anything ever again. For a Government to disapply human rights when it suits them, and instruct courts and public bodies to do likewise, is deeply troubling.
Liberty has stated that the Bill will
“tie the hands of every court in the UK while also abandoning the UK’s international commitments”.
Far be it from me to be concerned about the UK’s constitution or standing in the world, but I note that the Law Society of Scotland has questioned the UK’s rationale in disapplying a range of human rights agreements dating back 70 years, and the global implications of that departure from the international rights order. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, Justice and Freedom from Torture say that the Bill
“sends a devastating signal to the world about the UK’s reliability as an international partner”.
The Bill also begs the question whether breaking international law is something that the Rwandan Government would accept. Minister Vincent Biruta reportedly said:
“Without lawful behaviour by the UK, Rwanda would not be able to continue with the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.”
It is beneath contempt for the UK Government on the one hand to say, “We are presenting a treaty with Rwanda—marvel at how solid and unbreakable it is,” while, on the other, to tell us that they want to breach the human rights convention, the refugee convention, the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights, the 1984 United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings agreed at Warsaw on 16 May 2005, as well as customary international law and any other laws that might get in their way, including from the European Court of Human Rights.
International law is binding: no welching, no backsies, no keys up. The Government are supposed to adhere to it; that is why they signed up to it in the first place. This is abject nonsense. The Law Society of England and Wales goes further, stating clearly that
“domestic legislation cannot immunise the Government from the enforcement of international law. To claim it can is disingenuous”.
It also states that refusing to comply with an interim measure would be a
“clear and serious breach of international law.”
It accuses the UK Government of using law to manufacture a reality. It is the time of year that we all indulge in some Christmas magic and imagine reindeers on the roof, but this UK Tory Government have asked the entire United Kingdom legal system to engage in a far more dangerous pretence.
The UK Supreme Court sought out the facts for itself and, upon clear and substantial evidence, found Rwanda to be unsafe. That seems most likely why the Government want to ban courts from doing that again, via this legislation. The Court spoke of the risk of refoulement and of sending people back into harm’s way. Indeed, if Rwanda were safe, why would it be able to send asylum seekers to the UK as part of the deal? The Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza was sentenced to 15 years in jail for speaking out against the Rwandan Government. Despite being released in 2018, to this day she still cannot exercise her political rights. She had to criticise the deal in the international media, because she says that the local media dare not give her a platform.
Alison Thewliss
If the right hon. Member can explain how Rwanda is safe, I will certainly give way.
Sir John Hayes
The key thing about this whole debate is the tension that the hon. Lady has described. Is she familiar with the rulings of Lord Denning, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Bingham and, more recently, Lord Reed, all of which directly contradict what she said about the balance between international law and laws passed by this Parliament? Does she acknowledge the truth that all those very distinguished jurists say the opposite of what she said?
Alison Thewliss
I acknowledge that different lawyers will have different opinions. In its briefing, the Law Society of England and Wales says that the Government are being disingenuous in what they are claiming, and I will take their word for it.
Joanna Cherry
The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) cites various judges, but the most supreme court in the United Kingdom is the UK Supreme Court, and it was very clear in the first Miller case that, although parliamentary sovereignty might mean that the law can be changed internally, this Parliament cannot legislate its way out of its international obligations. Does my hon. Friend agree that, no matter what various judges may have said at various times, it is a recent massive constitutional case of the UK Supreme Court that we should look to on this issue?
Alison Thewliss
My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct, and has knowledge of many of these issues. It is important to reflect on those cases and what they actually mean, rather than what Government Members wish they meant.
The Bill declares Rwanda safe in all circumstances. In so doing, it undermines the rule of law and the separation of powers, preventing the courts from establishing their own facts and driving a sleigh and a squad of reindeer through the principle of restraint. My tortured metaphor ends here because, far from being Santa, the Home Secretary makes the Grinch look generous; he truly does have a heart that is two sizes too small.
The treaty creates new rules for Rwanda but, in reality, nothing has changed in the weeks since the judgment. Lords Reed and Lloyd-Jones said that
“intentions and aspirations do not necessarily correspond to reality: the question is whether they are achievable in practice.”
The Supreme Court found that Rwanda has thus failed to meet international obligations and is unlikely to meet additional ones. There is no evidence that the long-term culture shift required is likely to happen quickly. Rwanda processed only 228 decisions on asylum claims in 2020, and rejected claims from countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran and Eritrea.
I do not want to get dragged into the merits or otherwise of Rwanda as a nation, as there is a far broader principle in play. If we start to offload our international responsibilities to a third country—any third country—we are effectively surrendering our influence over what happens next. This Government themselves have become the people traffickers, sending human beings offshore against their will as if they were some kind of waste to be processed rather than human beings alike in dignity. There are real concerns about the impact that this flagrant disregard for international co-operation could have on trade policy, the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework. The implications of what is happening here today could be far-reaching and long-lasting across many aspects of all our lives.
Let me move to cost. Quite typical of the way that this Tory Government run their business, there has been secrecy over the cost. Yesterday, the permanent secretary was finally forced to reveal the additional £100 million payment to Rwanda, after the figures showed up in some International Monetary Fund paperwork. That is on top of £140 million the previous year and £50 million to come next year, for a scheme that thus far has seen more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers flown to Rwanda. It will cost £169,000 per asylum seeker—significantly more than if they were processed in the UK and allowed to rebuild their lives here and contribute to society, as so many dearly wish to do.
We all know that the capacity of the deal makes it practically impossible. The estimated capacity of around 200 would mean that the probability of being renditioned to Rwanda is one in 230. If the UK Government were to remove everyone who crossed in a small boat last year, it would cost £7.7 billion. That would be an obscene use of public funds at any time, but particularly so in a cost of living crisis. Then there is the ongoing problem, which the Government are failing to address, of those people who have arrived and will not be removed. They are forever stuck in immigration limbo, with their cases deemed inadmissible. At what cost? Where will they stay? What will they do for the rest of their lives?
A further danger of the Bill is that it will force people into even riskier behaviour. The Refugee Council has stated that almost everyone who arrives in the UK does so after being intercepted by the UK coastguard, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution or Border Force, and many actively contact those agencies asking to be rescued. The Bill makes it far less likely that they will do so. They will take more dangerous routes and they will not seek assistance, and the inevitable result is that many more will die in the channel or in the back of refrigerated lorries. The Bill will also leave people at the mercy of exploitative people traffickers. The Home Affairs Committee has already found that
“the fight against human trafficking is, in practice, no longer a priority for the UK Government”.
The Bill, and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 that came before it, make that worse.
The treaty also states that there is nothing to stop people leaving Rwanda once they are removed there, regardless of anything Ministers may claim. The BBC, on its visit to the Gashora refugee camp in Rwanda, found that those who had been moved there under other schemes did not wish to stay:
“Of the almost 2,000 people who have been relocated to the transit camp in Gashora since it was set up in 2019, none opted to stay in Rwanda when given the option, preferring instead to move to another country.”
So what do we have? We have endless failed policies. We have the ramping up of tensions through rhetoric. We have ineffective legislation. We have the overruling of judges. We have the abolition altogether of the asylum system. We have the undermining of human rights. It is like the TV series “Years and Years” on steroids.
It does not have to be this way. Together with Refugees published this week a clear alternative to fixing the broken system and keeping people safe. Ministers could not be less interested. The response from the right wing? To pillory Gary Lineker for having the temerity to speak his mind. The Scottish Government recently published a paper setting out an alternative in Scotland to this ineffective and failing system, ending the hostile environment and ensuring that humane, fair and compassionate refugee and asylum policies are a priority.
We should never forget the traumas and unimaginable suffering that lead people to flee their homes. They are people, just like us. Were it happening to us, we would all hope to be treated far better than those on the Government Benches would have it, and to find safety and sanctuary when we needed it most. It was on that principle that the refugee convention was created. We should stand up for that principle today and reject this cruel, unworkable and illegal Bill.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Just to clarify, since the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) referred to it, the reasoned amendment that has been selected is the one in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
If I am to have any chance of getting everybody in, I will need to introduce a time limit, which I will do now. It will be eight minutes for the moment, but I am sure it will go down. I have been able to notify the next speaker of that limit.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The recent Rwanda case is the most recent case on matters relating to parliamentary intentions, the supremacy of law and the rule of law, and the proper application of the rule of law. One claimant—and it requires only one claimant—had his claim dismissed by the Supreme Court on the grounds that parliamentary sovereignty had already undermined his case. The case was about retained EU law, but it actually undermined the case of that claimant. That was a clear indication that the Court was going to take the sovereignty of Parliament first, and that is the key issue in this debate.
It has been said by the courts that sovereignty trumps international law. It is absolutely clear that that is the case. Only this year, the House of Lords Constitution Committee, in paragraph 58 of its report on the rule of law, stated:
“Parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament can legislate contrary to the UK’s obligations under international law.”
That was a reinforcement of the judgments I mentioned in an intervention, including those of Lord Hoffmann, Lord Bingham and Lord Denning. Our greatest jurists have all come to exactly the same conclusion. The President of the current Supreme Court, which dealt with the Rwanda case, said the same thing in paragraph 144 of its judgment in that case:
“the principle of legality does not permit a court to disregard an unambiguous expression of Parliament’s intention such as that with which we are concerned”.
So, the position is completely clear and those cases—
Sir William Cash
Before the hon. and learned Lady seeks to intervene, I want to get this quite clear. The Miller case was on a different set of circumstances. Not only that, but it has been overtaken by subsequent constitutional judgments by the Supreme Court itself. I want to quote now from Lord—
Sir William Cash
I will give way. The hon. and learned Lady can say what she likes.
Joanna Cherry
It is refreshing to know that my article 10 rights have not been withdrawn yet. The point is this. The hon. Gentleman may be right, as a matter of domestic law of England that the sovereignty of the English Parliament allows England to change its domestic law internally. [Interruption.] He may be right; it is in dispute as we know. What he is definitely not right about is that this Parliament cannot domestically legislate to take us out of our international legal obligations without doing so clearly. The Supreme Court has been crystal clear about that. There are two separate matters here: domestic law and international law. If the Government want to breach their international legal obligations, am I not right, based on Supreme Court authority, that they will actually have to withdraw from the treaties to which they are committed?
Sir William Cash
Absolutely. I am glad that the hon. and learned Lady mentioned the fact that an unambiguous statement—an explicit statement, as Lord Sumption puts it—on the position in interpreting the intentions of Parliament carries enormous weight and, in fact, overrides international law obligations.
Sir William Cash
No, I will not give way.
I am going to quote directly from Lord Hoffman himself in relation to an ECHR case. [Interruption.] This is the case of R. v. Lyons 2003. He states:
“the Convention is an international treaty and the ECtHR is an international court with jurisdiction under international law to interpret and apply it. But the question…is a matter of English law. And it is firmly established that international treaties do not form part of English law and that English courts have no jurisdiction to interpret or apply them…Parliament may pass a law which mirrors the terms of the treaty and in that sense incorporates the treaty into English law. But even then the metaphor of incorporation may be misleading. It is not the treaty but the statute which forms part of English law. And English courts will not (unless the statute expressly so provides) be bound to give effect to interpretations of the treaty by an international court, even though the United Kingdom is bound by international law to do so. Of course there is a strong presumption in favour of interpreting English law…in a way which does not place the United Kingdom in breach of an international obligation”—
but, and this is absolutely crucial—
“The sovereign legislator in the United Kingdom is Parliament. If Parliament has plainly laid down the law, it is the duty of the courts to apply it, whether that would involve the Crown in breach of an international treaty or not.”
That is what the law is. That is a straightforward interpretation and statement.
There is an issue that I want to come to. I praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for his courage and for a brilliant speech, and endorse every word he said, but I would also like to say this: we want the Government to succeed in their legislation, but it has to be legislation that works. As I have explained, in relation to the Supreme Court, the whole question turns on the intention of Parliament and the sovereignty of Parliament. It is a question of justiciability as well. I put to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Illegal Migration that, when it comes to it, we can make changes to the Bill. It is possible to extend the scope of the Bill, and I hope he will have discussions with the Clerk of Public Bills, with whom I have had discussions already.
It is absolutely clear that the scope of the Bill will determine the amendments, whether from the Government or Back Benchers. It matters that we are entitled to have a proper debate on this fundamental question about international law and its relationship to sovereignty. The Bill, if enacted after Royal Assent, could be scuppered by one claimant and by the courts if the words of the Act are not clearly expressed and explicit in ruling out any such claim, for example under clause 4 or any other heading, such as rule 39 and all the other things we will no doubt trot out in Committee if we get there. We therefore have to address the question of the scope of the Bill, because that is the way that Parliament functions. That is the way Mr Speaker must decide on the selection of amendments, so it is crucial.
There is much more that I could say, but I let me end by drawing attention to the global issue. The fact is that throughout the European Union there is a real problem. They are tearing their hair out, because on the one hand they have the charter of fundamental rights, and on the other they are bound by qualified majority voting to comply with the situation, which is actually not the same for us. We have a unique opportunity, in our parliamentary system and with the sovereignty of Parliament, to be able to make amendments and provide domestic law that will satisfy the voters of this country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
May I start by expressing my condolences following the news of the death of an asylum seeker on the Bibby Stockholm barge this morning?
It is now almost one year since the Prime Minister pledged to “stop the boats”. No one here is arguing against that goal—we all want to see an end to people risking their lives by getting into small boats and crossing the channel—but, as we in the Home Affairs Committee stated clearly in our report last year on channel crossings, there is no silver bullet to end small boat crossings. We said that it would take the adoption of a variety of policies, including safe legal routes and additional cross-border policing to go after criminal gangs. We made many other recommendations; we even suggested the innovative idea of piloting the processing of asylum claims in reception centres in France, a system that would be similar to the juxtaposed border controls arrangement that we already have with France.
In April last year the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), announced the Rwanda scheme, and since then an extraordinary amount of financial and political capital has been poured into this policy. While we accept that progress has been made on some of our recommendations, including clearing the legacy backlog and developing work with France and Belgium, the eyes of the Government have been locked on the Rwanda policy and its implementation. The underlying assumption of the policy is that the prospect of being sent to Rwanda will act as a deterrent for those thinking of crossing the channel.
Let us not forget, however, that the Rwanda policy required a ministerial direction to the Home Office permanent secretary to get the scheme under way. Why? It was because the permanent secretary was not convinced that the scheme constituted value for money. There was—and there remains—no clear evidence that the deterrent effect would work, which cast doubt on the scheme’s value for money. Likewise, the Home Affairs Committee felt that although the policy was good at generating headlines, it lacked a clear evidence base and full costings. The Committee has been attempting to scrutinise the policy ever since, but we have been struck by how difficult it has been to obtain facts and information from the Home Office on the details of the scheme. That has undermined our ability to perform our scrutiny function.
We knew that an additional £120 million had been paid at the start of the agreement, and that there would be an additional payment for each person sent to Rwanda to process their claim and to enable successful claimants to receive up to five years of support from the United Kingdom. We subsequently learnt that a further £20 million had been provided as a down-payment on the initial costs for processing asylum seekers, so we knew that a total of £140 million had been paid. We repeatedly sought information, but were met with claims of commercial confidentiality whenever we asked questions about additional funding.
It was with some surprise, therefore, that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and I received a letter from the permanent secretary last Thursday evening informing us that an additional £100 million had been paid to the Rwanda Government in April 2023, and that a further £50 million would be sent in 2024. However, on 29 November the Committee was unable to establish from the permanent secretary the cost of sending each person to Rwanda. The impact assessment for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 had estimated £169,000 per person, but Home Office officials could not confirm that in November.
Given that we are being asked to support the Bill today, it is essential that we know the costings, whether the Bill policy represents value for money, and whether it will work. Parliament is being asked to assess whether the Bill will deliver a scheme that constitutes an appropriate use of public money, without the Government’s telling us how much public money is due to be spent. I hope the Minister will be able to confirm exactly how much money has been spent, pledged and budgeted for in respect of each year of the UK- Rwanda memorandum, and now the treaty, and that he will commit himself to giving quarterly financial updates to Parliament.
Let me now deal with the specific provisions in the Bill. As we all know, the aim is to ensure that irregular migrants arriving in the UK are quickly sent to Rwanda, with very few legal opportunities to appeal and with clause 3 expressly disapplying several parts of the Human Rights Act. The Committee noted in our report last year that
“The Government risks undermining its own ambitions and the UK’s international standing if it cannot demonstrate that proposed policies…such as the Rwanda partnership now being legally challenged, are compatible with international law and conventions.”
As we know, clause 2 would require all decision makers to accept Rwanda as a safe country for removals, despite the ruling of the Supreme Court. As a very distinguished former Solicitor General, Sir Edward Garnier KC, has said,
“It’s rather like a bill that has decided that all dogs are cats.”
Indeed, the Bill does not resolve any of the issues raised by the Supreme Court, whose decision was based on evidence that Rwanda had previously violated international human rights treaties. The Bill is not a magic wand that will suddenly make that evidence disappear. I also question the need to legislate that Rwanda is a safe country. If the treaty says that it is safe, should not the Government be confident that the courts will now reach a different view and also conclude that it is safe?
The Bill will prevent the courts from carrying out independent and rigorous scrutiny of any claim that there are substantial grounds for fearing a real risk of refoulement or treatment contrary to article 3 of the European convention on human rights. I understand that that would be incompatible with the UK’s international obligations under the refugee convention and the ECHR. Is the Minister concerned about the Bill’s impact on the UK’s international standing, particularly given the absence of an evidence base for its deterrent approach, and is he concerned about the possibility that by effectively reversing through statute a Supreme Court judgment on the facts, the Bill could undermine the constitutional role of the judiciary?
Let me now turn to some practical questions. According to the treaty, seconded independent experts will be supporting asylum decision making for the first six months, and asylum appeals will be made to a new appeal body. It also refers to free legal advice and representation from legal professional members of the Rwanda Bar Association. All these things will take time to develop and will need investment, so I wonder whether there is an additional cost that the Minister might like to tell us about. I have no doubt that the Rwandan Government have entered into this treaty in good faith, but the question of whether it has been entered into in good faith by both parties is beside the point. What matters is whether Rwandan officials will recognise and comply with their obligations, and whether there are sufficient resources and adequate capacity in the group to enable this to happen. Neither of those can be guaranteed by the treaty or by the Bill, so I hope that the Minister will provide evidence today that capacity building and attitude change have taken place, thus addressing the Supreme Court’s concerns.
The challenge of stopping dangerous boat crossings is real, but so is the challenge of clearing the backlog, ending the use of expensive hotels, and delivering an asylum system that works. All that warrants serious, evidence-based solutions, with full costings.
Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
In defending the Bill, which I will attempt, one has to reckon with those who think that it goes too far, or may go too far, and with those who think it goes not far enough. Let me first address those who think that it goes too far, of whom the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) is an example.
The Bill is criticised on the basis that it deems Rwanda to be safe. It is said that that is an illegitimate legal technique. It is said that it perpetuates, or perpetrates, a fiction in law. That is precisely the same fiction that the Labour Government adopted in the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004.
Sir Geoffrey Cox
Yes, it is. It was changed two or three years later, but in the Nasseri case before the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, their lordships upheld, as a matter of law, the deeming of countries to be safe and within the law. Indeed, they went on to say—Lord Hoffmann being one of them, I think—that while Parliament deemed it such, there were plainly risks if the Home Office did not keep an eye on the state and conditions in the countries that were thus deemed, but otherwise it complied with the law and the courts would respect Parliament’s decision.
What is being said in this case is that a Supreme Court decision has already held Rwanda not to be a safe country for the purposes of the guarantee against refoulement. It is said that for this House to overrule the decision of the Supreme Court in such an individual case is constitutionally undesirable and contrary to fundamental constitutional principle. I do not agree with that analysis. First, it is open to this Parliament at any point to take steps to reverse the effect of a judicial ruling—that is the consequence of parliamentary supremacy. It is clear that Parliament should be restrained in doing so in cases, for example, where individual rights in a case to reverse a determination made in favour of an individual would plainly be contrary to fundamental constitutional principle, but that is not what we are doing here. We are seeking to do precisely what the Labour Government did in 2004. We are saying that Parliament, legitimately weighing the evidence, has concluded that Rwanda will not engage in the refoulement of those sent to it. That is something the courts have already accepted. It is something that it is open to this House to do, and it is something that, in my judgment, it is perfectly legitimate for Parliament to undertake. It would be different if it were to reverse a decision against an individual.
But even if I am wrong about that, and even if as a matter of constitutional convention it were undesirable for this House to reverse the effect on a question of principle—namely, whether Rwanda is safe for the purposes of refoulement—the facts have changed. There is now a binding treaty, and it is binding not only in international law but in domestic Rwandan law. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has rightly analysed the situation of international law. In this country we have a dualist jurisdiction where treaties are not self-executing, but in Rwanda the treaty is self-executing, so it will be binding on the Rwandan Government not only as a matter of international law, but as a matter of their own law.
That treaty contains a range of important safeguards, including, as a longstop, the fact that no individual removed to Rwanda from this country can be removed to a third country without the consent of the United Kingdom. If that longstop is in place, if the treaty is binding in Rwandan law and if it is binding, as it is, in international law, then I would suggest that there is simply no credible risk of refoulement if treaties and legal rules mean anything in the United Kingdom and in Rwanda. If the risk of refoulement has been removed, then there is nothing inappropriate in this House determining, as the Labour Government did in 2004, that Rwanda is safe for the purposes of refoulement. So I say to the House that this is appropriate, and it is a judgment that we can make as a House to take the step that we are now taking.
Sir Geoffrey Cox
I cannot give way; I do not have time.
Let me move to the third and most important question, which relates to the exclusion of access to courts. This Bill carefully preserves the right of individuals to come to court in extreme cases of individual justice. I listened, impressed, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and I submit to those who think the Bill goes far enough that we cannot sacrifice the principle of access to a court. If we eliminated it entirely, not only would the Bill collapse because it would be interminably impeded in the House of Lords, but it would probably lead to the Rwandan Government withdrawing; and it is conceivable that the courts could entertain, for the first time, a complex challenge about the right of this Parliament to do away with fundamental constitutional principles such as access to a court. The supremacy of this House does not necessarily mean that it does not operate within a complex system of constitutional institutions, each of which has its own place as a component part in that system.
Sir Geoffrey Cox
No, I cannot give way; I simply do not have time.
Constitutional principles compete in creative tension. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important of them, but there are others that are fundamental and one of them is access to a court in extreme cases. That is what this Bill preserves. I say to my right hon. Friends that I understand their frustration and their deep, intense dissatisfaction with the current situation; I share it. I think that there is tightening that we could do, particularly on rule 39. But on the preservation of the right to go to court in an extreme case, I say that is part of the British constitution that our fathers and our party have supported, and for which they have fought, for generations, and it would be wrong of us to compromise on that—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but he is fully aware that we have to stick to the time limit. After Sir George Howarth, whom I shall call next, I am afraid that, given the number of hon. Members who wish to participate, I shall have to reduce the time limit to six minutes.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Government’s failure to arrive at a workable solution to the problem of asylum seekers relates not only to how they have tried to deal with refugees, but to their failure to create the capacity in our country to maintain reliable services, and to such an extent that many British people find themselves unable to access the basic needs and services to which they are entitled. This is also about the Government’s stewardship of the economy. Additionally, it is rooted in their careless conduct of our relationships with other countries, particularly in Europe.
Therefore, in dealing with this sensitive issue, it is crucially important that we are clear about the principles upon which any approach should be based. The problem, however, is that the Government too often confuse slogans with policy, and in so doing they fail to take account of the principles upon which a realistic policy should be based. Their cynical obsession with creating dividing lines is a barrier to building the sort of consensus to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) referred.
For the purpose of clarity, let me say at the outset that our country’s capacity to admit migrants is finite. It therefore follows that we need a much more structured method of determining how many people can be accommodated; one that takes into account the capacity of our public services and our economy. I will later say a few words about the space that exists in our economy to fill the gaps in various industries and sectors. One of the principles would be to match would-be immigrants with sectors in which there are insufficient people to plug those gaps. Many of those people have those skills.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would make eminent sense to ensure that people who claim asylum in the United Kingdom have the right to work while they await a decision, not least because it would allow them to be better integrated into our community when they get their decision? Allowing people to support themselves while they are here would also reduce the cost to the taxpayer.
Sir George Howarth
I will address that point later in my speech, if I have enough time.
In England, the NHS waiting list for hospital treatment rose to a record of nearly 7.8 million in September, up from approximately 2.3 million. Ambulance response times have also risen, going up to one hour and 30 minutes in December 2022, against a target of 18 minutes.
The UK is experiencing an acute housing crisis, with house building consistently failing to keep pace with demand. The National Housing Federation says that 8.5 million people in England are in housing need, with 4.2 million of them in need of a social rented home. In England, in 2022, people had to spend more than eight times their annual salary to purchase a home. In 2020-21, 17% of primary schools and 23% of secondary schools were over capacity. We did not get to this position by accident; it is the result of 13 years of careless neglect and the obsessive pursuit of shrinking the state.
I will now turn to the capacity of our economy and the ongoing skills shortages. GDP is at zero growth, and low GDP growth is forecast to continue into 2024 and possibly beyond. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest economic and fiscal outlook stated that, in 2024-25, living standards are forecast to be 3.5% lower than pre-pandemic levels, which is the largest reduction in real living standards since records began in the 1950s.
The skills shortages not only affect our overall economic performance; they are also having a negative effect on our provision of public services such as health and housing, as well as affecting the important food supply, care and hospitality sectors. Many refugees already have those skills and, with a constructive approach from the Government, would be able to plug the gaps in those sectors and, consequently, help to grow the economy.
Our poor relationship with Europe and the wider world makes it more difficult for us to co-operate with other countries, whether bilaterally or through collective international efforts, to deal with the deeply damaging consequences of war and conflict, part of which is the growing displacement of people from their homelands, which results in mass migration. Bluntly, we are not trusted to be a reliable and constructive partner, and our international influence has diminished to the extent that other countries simply do not take us seriously.
As I said at the outset, the Government have tried to turn a slogan, “Stop the boats,” into a policy. Consequently, they have failed to offer a solution to the problem. Many Conservative Members know this to be the case, but they have splintered into factions, either wanting to go further, regardless of our international obligations, or are aware that another, more effective approach is needed. Sadly, this Bill and their conduct illustrate that the Conservative party is not a competent or coherent party that is fit to govern; rather, it is one riven by warring factions. Frankly, it is now time for the Conservatives to make way for national leadership from a party that will calmly and competently deal with our mounting problems.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
After a good deal of hesitation, I shall support the Bill tonight. My hesitation is real because, for me, the Bill goes as close to the wind constitutionally as one can go. I listened with great care to the eloquent speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox). I agree entirely with his very careful analysis of the Bill.
The Bill takes a novel and unusual approach. We are dealing with an unusual and pressing situation, and therefore straining the sinews of what is acceptable can just be justified. Equally, the idea that legislation is the sole or even the principal solution to this situation is, I think, wrong. Ultimately, an operational solution is required. It is surprising that some previous occupants of the Home Office did not think about that rather more, although others did and it is a pity that their ideas were not acted upon. Ultimately, it will be operational measures that make the real difference. If this Bill can make a difference, and provided that the safeguards that my right hon. and learned Friend mentioned remain, I can, with hesitation, live with it.
I am indebted to the analysis provided by the Society of Conservative Lawyers, and I declare my interest as chair of its executive committee. The paper was written by Lord Sandhurst KC and Harry Gillow, who are both experienced in international law. If we want opinions on such things, it is best to go to people with experience in the field of international law, rather than in other fields. They conclude, as I do, that although there are areas that need to be examined with care, the Bill falls on the right side of the line. Deeming provisions are not unprecedented, as has been set out.
I share the concern set out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) about how deeming provisions interact with international law obligations, and I hope the Minister will take that on board and explore it. We can deem in domestic law, but we cannot legislate to oust our international law obligations.
The useful analysis of the Society of Conservative Lawyers pamphlet states that in reality, if the UK were to breach international law conventions, not only would that be constitutionally wrong; it would collapse the scheme, because Rwanda has made it clear that it would not be party to such a scheme. I do not buy for one second the rather patronising attitude that says the Rwandans have been put up to saying that. I think they are utterly genuine in their belief.
It is important to remember that other countries that are subject to the European convention on human rights are reported to be exploring potential arrangements with Rwanda. If Rwanda were to be party to a scheme in which the United Kingdom is breaking international law, Rwanda would inevitably forfeit any opportunity to engage with other ECHR countries, so it would certainly withdraw. People have to be careful what they wish for. If they go too far, they will drive the Rwandans out of the scheme and the whole policy would collapse.
It is critical that individual rights of challenge are preserved, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon said. I am a Conservative because I am a constitutionalist, and I am a constitutionalist because I believe in checks and balances. Frankly, the day the Conservative party thinks that the ends justify the means and ignores the principle of comity, and the day it thinks that any single policy objective overrides the importance of our constitutional checks and balances, is the day it ceases to be the Conservative party as most people would recognise it. Maintaining that balance is essential, and Ministers have, with great endeavour, just managed to do that, but that does not mean that I do not dislike much of the Bill’s wording.
I say that looking at parts of clause 1, in particular subsection (4), which states:
“It is recognised that…the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign, and…the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law.”
That is a GCSE law statement of the blindingly obvious, if I might respectfully say so; it might best be described as “otiose and nugatory” as it adds nothing to the Bill. It is performative—[Interruption.] Well, it can be whichever way round one likes. Pointless might be another way of putting it. I wonder what it adds.
Clause 5(2) is another such passage. It relates to the approach to interim measures under the Strasbourg Court’s rule 35 and states that this is for Ministers “to decide”. Again, that states exactly what the position in law is in any case. We have only to look at the textbook to say, as I did in my intervention, that it is for the Government to decide on rule 35 issues, because they are directed to the Government, not to the courts. It is a bit patronising to tell the courts what is well within their competence to know and decide upon.
With those reservations, I will support the Bill tonight, but I just say that if it were to change and any of the safeguards that have been left in were to be removed, my support would go. Some people would then have pushed the Bill over the line into the unacceptable and, in my judgment, the un-Conservative, and I would not support it. I do not believe that that is the Government’s intention and so I will help them to get the Bill through tonight, but they must be wary of some who do not have the best of objectives for the Government’s policy and might take it in the wrong direction—let’s not get there.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who made one of the best speeches so far today against the Bill. Unfortunately, he does not follow through on his logic, but I am sure that by the end of this process he will do, because he knows perfectly well that the Bill is not really acceptable. I am sure that in his heart of hearts he would like to vote against it tonight.
There are five reasons to vote against the Bill. The first is that it will not work; the idea that someone who is not deterred by a dangerous journey in a dinghy across the most crowded sea lane in the world will be deterred by this flimsy piece of nonsense is just laughable. Secondly, the Bill will lead to protracted and expensive chaos, because, as the hon. Gentleman says, it sails so close to the wind legally that it will inevitably lead to legal challenges. Ironically, since the ouster clauses mean that challenges cannot be adjudicated in the British courts, they will go to the European Court of Human Rights. So the Government are actually replacing a UK court with a European court here, and simultaneously declaring in the Bill that they are not satisfied that the Bill will withstand a legal challenge based on compatibility with the European convention on human rights. That is a recipe for chaos and for expense.
Thirdly, the Bill seeks to reverse by statute law a finding of fact by the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, and it therefore creates a legal fiction. Its title, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, gives the game away. According to the Bill, “Rwanda is safe, even if it isn’t safe, simply because the Government, through the Bill, say it’s safe.” Declaring that somewhere is safe does not make it, of itself, safe. We can no more change reality by law or legal diktat than we can by mere imagination. As Bolingbroke says in Richard II, we cannot
“cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast”.
We cannot make Rwanda safe just by saying it, so the declaration in clause 2 that
“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”
is utterly fatuous. If Rwanda is, either now or in the future, in fact safe, the provision deeming it safe is, or will at that point be, otiose or redundant. But if Rwanda is not now or in the future safe, that provision is self-evidently wrong in fact and therefore wrong in principle. So clause 2 is either unnecessary or wrong—or both, simultaneously.
Fourthly, the Bill establishes in UK law a completely new doctrine of the separation of powers, as the ouster clauses, which prevent judges and tribunals from supervising the conduct of Ministers in operating the policy they have laid out in statute, put Ministers above the law. It is not the sovereignty of Parliament that the Bill asserts, but the sovereignty of Ministers. Fundamental to the rule of law is the idea that the Crown—or its modern proxy, the Executive—cannot act arbitrarily, even if it uses its majority in Parliament to declare that it can. That would be the worst form of Henry VIII Act, equivalent to his Proclamation by the Crown Act 1539, which deemed that all the King’s proclamations, even though they were not approved by Parliament, shall be observed
“as though they were made by Act of Parliament.”
Fifthly, now is not the time to undermine human rights and the rules-based order. The UK relies on foreign courts and tribunals being effective. We watch events in Ukraine and declare that the butchery in Bucha or in Mariupol is a war crime. Who do we want to adjudicate that? We want an international court to do so. We rightly lecture China about human rights abuses in Xinjiang province and about abiding by the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. We invoke Magnitsky sanctions against human rights abusers around the world. How can we expect others to abide by the rule of law, and their human rights and other treaty obligations, if we abandon those things?
The right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) was right about one thing—incidentally, he was wrong about 2004, because what we did not do at that time was put in an ouster clause meaning that Ministers were free to do what they wanted. Those who think the Bill should go further will get no help from anyone on this side of the House, in any of the parties, in Committee or on Report. As we have heard, if the demands of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) were to be met in amendments in Committee or on Report, Rwanda would withdraw, and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst would withdraw his support for the Bill.
I do not know why anyone would vote for this Bill, but voting for it, despite knowing that it is legally offensive or believing it is fatally flawed, in the desperate hope that the Government will help you amend it, is just delaying the inevitable. I say that because the most extraordinary irony of all is that the Prime Minister has had to rely on the Rwandan Government to tell him and his MPs that Rwanda will not accept any law that breaches international law. Rwanda is theoretically and nominally democratic, but it is, in effect and in actuality, an authoritarian one-party state. That is who is keeping us on the straight and narrow legally. Just think about that before you vote for this nonsense.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), and I was pleased to hear his strong invocation of the fallacy that we live in a separation of powers constitution. We do not; we live in a constitution of checks and balances. We are proud to have an independent judiciary and an independent legal profession underpinning the rule of law, which we are all equal under and subject to. We also have a Parliament that is supreme—the “Crown in Parliament” is the phrase. That is why, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), I take issue with some of the wording in clause 1, but that is by the bye.
The principle of comity is one that we can ill afford to overlook. What do I mean by that? I am talking about the mutual respect that has to exist between the different arms of the constitution. This place is sovereign—we derive our sovereignty from the people—but we also have a responsibility to use that in the responsible way. This is not a new challenge; previous generations have faced similar dilemmas.
I am not going to stand here and minimise the emergency that we face from illegal migration or the challenge that the entire west faces from the mass migration of people who might seek a better life and who are either fleeing war-torn countries or coming for economic reasons. This is an unprecedented challenge for all western democracies. However, such challenges have been faced in the past. When we were at war, we had to make very difficult decisions in this Parliament to make sure that we struck the right constitutional balance in defending these islands against dictatorship, but not in a way that defended us and protected us out of our very freedoms. Our very liberty itself is at stake, and the way in which we legislate has to be responsible and in line with that respect for our fundamental freedoms.
As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) said, there is a fundamental truth here that we cannot avoid: if this Bill is amended to create an utter and complete ouster from any individual-based challenge, that goes beyond the parameters of reasonableness and into the sort of legislation that inevitably sets up a fistfight, not with international courts, but with our very own courts.
Sir William Cash
My right hon. and learned Friend is more than aware of the Privacy International case. He knows, as well as I do, that there was a dissenting judgment in that case by both Jonathan Sumption and Lord Reed, which sums up the situation. It is very finely balanced on the facts of that particular case.
Sir Robert Buckland
Contrary to mythology within the Conservative party, my hon. Friend and I agree on many of these key issues. He and I would have legislated over the Evans decision about the Prince of Wales’s letters, because we felt that their lordships went too far. That is an example of this House and this Parliament potentially legislating to correct a legal decision by the courts. Of course we are entitled to do that and we should do it where the will of Parliament dictates.
However, there is a difference between a scenario like that and the one that we face at the moment. Without more evidence and work by the Government, to blithely create a deeming provision in the face of a very strong Supreme Court decision against the Government would have been to invite disaster. That is why not only the treaty that has been signed between Rwanda and Britain is crucial, but also the policy statement that has been published by the Home Secretary today and laid in the House, which I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read. There is no doubt that the facts are evolving and changing. We should remind ourselves that when the Supreme Court made its decision it looked at the law and the facts as of the summer of last year—some 18 months ago—and we have moved on considerably.
The new provisions are not constitutionally unprecedented. They are unusual, which is why the Government must be restrained. Without clause 4 in the Bill, I am afraid that the Government will set up a massive glass jaw to be smashed by a court in the future, and to invite the sort of constitutional conflict that any good Conservative would not want to see. We do not want our courts being drawn into politics. I have spent my career in this place and my political life arguing against the politicisation of the judiciary, and I have been the first to bring forward legislation to oust the court’s jurisdiction. We did so in the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, on the Cart judicial review—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) finished the job on that.
I am more than happy to be robust about the position of this place and the importance of not having undue and capricious interference with the will of Parliament. I am the first person to assert the authority of this place, but I will not be party to legislation that, in effect, invites the courts to “Come on up, if you’re hard enough”. That is not the approach that we, as responsible Conservatives, should take. To echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, if this Bill is to be amended in any way that crosses that line, I cannot and will not support that.
If anything, the Government should be thinking carefully about ensuring that the Bill is engineered to provide as perfect a balance as possible between their obvious right, as a Government, to get their policy object through, to reflect the huge concerns of our constituents, but, at the same time, to work within the parameters of our unwritten constitution. Today we have a Conservative Government, but what if a Government of another colour was doing something that we, as Conservatives, found mortally offensive? What would we have to rely upon in the defence of the balance of this constitution? What would be left for us to defend against an over-mighty socialist Government? Not a lot. Yes, it is about principle, but at the end we must not lose sight of the fact that as Conservatives it is our constitutional duty to maintain that balance. Remember comity, Mr Deputy Speaker, and we will not go wrong.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I say sincerely that it is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). He gave a characteristically thoughtful speech for Second Reading and, more interestingly, laid down several markers for future stages, should we get to that point. This is a most interesting and unusual Second Reading debate; we are seeing played out in front of us a tripartite discussion between one side of the Government, another side of the Government and the Treasury Bench. It is a remarkable spectacle to observe, albeit not a particularly seemly one.
I was struck by the reliance that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) placed on the references made by the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) to proceedings in relation to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc. ) Act 2004. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman observed, that was where the concept of safe countries was introduced. The list of safe countries included all the EU countries except Croatia, plus Norway, Iceland and later Switzerland. It was another piece of legislation that restricted the access of rights to appeal for those whose asylum claims had been unsuccessful. There are perhaps lessons to be learned for us all in how that line of legislation has developed ever since.
The enduring lesson I take is not that that Act was introduced by a Labour Government—a Government that had David Blunkett as Home Secretary—but that the Bill was opposed, with some controversy at the time, by the then Conservative Opposition. They described it as “clumsy and draconian”. They were absolutely right about that and, many years later, we can see exactly where that sort of legislation has taken us. What is it about the Conservative party of 2023 that now finds that sort of legislation so attractive?
Let us not forget that we are dealing with the consequence of the refusal of this Government to prosecute the case for safe and legal routes. Why do we not find people from Ukraine or Hong Kong trying to cross the channel in small boats? It is because we offer them safe and legal routes. The Rwanda scheme is unworkable—we know that because it has never been made to work—and the barriers are well rehearsed, but every time they are thwarted, the response of this Government is to throw a foot-stamping tantrum. Anyone who ever had any doubt about the depth and scale of Tory self-entitlement can see it laid bare here today. The Bill is not about making the system work or providing an effective deterrent; it is simply about trying to bring together a disparate range of forces within their own party.
How many will Rwanda take over the five years of the agreement? The only reliable information about that comes from the Rwandans themselves: it will be a few hundred. What sort of deterrent effect will that have? Everything that we know about the Bill and the cost of the scheme comes not from the Home Office, but from the Rwandan Government. It is because of the information that they put into the public domain that we learned about the extra £100 million that the Government have submitted; they were never going to tell us.
The problems facing this policy are manifest and they are not going to be wished away. We should not forget, however, that even with those issues wiped away at a stroke, the Bill and the scheme would still represent a moral vacuum where our asylum system should be. It is wrong in the practicalities, but it is also wrong on the principle. It is a liberal value to take personal responsibility and to live up to one’s obligations. Passing on our asylum responsibilities to another country is the opposite of that value. It is a step back from the world and a move towards isolationism. It suggests that we have no responsibilities to the wider world.
Much like this Bill’s rewriting of reality to impose a judgment of safety to Rwanda, these plans would reverse decades of the UK’s leading the way on the international rule of law and rules-based order, of which we should be so proud. Many across the House, having boasted about global Britain, must now ask themselves whether they really want to turn us into fortress Britain. The Bill suggests a grim and illiberal mentality that is a far cry from the confidence that our country used to project, and that, Mr Deputy Speaker, is why we should reject it this evening.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Having been the Home Secretary who negotiated the original migration and economic development partnership, I find it quite odd to hear some of the comments in this debate, and particularly those appalling ones that run down the country of Rwanda. The partnership with Rwanda was established as a world-leading and innovative way to tackle the challenges caused by the mass migration and displacement of people. It was carefully designed with our friends in the Rwandan Government to do one thing that no one in this House has mentioned today: to raise the international bar on the treatment of asylum seekers and to do so with compassion and support when it comes to their resettlement. Astonishingly, while Members, particularly those on the Opposition Benches, have been talking down the Government of Rwanda for the past 20 months, the country has in fact already supported and resettled 130,000 refugees through schemes established with the UNHCR and through international conventions.
Priti Patel
As the hon. Gentleman well knows, there is no time for me to give way.
Effectively, such resettlement schemes involving third countries are the type that we need to deal with the awful, abusive and illegal trade in people smuggling. The awful comments that I have heard thus far about Rwanda and this scheme leave a stain on this House. We have a moral imperative to raise the bar and, effectively, to look at how we can be better as a Government at addressing these issues. When I negotiated and agreed the partnership in April 2022, we all knew that it would face criticisms and legal challenges, and the Government of the day were prepared for that. I said it at the time and in fact we gave some clear statements in the House as to the steps that we would take forward.
A year ago, the High Court found the plans to be lawful. The Court of Appeal ruled against the policy, citing concerns over the issue of refoulement, which are well known. Importantly, as the Supreme Court has since emphasised, the principles of the policy as well as the commitment given by the Rwandan Government to make the partnership work, are all fine and sound, but some operational measures need to go further. The Government have since outlined them both in this Bill and through statements they have made in this House, which would help to make the scheme viable.
It is fair to say that we all bear the scars of this debate, and we heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) speak about that. I do not envy those on the Front Bench right now. We have had a constant merry-go-round of legal challenges—whether through our own domestic courts, or through interference from elsewhere, by which I am referring to rule 39. I have experience of dealing with rule 39! There are organisations, campaigners and lawyers who will do everything possible to frustrate the will of this House and the will of the democratically elected Government, because, at the end of the day, that is what we are. We have to rise against these dogmatic beliefs because, quite frankly, there are too many organisations and individuals who are getting in the way and effectively letting more claims go to the courts.
There are measures, including some from the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which have not been implemented, including the one-stop shop. They would save the courts a lot of time and effort by bringing forward the single claims that this House voted through, just last year, which meant that repeat claims would not keep on going back to the courts. I say to those on the Front Bench that it is really important that we press on the Government to go backwards in order to go forwards. We need to bring in these measures that have already been passed through Acts of Parliament—dare I say it, there may be more in legislation that has come in since.
I ask the Minister, in responding to the debate, to tell us how the Government will act and prepare for any future challenges that may come through this legislation. How will they stand up to the unmeritorious claims that keep coming through the courts—for example, those based on modern-day slavery, which we have heard about far too much? We put measures in the Nationality and Borders Act to deal with that.
We have seen the summary of the legal advice that the Government have received and read much of the other expert opinion. I seek assurances from the Minister that he and his colleagues are aware of the risk of challenges. How that is mitigated as the Bill passes through the House, in the conventional way, will be crucial. We cannot have more cases bogged down in the courts. Too many of us have worked through that.
We have a major problem with detention in this country, which includes a lack of detention capability. There were plans in the “New Plan for Immigration” to introduce Greek-style reception centres. I press the Minister and the Home Office to work with the Prime Minister and the Treasury to bring forward those sites; otherwise, we will see more Bibby Stockholms and more Wethersfield sites, which frankly are not the answer. Those Greek-style reception centres will help with the fast-tracking of processing claims and the fast-tracking of the removal of individuals who have no right to be in this country. I also press the Minister and the Home Secretary to adopt an integrated approach, so that we can deal with this national issue. The public voted for change and we want to deliver that change for them.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Speaking as a lawyer—[Interruption.] Yes, there are still one or two of us left. I must say that I felt quite queasy reading the Bill. It is not the kind of thing that I would expect this Parliament to be considering. I detected the same queasiness among some of the lawyers who have spoken from the Government Benches, including the former Justice Secretary and the current Chair of the Justice Committee. Apparently, they too found reading the Bill a queasy experience.
I agreed with the former Tory Law Officer, Lord Garnier, who used to be in this House, when he called this Bill political and legal nonsense. It designates Rwanda as a safe country, but by doing so it seeks to reverse a conclusion of the Supreme Court on the facts. It is perfectly reasonable to legislate if the Supreme Court strikes down a policy, but one normally legislates to change a policy, not to purport to change the facts, or to say that the facts, which have not changed, are other than what the Court found them to be. That is the first thing that made me feel queasy.
The Bill goes on to try to prohibit any legal challenges that may argue that Rwanda, having been deemed safe in this way, is in fact unsafe. It says that every decision maker
“must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”,
notwithstanding any evidence that may come forward to the contrary. Given that the evidence that has already come forward, which the Supreme Court dealt with in its judgment, led the Court to say unanimously that it was not a safe country, it is worrying that we seem to think we can simply legislate to change the facts.
The Bill allows a very narrow range of claims, and this comes to the heart of the argument between those on the Government Benches who wish to beef it up even further to exclude any kind of legal challenge, and those, perhaps on the one-nation side of the Conservative party, who are trying to put a line in the sand to say that they will not accept any further amendments. The narrow range of claims allowed are those based on
“compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s particular individual circumstances”,
and even those sorts of claims are excluded in some circumstances relating to refoulement.
Excluding courts, by Act of Parliament, from considering relevant evidence; excluding them from taking account of judgments and laws, including domestic legislation; fettering their judgment as the Bill seeks to do; and giving Ministers power to ignore injunctions—taken together, that is tantamount to undermining the rule of law. It is certainly not respecting the rule of law, as I would expect parliamentarians in this place to do—and certainly as I would expect the Government of the day to seek to do, if they wished to uphold our international reputation.
It beggars belief that the Government’s response to the loss of their policy in the Supreme Court is to ask this House to legislate just to declare, “It’s all fine anyway; let’s carry on.” As others have pointed out, even if we were to start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda as a result of this Bill’s passing into law, the policy is designed for a few hundred people at the most, or less than 1% of people arriving in the UK. The permanent secretary at the Home Office was very clear when he said there was no evidence that it would work as a deterrent, whereas most of what we hear from Conservative Members is that that is the very purpose of the legislation—it is supposed to be a deterrent.
So there we have it: the policy is a Tory shibboleth, which has become an article of faith for some elements of the Tory party—the “five families”, as I think they have called themselves, somewhat menacingly. We see the Tory psychodrama unfolding yet again to decide the fate of the latest unelected Tory Prime Minister to be threatened with defenestration by some of the more right-wing elements of those five families. The country deserves better.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) set out in her excellent speech, time and again the Government go for gimmicks and infighting over basic competence and good administration. It is four years since the Tories promised to end boat crossings in six months. Almost a year after the current Prime Minister promised again to stop the boats, 30,000 more people have arrived. Hotel usage is going up, and not down as the Home Secretary claimed; it is at 56,000 at the moment, 10,000 more than when the Prime Minister promised to end hotel use. Criminal gangs are not being deterred. Convictions for people smugglers have dropped by 36% since 2010 and the criminal gangs are making more money than ever. The backlog of undetermined cases remains at 165,000, despite the PM’s promise to abolish the backlog of initial asylum claims by the end of this year.
It is folly to continue with this farcical failed joke of a policy when what is really needed is competent, good administration. Why not put the money being wasted on this policy into dealing with the actual problem? If the Tory party and the Government tried to do that rather more successfully than they have managed in 13 years, they might get some credit from the Opposition and from the nation, but there is precious little evidence that there is going to be any of that.
Sir Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
We all know that our constituents want action on illegal migration. If we conduct surveys and read our emails, we know that it is one of the most important issues facing our constituents. But it is not new that the political parties are debating and making promises on it. The right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) concluded her speech by bemoaning the lack of action and change in a year and in four years. When she delved seriously back, she went back 14 years. Let us go back a bit further.
In 1997, such was the issue of asylum and migration that it merited a mere two paragraphs in the Conservative party general election manifesto, and the same in the Labour party manifesto. In 2001, with Labour newly in office, the Conservative manifesto stated:
“The problem here is worse than anywhere else in Europe because of Labour’s mismanagement. The Government has presided over massive delays in processing applications and admits that thousands of those whose cases are rejected simply disappear and never leave.”
That was us, in 2001. We said:
“We will ensure that those whose claims are rejected are quickly deported by a new Removals Agency. Conservatives will restore common sense to Britain’s asylum procedures.
By 2005, Labour were promising to establish a points-based system, stating:
“We will ensure that only skilled workers are allowed to settle long-term in the UK, with English language tests for everyone who wants to stay permanently and an end to chain migration.”
In 2010, Labour said:
“People need to know that immigration is controlled, that the rules are firm and fair,”
and sought a mandate for a promised “Australian-style points-based system”. By 2010, we were promising—we might, if we listen carefully, hear the echoes from down the corridor in the other place—that we would
“take steps to take net migration back to the levels of the 1990s—tens of thousands a year, not hundreds of thousands.”
By 2015, Labour were talking about how “broken promises erode trust” and said—there were echoes of this in what the shadow Home Secretary said—that they would recruit 1,000 new border staff and speed up the process.
Both political parties have made promises to the British people at election times, and both have then told the British public that it is the other party’s fault that the problem has not been addressed. When we look back, between 1964 and 1997 the UK’s net migration figures were never lower than minus 87,000 or higher than plus 58,000. Now, it would be regarded as a modest year—a low figure—if net migration were in the several hundreds of thousands. All the while, according to the ONS, more than 8 million people in this country are economically inactive.
I will support the Government today, because I think that they deserve credit for trying to deliver on their promises to the British people on the boats. We in this House should unite for once, to seek to deliver on the successive promises that we have all made to the British people. When we look at countries where those promises have been broken, we see that unsavoury, dangerous people have stepped into the void. I fear that, if we do not once and for all say what we will do and deliver it for the British people, we could see such a fate in this country.
In my Bournemouth West constituency, we have four hotels occupied by people waiting for their asylum application to be determined. I am clear that it is grossly unfair on them to be trapped in that limbo, and yes, we should do everything we can to accelerate the process, but if they have no right to be in this country, it is equally fair on the British people and British taxpayers that those people get that determination and are returned to their country of origin to get on with their lives.
We are seeing far too many people come here without the necessary checks and then do things in this country that are deeply unwelcome. I cite the example of Tom Roberts, a poor young man who was brutally murdered in my constituency. His murderer said when he came here that he was 14, so he was put into a secondary school. It turned out that he was 18 and that he had murdered two other people in the country that he was in before he came here.
We owe it to the British people to be clear and direct. I will support the Government, and I will support the Opposition if they become the Government, to finally keep faith with the British people and with those who come here with the right to be here, in order to fulfil our ancient pledge to offer sanctuary and freedom to those who are persecuted. But we have to be straight with the British people. If we say that we will do something, we have to do it, and we must use every means at our disposal to deliver directly for the British people.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I am glad that the debate has provided an opportunity for former immigration Ministers to come together for some therapy and to share a little experience about the principles at the heart of the Bill. I served as immigration Minister for nearly two and a half years—in fact, I think that I am the longest-serving former immigration Minister still in the House—so I know a little about what it takes to deliver an immigration system, and I have sympathy with some, albeit not many, of the comments that I have heard from the Government Benches this afternoon.
I will say three quick things about deterrence, international agreements and staying true to our values in these debates. I was the Minister who introduced the UK Border Agency. I brought UKvisas from the Foreign Office and customs from the Treasury into the Home Office to create a £2 billion agency with a simple principle at its core: that border security in the 21st century cannot simply be about defending the border at the shores of our country. In this day and age, one has to operate a triple border. We have to export the border as far away from these shores as possible; we need to have a strong border at those shores; and then we need to have strong in-country enforcement. The only way in which we can get that system to work, and to work effectively, is to fund it.
Global migration pressures are growing sharply. As the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Sir Conor Burns) rightly flagged, 184 million people globally now live outside the borders of their birth, and there are 37 million refugees. Those migration pressures have been growing exponentially since the fall of the Berlin wall, and will continue to grow exponentially in the years to come, not least as the ravages of extreme weather drive more and more people in fragile, conflict and violent countries into poverty. People will always go that extra mile to seek a new life abroad. If we are to have strong borders for this country, yes we must have deterrence, but the deterrence is the speed of justice. It is not the prospect of overriding domestic laws and shipping people off to some remote deportation centre. That is why Home Office officials are right to say that the Bill and its objectives provide very little deterrence, because the Bill does not accelerate the process of rendering a decision on a person’s case and, if they have no basis to be in this country, removing them very rapidly.
Under the administration that I ran, we knew that we had to transform the speed of deportation, which is why we moved heaven and earth to ensure that one person who had no right to be here was removed every eight minutes. That was the kind of pace that was needed to send the very clear message that, if a person is found to have no right to be here, they will be removed very quickly. That is the most effective form of deterrence. The House has to confront the reality. Given a choice on how to spend £400 million of taxpayers’ money, do we spend it on building a remote processing centre in a far-away place, which our own officials tell us is will have no deterrent effect whatsoever, or do we invest it in creating a system that takes decisions quickly and removes people quickly if they have no right to be here?
The first thing one learns as an immigration Minister is that we cannot remove people unless we have agreements with other countries to take them. This is not a country that just drops people out of the back of aeroplanes if they have no right to be here: we have to get them new travel documents, and to have other countries that agree to take them. Frankly, the most important countries with which we need those kinds of agreements are our closest neighbours in Europe, so if we are about to destroy—wipe out and consign to history—decades’ worth of human rights agreements with our closest neighbours, how easy do we really think it will be to get return agreements of any type with those European countries? It is going to get harder and harder, because we will be seen not as good partners, but bad partners. That will not help us to get in place the kinds of returns agreements we are going to need if we are to keep our border and immigration system working well in the 21st century.
My final point is about the Human Rights Act. It is a terrible sight to see the party of Churchill depart so quickly from one of Churchill’s proudest legacies. The European convention on human rights and the Council of Europe were not ideas that were dreamed up out of thin air. They were ideas led, promulgated and delivered by Winston Churchill. That vision—his vision—of a great charter to bring peace to a war-divided continent was based on our experience of protection against torture and against unfair imprisonment and protection of life. Those are ideas that we in this country pioneered, from Magna Carta through the Bill of Rights to the European convention on human rights. The idea that the Conservative party will now lead us in departing from that tradition is a very sorry state of affairs. We in this country are the pioneers of human rights—we celebrated that anniversary with the United Nations at the weekend. It is something we should hold dear.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. I call David Jones. [Interruption.] David Jones?
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
Oh, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry; I could not hear you with all the excitement.
Unusually, the aim of this Bill is set out in clause 1, which is
“to prevent and deter unlawful migration, and in particular migration by unsafe and illegal routes”.
That is an aim with which I am sure not a single hon. Member could disagree. Illegal migration is possibly one of the greatest scourges of our age. It is evil, it is internationally organised and it is socially and economically damaging to this country. The Rwanda scheme is an inventive and innovative plan. It establishes, or aims to establish, an effective deterrent to illegal migrants—to make them think twice about making that perilous crossing across the channel. Unfortunately, it foundered on the rocks of the Supreme Court last month, when the Court held that Rwanda could not be considered a safe country, because there were substantial grounds to believe that migrants would face the risk of refoulement, or of being transferred to their country of origin or a third country. The treaty that the Government have concluded does provide reassurance in that regard. It addresses the problem identified by the Court by making specific provision that no relocated individual may be removed from Rwanda other than to the United Kingdom.
Given the dualist nature of our constitution, the treaty needs to be complemented by domestic legislation, and this Bill is that legislation. It is critical that the Bill should function as the Government intend, which is to facilitate the removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda without legal impediment. The question is: does it do so effectively? The Bill has been described as
“the toughest piece of…migration legislation ever put forward by a UK Government”,
and there is no doubt that it does toughen the current regime. However, it is debatable whether it is sufficiently watertight to amount to a significant deterrent to the boats by facilitating the flights to Rwanda.
The Bill has been considered by the legal panel of the European Research Group, and I commend its report to hon. Members. It notes that significant amendments to the Bill are required to improve it, but it expresses concern that those amendments may well be outside the scope of the Bill. One of the most significant problems is that the Bill contains no restrictions on legal challenges against removal to Rwanda on any grounds other than that Rwanda is not a safe country, and that clearly reflects the fact that the Bill is a direct response to the judgment of the Supreme Court last month. If the Bill does successfully block challenges based on arguments that Rwanda is not safe—the treaty certainly helps in that regard—it is likely that those advising illegal migrants will focus more on pursuing challenges of another kind.
We should consider clause 4, which specifically provides that legal challenges to removal may be made if arguments are put forward that Rwanda is not a safe country for individual migrants based on compelling evidence relating to their personal circumstances. The opportunities for the abuse of that provision are obvious. Migrants may well be advised by people smugglers or by unscrupulous lawyers, because there are some, that they should oppose removal to Rwanda on spurious grounds such as a non-existent mental health condition, a fear of flying or whatever. Given that as many as 500 illegal migrants, at the height of the summer, arrive on these shores every day—
Mr Jones
I stand corrected by someone who knows about it. In that case, it is not difficult to envisage a situation in which tribunals and courts may be overwhelmed. I believe that this Bill requires amendment, and I am inviting my hon. and learned Friend the Minister to say, when he winds up this evening, that the Government are open to amendments. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has to say about scope, but I want the Minister to engage with colleagues to see if this Bill may be made better.
At the moment, numerous deficiencies have been identified in the report of the so-called star chamber which I believe will render this Bill inoperable and ineffective. The last thing we want to do as a House is expend a lot of time and a lot of agony to put in place a Bill that does not result in the flights to Rwanda and the deterrence that we need to illegal migrants. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will respond positively to the suggestion when he winds up. I know that a lot of colleagues will listen carefully to what he has to say, and I think they will welcome what may well be regarded as a change of tone on the part of the Government.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
This Bill might be called the safety of Rwanda Bill, but it is really the safety of the future of the Tory party Bill. It is basically Schrodinger’s legislation—all things to all Tories. Ministers might say that it does not breach international law in order to make it a dead cat of a Bill for some, but need to say that it will breach international law to make it work for a dead cat of a Tory party, scrambling to find a reason to provide for such a policy.
I will be voting against this legislation, to stand up for Britain’s proud tradition of human rights and to urge this place to learn from the mess created by the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which replicated similar challenges. It is extraordinary that the Government are presenting us with a piece of legislation that says on its first page that the Secretary of State cannot confirm whether it is compliant with the rule of law and our convention obligations that we all signed up to support.
Many Members on the Government Benches have been listening to Oscar Wilde when he said:
“The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar.”
Legislation is not vulgar—it is imperative to democracy. They should listen more to Winston Churchill, who said that the idea of a charter of human rights was for it to be
“guarded by freedom and sustained by law”.
This Bill will not sustain those laws, but diminish them.
We should be proud of the fact that we were the first nation to ratify the convention that set up the European Court of Human Rights, at a time when thousands of people were fleeing persecution and in recognition that the world did not always get things right. We remember the children on the Kindertransport who came to this country, but never their parents who we left behind. It is unimaginable in our own world to manage these issues on our own. That is exactly why we signed up to international treaties—to share the burden, to make the refugee system manageable and to deal with the fact that 60% of people on those boats are being granted asylum because they have a well-founded fear of persecution. Shipping a few of them off to Rwanda—just 5%—is at best an expensive distraction and at worst a deception.
The only thing that this piece of legislation will do is make a bad situation worse. Clause 5(3) provides that the Court cannot take an interim measure into account, even if a Minister has not blocked it. The Bill also breaks our commitment to observe rule 39 interim measures. In doing that, we breach our obligations under article 13 of the ECHR, which requires member states to provide effective remedies for the infringement of rights in domestic law. In layman’s terms, Parliament is being asked to commit the UK to a process that breaches our obligations to protect people from torture. No other country has ever tried to challenge rule 39 jurisdictions. They may not have complied with them, but we are leading on a completely new departure. That will do untold damage to our status around the world. It will also damage other treaties that we have signed up to.
The trade and co-operation agreement states explicitly that if we end judicial co-operation, we undermine the agreement. The Good Friday agreement states explicitly that denying access to domestic courts for individuals on the basis of the ECHR contradicts its own commitments. I am sure that our colleagues from Northern Ireland have recognised that we cannot override legislation in this way. That means there will be countless legal challenges. We have already heard about the millions of pounds we have spent on a scheme where not a single refugee has been sent to Rwanda for processing. We have already spent £2 million on legal fees fighting this process, and that is on top of the extra £150 million we have already pledged to spend on it. No wonder a ministerial direction has been required to uphold this policy.
Parliament can pass any law it likes stating that things should happen. We could pass laws saying that there should not be smoking on the streets of Paris, but it does not mean it will happen, and that is the legal fallacy at the heart of this Bill, along with the Home Office permanent secretary saying there is no deterrent effect. I could pass legislation to say I can sing, but if Members came to karaoke with me, they would quickly realise the truth. The cold, hard reality of the law is that the Bill does not change the facts that the Supreme Court identified, and only the people who think it is a deterrent think that they can somehow keep saying to the courts, “No, no, no—Rwanda is safe,” like some kind of Vicky Pollard approach to making legislation.
It is time the British public woke up to what this Government are doing. We cannot amend ourselves out of this challenge without, on the one side, Tweedledum and, on the other, Tweedledee arguing anymore. This is a mess. It ruins our international standing, it is more money being wasted and it is more time in this place being wasted, when we could go after the traffickers and those exploiting vulnerable people fleeing persecution. We should speak up for the values that, post war, we stood for in the world, including supporting people who are at risk of persecution.
This legislation will not stop the boats, it will not stop the rot and it will not stop the Tory party tearing itself apart. Britain deserves better. With this side of the House, it will get it.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Let me start by saying how much I support the objectives of the Bill. I pay tribute to the Government for the very significant improvements on the status quo that the Bill represents. There are, of course, some practical issues with its operation, which have been well rehearsed on this side of the House.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) said so well earlier, what really matters is whether the Bill will work, and what working looks like is being able to detain and remove sufficient numbers of illegal migrants quickly enough that they decide that the journey across the channel is not worth it. That means ensuring that we have the capacity in the system. I recognise the progress that the Government have made to improve capacity but, as my right hon. Friend says, we have significant concerns about the system getting gummed up with legal claims that are still allowable under the Bill. We are also concerned about the potential continued operation of rule 39 orders from the Strasbourg Court.
The practical problems with the Bill, which are real and need to be addressed in its further stages, derive from a fundamental point of principle. I really do welcome the noises made in the Bill that would gladden the heart of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash)—it is rather like playing Bill Cash bingo: there is “notwithstanding” this, “supremacy” that, and “sovereignty” the other, which is all extremely welcome. Nevertheless, these words do not apply in the crucial places. The Bill still rests the right of individual claims on international law, the case law of the European Court and the operations of the ECHR in our own country.
Let me say quickly that I am not, at this stage, arguing that we should depart from the ECHR, although I think we could do that. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) spoke as if our leaving the ECHR would mean departing from the honourable and ancient British tradition of liberty, but as he implied in his speech, we would be returning to it if we were to leave the ECHR and rest our liberties on the statutes of Parliament and the common law of our courts. Nevertheless, if the European Court were to disagree with the actions of the Government and issue a substantive ruling to that effect, we would begin a conversation with it about that and decide how exactly we might comply or, if we had to, depart.
Let me turn to the Supreme Court judgment from last month, because it is very important that we try to analyse the implications of that ruling. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said, that the Supreme Court ruling explicitly acknowledges that UK law is supreme over international law. In one of the cases it considered, it made that point in principle, but, except in that one case, it does not make it in practice. The Court ruled against the Government on grounds that derive from European and international law, as well as other domestic laws.
The Court suggested that, in practice, international law trumps domestic law. Having done that, it then inserted itself into foreign policy—it presumed its right to judge a foreign Government. It said it would decide for itself whether the Rwandan Government’s undertakings could be relied upon. The Court essentially gave itself special investigatory powers to make judgments about another country. It described, rather patronisingly, the inadequacy of the Rwandan system—as if that is any business of a British court. While it totally disregarded the UK Government—it said
“the executive enjoys no constitutional prerogative”
in that regard—it gave what it called “particular importance” to the opinion of a United Nations agency. So it inserts itself into foreign policy and draws down the authority of international law and global agencies, but where in its understanding is the role of the UK Government? Where is its understanding of the role of this place, Parliament, which sets our laws?
I want on reflect briefly on what “the rule of law” means, because the phrase is invoked constantly by critics of the Bill and of our Rwanda policy as if international law trumps domestic law. It is not the case that the rule of law implies some hierarchy of law ascending from parish council and local byelaws up to the global law. The rule of law means the supremacy of Parliament and the operation of the common law—case law made by our courts. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone cited all the distinguished jurists: Hoffmann, Bingham and Denning. He did not mention Hale, but he did mention Reed, the President of the Supreme Court. International law is of course important, and I totally recognise its enormous value in keeping the peace in the world and enabling us to deal with other countries, but it applies to the international plane.
Let me touch briefly on human rights law, which has been mentioned. There is an assumption that the Human Rights Act has some kind of superior status in our law. That is often seen to be the case, but that is problematic. The rights and liberties of individuals—citizens and foreign nationals, whether here legally or illegally—are properly protected by statute and case law.
I regret that we have an unsatisfactory Bill before us. I cannot undertake to support it tonight. I hope that the Government will agree to pull the Bill and allow us to work with them and colleagues across the House to produce a better Bill; one that respects parliamentary sovereignty and satisfies the legitimate concerns of colleagues about vulnerable individuals. For instance, we can do better on safe and legal routes. We should be working together with other countries to design a system that respects the sovereignty of Parliament and the legitimate rule of independent nations.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
This year is the 75th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights. What an irony, and what a shameful indictment of Ministers, that our Government are marking it by putting in front of Parliament a Bill to wave aside our human rights obligations and the judgment of the highest domestic court in the land.
This insulting and dangerous legislation attacks both human rights and our democratic structures. In doing so, it both demeans and disrespects the role that the UK has played in helping to shape the international rules-based order, including its contribution to the drafting and early ratification of the European convention on human rights in the aftermath of the horrors of world war two. It is stated on this shameful Bill’s very cover that the Government cannot say that it complies with the UK’s obligations under the ECHR—a terrible admission of this Government’s willingness to violate the principle that human rights are universal and belong to all of us by virtue of our humanity.
As others have noted, the Bill overturns an authoritative, unanimous Supreme Court judgment based on extensive evidence and made just three weeks ago. Our highest domestic court ruled that by sending refugees to Rwanda, the UK could breach its obligations under the ECHR and other international laws such as the refugee convention, the UN convention against torture and the UN international covenant on civil and political rights, as well as domestic law.
In seeking to oust the jurisdiction of our domestic courts by forbidding them from making assessments of fact and disapplying the Human Rights Act, the Bill is constitutionally exceptional and provocative. It explicitly disapplies multiple sections of that landmark Act, including basic minimum standards that protect us all, leaving barely any room for judicial scrutiny. Courts would be barred from considering whether removing an individual to Rwanda could result in removal to a country where they would face torture or inhuman and degrading treatment. What kind of Government would want the courts to ignore that and undermine the separation of powers that is fundamental to UK democracy?
This ugly Bill also attacks interim measures: a vital human rights tool under international law issued on an exceptional basis in extreme circumstances where individuals face a real risk of serious and irreversible harm. It both enables UK Ministers to decide unilaterally whether the UK should comply with interim measures and prohibits UK courts from having regard to them when considering any case relating to a removal decision to Rwanda.
To try to justify this cynical and sinister attack on the highest court in the UK, the Prime Minister has started to say that “Parliament is sovereign.” Obviously, Parliament can pass whatever laws it wants, but we have courts so that everyone, including this Government, acts with respect for the laws that Parliament has passed.
As others have said, this Bill simply will not work. Its so-called deterrent is not a deterrent to someone fleeing torture or persecution, who has already put their life at risk by taking to one of the busiest shipping lanes in dangerous, inflatable boats. The Bill has nothing to do with that, in any case; it is a performative piece of cruelty by a dying Administration and a grotesque waste of money that is neither practical nor strategic.
Most important of all, the outsourcing of our human rights obligations to a third country is downright immoral. To immorality we can add absurdity. Seeking to legislate by assertion that Rwanda is safe is as ridiculous as it is dangerous. The Government cannot sign a quick treaty one week and legislate the next to make a country safe, when the highest court in the land has said just the opposite. The facts on the ground are what matter. It feels bizarre to have to say it, but apparently necessary: legislation to say that Parliament believes something to be true does not make it so. Fixing the facts on which the law is to be applied is the kind of thinking that dangerous conspiracies are based on.
As Tom Hickman KC said in a paper for Institute for Government:
“If the Government considers that the treaty has eliminated the real risk of refoulement then it should seek to persuade the courts of that, not parliament.”
It should not need saying that when the UK Government sign a treaty, they should stick to it. They now have the embarrassment of being schooled by the Rwandan Government, who, despite their poor human rights record, are sending out warning shots that even they will pull out of this shoddy deal if the UK Government breach international law to implement it.
I will vote against Second Reading tonight, because there is no tweak or amendment that can improve something that is rotten to its core. The Bill is a doomed and draconian attempt to reassert the Prime Minister’s fragile claim to a non-existent authority, but it has serious consequences and sets an extremely dangerous precedent. These are deeply dangerous times in this country, and they are made more dangerous by this Government. We have already seen the suppression of the right to strike and to protest, and other democratic principles and standards seriously eroded. Now we have this flagrant attack on human rights, on our courts and on the separation of powers in this country. I call upon this Government to abandon their cruel, immoral and unworkable Rwanda plan, and to re-establish the UK’s good standing as a member of the ECHR and international community.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I will start by saying simply that I am not a massive fan of this policy. I suspect that will not come as a great surprise to the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), or the former Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). None the less, it is crucial. We need a deterrence policy. Whether or not it is workable is what sits at the heart of this debate.
As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I have heard the message time and again—whether from law enforcement, officials on the frontline, Ministers or our friends and neighbours in Europe—that deterrence has to work hand in hand with a fair asylum system. The idea that the solution is simply to open up more safe and legal routes is for the birds. We need them, but we also need hard deterrence to prevent abuse of our asylum system. When the policy was first announced, French officials told the Committee that there was a spike in asylum claims in France, because people feared what would happen to them if they made that irregular boat journey from France and ended up in another country. When the planes failed to take off, the spike in claims levelled off.
We have been to the beaches in Calais and spoken to asylum seekers in camps near the coast. We have spoken to our compatriots in Europe. It is clear that countries across Europe, and around the globe, are casting around for a solution to the challenge that we all face. Millions of people are on the move due to the effects of climate change and war. We are not on our own here. I gently suggest to friends and colleagues across the Chamber who think that the Government are tilting at a particularly British windmill that we are not. Versions of the scheme are being worked up across Europe and around the world.
While we should be proud of the schemes for Hong Kong residents and people from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Syria, we need a rational asylum system that extends to others who need genuine help. We need to erode our asylum backlog and I give full credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for the work he put in to do just that. We need to put more work into inculcating citizenship for those who come here. We need a sensible discussion on legal migration and to be proud of the people who want to come, live and work here and set up their families here. Numbers should taper off only once we have geared the system enough to grow our own, not least to support agriculture, tourism, fisheries and social care, to avoid cliff edges.
But I go back to my main point. We also need a deterrent, one that stands up and says to the criminal gangs and the people traffickers that their trade will not work, and that they can try to put people on boats across the channel, but that those boats will be intercepted and their journey will not end in Britain. Doing that will break the trade and make the boats unviable, and that is a goal that we share across the Chamber.
The key issue the Supreme Court raised was whether Rwanda was considered to be a safe country in which to process asylum claims, and whether individuals sent there were at risk of refoulement. The Court argued that they were at risk. The measures in the new treaty, including independent monitoring and the new appeals body with a Commonwealth co-president should put those concerns to bed. The belt-and-braces approach the Government are taking is proportionate.
“It is consistent with the rule of law, going as far as it can, but no further, within the bounds of our international treaty obligations.”
Those are not my words, but those of Lord Wolfson.
I may dislike this policy and indeed the reality of where we find ourselves, but voting for this measure is the best route to stopping the boats, saving lives and crushing the business model of the criminal gangs who are exploiting some of the most vulnerable people in the world. I will support the Bill tonight.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
I have been in this House on many occasions when we have discussed migration and it saddens me that invariably the narrative from Conservative Members is negative and pejorative. Immigration is always couched as a problem to be dealt with, rather than an opportunity to be embraced. I long for the day when we can have a positive discussion about the history of people moving from one country to another, which, almost everywhere, has been to the benefit of the country they go to. We can also have a positive discussion about fulfilling our international and humanitarian obligations to people seeking sanctuary, particularly as with our 200 years of imperial history we have a great responsibility for that.
The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) is not in his place, but some of his remarks saddened me; I think he will come to regret talking of immigration as “this great scourge” and suggesting that any alternative to his proposal will result in a tenfold increase in boats coming across the channel. As an attempt to weaponise and politicise a very sensitive subject for political gain, it was very distressing. If there is a problem with migration policy in this country, it is a problem made by this Conservative Government. Let me give three examples of that.
First, the backlog has risen to a shocking level of almost 100,000 people waiting to have their applications determined. That was a simple management failure by the Government of not deploying enough resources to do the job in front of them. That statement is incontrovertible, because the evidence is there that when they did employ more people and more caseworkers, the numbers turned and began to come down. Today, they have 2,500 caseworkers processing claims. The money they have already spent on this expensive Rwanda gimmick would pay for three times the number of caseworkers. Imagine what could be done with that capacity to deal with the problem.
Secondly, everybody agrees that it is completely unsatisfactory that people who claim asylum in this country and want to make their case should be locked away for months on end in hotel accommodation that is not fit for their needs. It is a problem for the communities in which those hotels are located, and it is also a problem for the people who are forced to remain in that substandard and inadequate accommodation while their claims are processed. However, it is a choice made by the Government to treat those people as guilty until proven innocent, and to detain them in this way.
An alternative system would be to look at a claim, and in the event of a determination that it could not be assessed within a number of days, to grant a temporary permit allowing the applicant to remain in the country and to work while he or she was here. What would happen if that were the arrangement? Well, first of all the hotel bill would disappear, but, more important, people would seek the support of their families, friends and communities already in this country and that of funded voluntary organisations, at a much lesser cost to the taxpayer than is currently the case, and—even more important—they would start doing work and paying tax in this country. It has been suggested to me that if we did that, all the people would fall through the system because it would be impossible to control them. I put it to the Home Office that it has already lost 90,000 records, and I rather fear that if people were allowed to work here, the HMRC system might be rather better at enabling us to know where they were than the current regime.
Thirdly, there is the question of the boats. There is talk about disrupting the traffickers’ business plan, but it was gifted to them by the Government, who closed down the legal routes to this country, thereby opening up these business opportunities. The best way to get rid of the traffickers would be to ensure that there is a system in place whereby anyone who wishes to apply for asylum in this country can do so and their application is determined if, efficaciously and swiftly, a judgment is made and the application is either rejected or accepted. We talk as though everyone coming here in these boats were illegal and undeserving. Even according to the latest figures, three quarters of those applicants have been granted asylum because they have a legitimate claim.
On the Rwanda policy itself, I referred to it earlier as a gimmick, but let me deal briefly with the point about deterrence. We know that the Rwanda scheme will make an infinitesimal contribution, with perhaps 100 or 200 places for people being deported to Rwanda. In recent years, 300 people have died making the journey across the channel. Will someone please tell me why, if people are prepared to make that very dangerous journey in spite of the risk of death, they would stop making it because of the much lesser risk of being deported to Rwanda? The truth is that these people have a right and a need to come here and apply to be here, and if we were humanitarian at all, we would respect that.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
The small boats are of particular concern to me, as the Member representing Dover and Deal, because it is in my constituency that they arrive. Dover is, in a very real sense, on the frontline of this crisis, and it is on the shores of the English channel that I have stood too often in sadness for the many lives that have been lost, and lost unnecessarily, because each and every person was safe already in France. If we stop the boats, we save lives—and we do not just save lives; we cut crime, and we put a stop to the criminal gangs who smuggle people.
That brings me to the key question that is before the House today. Will the Bill stop the boats? What we know is that it is clear from the recent Supreme Court judgment that the Court does not think Rwanda is acceptable, and I fear that in its current form the Bill will not change that position, not least because the tone of the Court’s decision was so emphatic. It certainly will not do so in the next few months, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) explained so clearly and passionately. We have made substantial progress this year in reducing the number of small boat arrivals, and I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that he and the Government have done in that regard.
It is a fact that diplomacy can sometimes succeed where all else fails, and that was the experience when it came to stopping the lorry smuggling. Under Lord Cameron, extraordinary arrangements were made with France to take joint action to stop the lorries, just as we need to stop the boats now. Then, it was said that no deal could be done, yet it was. That is why, following the Supreme Court judgment, we must turn to diplomacy once again, with a cross-channel agreement to return people to France rather than Rwanda. Indeed, Italy has done a deal with Albania and there is nothing to prevent the UK and France from doing a similar deal. We must look at all options that can work, because it is only when migrants and people smugglers alike know that they cannot succeed through this cross-channel route that this small boats crisis will finally come to an end.
We should not stop there, because we need to modernise asylum as well. Asylum and the refugee convention were created in a very different time, and it must be recognised that the movement of very large numbers of people now involves journeys that are all too often incredibly dangerous. That needs to be addressed not just by the UK but by the west as a whole. A reformed international law would seek to keep people displaced by conflict close to their homes so that they can return and rebuild when the conflict ends. These changes would help control migration, prevent dangerous journeys, save lives and keep safe those vulnerable people who are impacted by wars and other circumstances in their homelands.
I have been making the case for a long time that the Government should start international discussions about a new global migration settlement, because the whole House knows that this is a concern not just for our country but across Europe as a whole. It is vital that we stop these dangerous journeys and that globally the UK should build on our incredible record of providing places of safety close to conflict zones. That is the way to protect people, to save lives and to help them rebuild their homelands when conflict ends. It would also cut crime by tackling the global illegal people-smuggling criminal networks and ruthless criminal gangs that, according to the National Crime Agency, fuel other serious and organised crime from their vast profits.
I have stood on the white cliffs of Dover with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and with the current Prime Minister. I want to stop the boats, but I am gravely concerned that the Bill in its current form will not do what the Government want. The House might want to reflect that when the immediate former Home Secretary, the former Immigration Minister and the Member for the constituency most directly affected by this crisis—among many others—all say that this Bill may not work and may not deliver what the Government are saying it will, those concerns ought to be heeded. I sincerely hope that whatever happens in the voting today, the Government will consider both operational and diplomatic ways forward, for which I and others have been making the case, which could deliver much more quickly the results that we all wish to see in the coming months.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
This is a new low even for this Tory Government. This Bill is spawned by overpromising on immigration over many years by the Conservatives. They are constantly seeking to hoodwink people into believing that they are competent enough to deal with this situation. On the balance of evidence, the courts have decided that Rwanda is not a safe country for them to send people who are seeking asylum to, so the Government have stamped their feet and brought legislation here so that they can legislate to say that something that is wrong is right. That is a new low that I have not experienced in all my years in this place.
It is a slippery slope when a Government take that sort of power to themselves. Where will it stop? Some of the speeches made on the Government Benches have raised that question. I understand that there are at least five different families, as I think they are called, over there on the Conservative Benches, who all disagree with one another. I think there might be seven. They have their own private version of “Gangs of New York” going on. We will have to have a general election soon because they are going to run out of backs into which to put their respective knives. This is the third such piece of legislation that we have had in just two years, and each time the Conservatives have told us, “This is going to stop the boats.” We had the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which we were told would stop the boats, and now we have the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
I am impressed by the stand the Rwandans have taken. Without taking a single refugee or asylum seeker, they have upped the ante threefold. They were given £140 million just to go to the table and talk about it. Now we are told the figure is up to £400 million and still growing, and Rwanda has not taken a single asylum seeker, which is an incredible feat.
Not only that, but Rwanda will offer only 100 or possibly 200 places a year. This is going to cost £2 million per person on the current figures, which is an incredible achievement by the Rwandan Government. I cannot understand why Conservative Members are not arguing about why the numbers are so low. They are arguing about people being able to take their individual cases to court, but they do not seem to be concerned that the number of places is so small. The policy is hardly likely to be much of a deterrent when so few people will be sent to Rwanda in any one year.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman is waxing eloquent on Rwanda’s excellent negotiation with the Government. Does he agree that the Rwandan authorities seem to have hoodwinked the UN as well?
Clive Efford
I will not go down that rabbit hole, if the hon. Member will forgive me. I think Rwanda has done an incredible job. Furthermore, it has reined in the Conservatives by saying, “We also have international agreements. We have treaties and agreements with other countries that require us to abide by international laws and conventions. If you, the UK Government, don’t want to abide by them, we certainly do.” Rwanda has almost saved the Conservatives from themselves, from going too far in breaching international laws and conventions.
I have listened with interest to the speeches from Conservative Members, and the Gangway has never seemed so wide. It seems to be the equivalent of the Berlin wall for the left and right of the Conservative party. Listening to their speeches, they seem to be completely irreconcilable. There are those who want to defend the rule of law and the right of individuals to seek to uphold their rights in court, and those who want to take away that power. Members have made it quite clear that they are not going to vote for legislation if it does not satisfy their requirements, but the two requirements are complete opposites—they are totally and utterly irreconcilable.
I do not see how the Prime Minister is going to resolve this conundrum. From the expression on his face earlier, he has clearly managed to cobble together a coalition to get the Bill through today. He is confident of that.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s reflections on the Conservative party, but what are his reflections on the Labour party’s policy or absence thereof?
Clive Efford
I hear it all the time from the Conservatives that Labour does not have a policy. It would be nice if one of the policies implemented by this Government over the past few years actually worked. That would have been a revelation.
I commend—[Interruption.] Can we have a bit of silence over there? I commend the Government for the arrangement they have made with Albania, which is the sort of route we should be taking. Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box today and said, “We have brought the small boat crossings down by a third.” That is largely due to the agreement with Albania, which is an indisputable fact. By being practical in dealing with things at source, we could resolve this problem. Investing in dealing with the gangs—[Interruption.] They are all laughing over there, but the fact is that convictions for trafficking people across the channel are down by 30%.
Perhaps Conservative Members should take a look at themselves and understand why this problem exists. It is because of the sheer incompetence of the Government. Some 160,000 people were included in the net immigration figures because the Government failed to deal with their asylum cases within a year and the Office for National Statistics included them in the figures. That is just sheer incompetence from this Conservative Government. They are incompetent in dealing with people’s claims, and in dealing with the boats and the illegal operations running them.
This is the fault of the Conservative Government from beginning to end, and this Rwanda scheme is doomed to fail. With its rhetoric, the Conservative party has overpromised and brought us to the point where we are having to legislate that black is white and that the Tories can have their own facts.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
The Rwanda policy is just one tool in a suite of tools designed to stop the boats and, more importantly, break the criminal gangs that profit from the hope of people who just want to have a better life. Last week, Essex police secured the conviction of an 11th person following the smuggling of the 39 Vietnamese who were found perished in my constituency. If we add the 18 people convicted in France for being part of the same smuggling operation, 29 people have been convicted of trafficking as a result of that investigation, which proves that we can break those criminal gangs if we target our resources on them. They are the real villains of this piece, and they are the people we should be focusing on.
I am happy to support the Bill tonight. I have never been an enthusiastic supporter of the Rwanda policy, but I recognise that we need a suite of tools with which to stop this trade and, obviously, anything that would provide a deterrent is welcome. However, we need to be realistic; if someone is prepared to get into a rickety inflatable boat to get across the channel, they are going to take considerable risk, and the Bill will only ever be a small part of this. The returns agreements are by far the most important ingredient we have, and I am glad the Government are still putting those front and centre of all their efforts.
I question how we have got to the ridiculous place this week where Conservative Members are all falling out with each other over a small element of a bigger policy. That is completely stupid, and the only people who benefit are those on the Opposition Benches. For those who are prepared to give them a victory tonight, I say, “Good luck to you. That’s great. But some of us are more intent on delivering the outcome, which is stopping the boats and breaking the criminal gangs who profit from other people’s misery.”
I hope that everybody reflects on what they are going to do tonight. We should never let the best be the enemy of the good. Politics is the art of the possible. If we pass this Bill tonight, we will be that bit closer to really tackling this problem. If we do not, we will look like a laughing stock, because we will have marched everyone up to the top of the hill only to back down again. So I implore my colleagues: you may not feel when you walk into the Lobby that the Bill totally matches your ideology, but it goes one step closer to delivering the outcome that we want, which is to save people’s lives and make sure that fewer people die crossing the channel.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
First, let me say that the Bill’s objective is supported by our party, as it should be by all reasonable people across the UK. The impact that illegal immigration has had on communities across the UK, be it in terms of the pressure it puts on schools, the health service, housing and other public services, or in terms of crime and the rewards it gives to criminal gangs, means that there is a duty on this Government to address this issue. The question is: does the Bill actually do that?
We have heard many speeches today, with some talking about the Bill’s inadequacies, others saying how important it is and others saying that it is only a political ploy in any case. Although similar Bills have been brought to this House and Rwanda has been talked about, we have sent Ministers and money there, but no migrants. That is because we have not learned from the flaws in the previous Bills.
Those flaws still exist in this Bill, because the Government are trying to get to a balance that includes the views of the lawyers who sit in the corner of the Conservative Benches and lecture us all about comity, responsibility and using powers responsibly. If they were using powers responsibly, the first thing they would do is live up to their manifesto commitment to deal with the problem and pay heed to the people who are negatively impacted by illegal immigration.
It is fine to talk in grand terms about the legal procedures and to give us lectures on comity, the balance between Parliament and the courts, and everything else. That does not rank too much with people who cannot get their youngsters into a school or the support from the health service that they require, or who find that wages locally are being driven down or rents are being pushed up. It is for that reason that I think the Government have introduced a Bill that, while it has a fine aim, does not reach the objectives that they have set out.
The one thing that has been missing from the debate today is the impact that the Bill is likely to have on Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is different. This House voted to leave Northern Ireland under the control of the European Union, through the Windsor framework and the Northern Ireland protocol, and we are under the remit of the European Court of Human Rights as a result of the Belfast agreement, which the Government are happy to change when it suits them but say they cannot change when it does not suit them. The fact of the matter is that the Bill does not deal with the issues that need to be dealt with if we are to attack the legal arguments that illegal immigrants use to stay in the United Kingdom.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that in 2016, on the BBC’s “Spotlight” programme, a constituent said to him that they were seeking to “get the ethnics out” and he appeared to say, “You’re dead right”? Is that why he is so supportive of the Bill?
Sammy Wilson
First of all, that is inaccurate—I did not say that. Secondly, this is all about the United Kingdom safeguarding its own borders and dealing with the kinds of issues that need to be dealt with, including in Belfast. Despite what people may think and what the Secretary of State said from the Dispatch Box, Northern Ireland is greatly impacted by the issue. Belfast is the second city of the United Kingdom when it comes to the number of immigrants being housed per head of population, and that is causing all kinds of problems. If the hon. Lady wishes to ignore the concerns of her constituents, that is fine, but I want to address them.
As it stands, article 2(1) of the charter of fundamental rights of the European Union applies in Northern Ireland, and the High Court has recently judged that that is grounds for people who wish to remain in the United Kingdom, having entered illegally, to bring a case. Certain aspects of European law are removed by the Bill, but not that one. Without a change to the charter of fundamental rights, Northern Ireland will be a gateway, because all the arguments that the Government are hoping to disapply will apply in Northern Ireland.
Of course, the European Court of Human Rights is embedded in the Belfast agreement. The Bill does not deal with that, so all the arguments used under the European Court of Human Rights will apply in Northern Ireland, and the European Court of Justice will be able to make a judgment as to whether the requirements of the European Court of Human Rights and the charter of fundamental rights are being applied when people make their case. What will be the impact of that? First, it will make Northern Ireland a magnet for people who might find that the route to staying in the United Kingdom is blocked, but in Northern Ireland it will not be, because we will still be under EU immigration rules, and the European Court of Justice can make the judgment. Secondly, if those people decide that they do not want to remain in Northern Ireland, with the free movement from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom and, indeed, with the common travel area, they could move into the rest of the United Kingdom. If that becomes a large number of people, will we then have people barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom? These are issues that have either not been considered by the Minister or have been wilfully neglected, and for that reason, we cannot support this Bill.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
As usual, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) talks a lot of good sense.
I am uniquely badly affected in my constituency. As a result of our inability to control illegal migration, the Government want to put 2,000 illegal migrants into RAF Scampton, which our local social services simply cannot cope with, and would probably atrophy £300 million-worth of investments. My constituents are not focused on whether we have Rwanda or not Rwanda; they just want the boats to be stopped, or at least severely mitigated. We have heard many criticisms and good knockabout stuff from the Opposition, but the only solutions that anybody in the world has come up with to stop illegal migration are either with pushback, which is uniquely difficult in the channel, or with offshoring, and nothing works. Therefore we have to do something.
The world is in such a parlous state that there is no end to the misery and the number of people who want to come here. I hear that we should speed up asylum applications. That is all very well, but the more we speed them up, the more people will come. I hear that we should do more on the beaches of France. I understand that—I do not understand why the French cannot do more—but that will not stop them. The only thing that will work is what the Government are trying to do.
It is all so unfair. This morning, I mentioned the case of Maira Shahbaz, who was raped and abducted in Pakistan, and who is still waiting to get here. She is a genuine asylum seeker. So many genuine asylum seekers cannot get here, because illegal migrants are abusing the system. There is nothing wrong with them individually; they are all nice young men who just want a job. However, if somebody breaks into your house and decides to steal your stuff, the police turn up, remove them and arrest them. We are in an absurd situation where people are entering this country illegally. Run by criminal gangs, they are jumping the queue, putting their lives at risk, and we are doing nothing about it. The public are just appalled. They cannot understand what is going on. They do not understand why we are putting people up in comfortable hotels, or in comfortable former airmen’s rooms. They do not know what is going on. They are paying for all of this and they want it to stop.
I hear all these different groups in the Conservative party. A House divided is a House that will be destroyed. We must work together; there is no other solution. I hear all the different voices that are going on, so I will just say that the Society of Conservative Lawyers and the Policy Exchange—not left-wing groups—think that this Bill will work. The Government think that it will work. The ERG has some doubts, but we have to work together to try to get this Bill through. Let us get it through Parliament as quickly as possible, get it through the Lords and try to stop the boats.
We can legislate all we want to ignore the ECHR, including rule 39 interim measures, but even if we did so, we would very soon face a final judgment from the Strasbourg Court, by which everyone agrees we would be bound. That is the legal situation. The only way that we can remove the Strasbourg Court is by leaving the ECHR. That may well happen, but the Government do not have a mandate to do so at the moment. They cannot get it through Parliament; it is a matter, I suspect, for the next manifesto. Meanwhile, this Bill probably goes just about as far as we can go. I am sorry, but we must be realistic: this is all we can get through Parliament.
As both the Society of Conservative Lawyers and Policy Exchange have said, a Bill would not be workable if it did not allow for narrow claims for individual circumstances. Even the report of the ERG’s star chamber seems to accept that there should be some possibility of claims in cases of bad faith. The key question is whether our system can process and dismiss those spurious claims quickly enough. Under the arrangements we have for removal to Albania, illegal migrants have even wider avenues for claims, but they have still led to a 90% fall in small boats arrivals from Albania.
The Bill is roughly in the right ballpark, but I hope that before the Committee stage the Government will consider whether clause 4 can be tightened further and whether they can share further evidence of the ability to process and deal with spurious claims. It is a question of will. In 1939, when we were facing a world war and a crisis, overnight we exported—
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Karl Turner
What does the hon. Gentleman think of the reciprocal arrangement for the Rwandan Government to send asylum seekers to this country?
Sir Edward Leigh
Of course none of us like any of that, but we have to get the Bill past the courts. We have to get it through Parliament. We have to be realistic. The Supreme Court has opined that there is a risk—I would say a vanishingly small one—that failed asylum seekers might be sent back to Iraq or Syria. Therefore, in order to get the Bill through Parliament and past the Supreme Court, the Government have had to make that concession. We do not like it, but that is the real world.
Politics is about reality. Therefore, this Bill must go through and be dealt with as quickly as possible. The onus on the Government now is to ensure that we can speed up the removal cases. It would be ludicrous if many hundreds of migrants, having come here illegally, were allowed to delay matters for up to a year by going to a tribunal, the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. The whole scheme will be bogged down and we will look completely ridiculous as a Government.
In order to survive and have a hope of winning the general election, the Government must also sort out the problem of legal migration. We cannot have a situation where 700,000 people are pouring into this country every year. We must pay care staff a proper salary so that we can get more of our own people working in that sector. We must deal with illegal migration, deal with legal migration and, by the way, build some more houses for our own people.
If we start working together as a party, if we stop making personal attacks on each other, if we stop questioning one another’s good faith, the Conservative party has a chance—because what has Labour got to offer? No solutions at all. If Labour gets into power it will never sort out this problem. The only hope is this Government and this Conservative party.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
There was a time not long ago when the unique selling point of the Conservative party was showing predictable and consistent support for the rule of law, being in favour of international treaties and organisations, and showing competency in the conduct of government. Alas, that has all changed. As we hear the rhetoric from those on the Government Benches today, we see a party that is increasingly going down a number of populist rabbit holes, fuelled by the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), whose scaremongering and irresponsible rhetoric is clearly designed for his leadership bid after the election rather than being any statement of fact.
The Conservative party now sees the courts and judges, not only in this country but abroad, as the enemy. They see lawyers as the pub bore does: as the enemy of the people, lefty lawyers and do-gooders. Where have we got to when the Conservative party goes down that route? The only person on the Conservative Benches I have heard defending the rights of the courts—an important part of our constitution—has been the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill).
Clause 2, as outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), is not about changing policy; it is about changing facts. It is about saying, “Rwanda will be a safe country, and as long as we accept that and get it through this House with a parliamentary majority, that is a fact.” That is a little like saying, “The black cat is white,” as long as it gets through Parliament, irrespective of what the evidence tells us, which is that the cat is actually black. That is dangerous, because it leads to dictatorial parliamentary democracy. It is not only that the façade of democracy damages our reputation. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), who said that it is all very well for the Government of the day to argue for this, but what happens if the boot is on the other foot, and another Government put things forward that the Conservatives do not like?
The international treaties that we pride ourselves on were born of the destruction and ashes of the second world war. Today, they are being defended on the battlefields of Ukraine. It saddens me to hear the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and others wishing just to throw away those conventions, or the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) wishing to pick and mix which bits of international treaties we should abide by. It is a little ironic, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said, that Rwanda is giving a nation such as Great Britain a lesson in international law.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth) said that the Government are governing in slogans. He is right, but those slogans come with a cost: £300 million of taxpayers’ money has already been wasted, with possibly another £100 million to go, on a system that the Department’s permanent secretary has said will not work, with money that has to be signed off by ministerial order rather than by the civil servants. This is not the first try, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) said; it is the Government’s third bite of the cherry in trying to solve the problem.
The right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Sir Conor Burns) said that we have to “keep faith” and “be straight with” the public. Well, we do need to be straight with the public: not only will the Bill not work, but it will damage this country’s international reputation. The Bill will raise expectations are waste taxpayers’ money, and it needs to be ditched. That is why I will vote against it.
I look with interest, as we all do, at the spectacle of the Conservative party tearing itself apart, but although I may disagree politically with the coalition that is the Conservative party, I have respect for some of the individuals in it. What is happening now is not good for our democracy. Sadly, the tired old nag that is this Government will be put out of its misery only when we have a general election.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Our country finds itself in a difficult situation. The Government rightly made a commitment to the public that we would both stem illegal immigration and protect our borders while upholding our moral and legal duty to offer refuge to those fleeing violence or persecution.
Our efforts to stop people dying in the channel, to stop the criminal gangs and to stop the boats have been opposed at every turn—opposed by the Labour party, opposed through the legal system, and, of course, opposed by the criminal gangs profiting from the dangerous and illegal routes. It is claimed that this is a problem for the UK alone—that it is our Government’s problem alone—but it is, in fact, shared with our neighbours and allies across Europe, who face their own, often greater, challenges with illegal immigration.
Those challenges are not going away. Instead, as a consequence of climate change and global instability, they are likely only to get worse. Our approach to asylum needs to be fair both to the asylum seekers themselves and to our communities. Our communities have opened their hearts and homes to those seeking refuge, but that must happen through safe and legal routes. We cannot cede control of our borders to criminal gangs; we must tackle illegal immigration.
The European convention on human rights is often cited as the barrier that is preventing control of our borders. I am proud of the UK’s leading role in promoting human rights across the globe, and I want us to continue that and to support the ECHR, but the judgments of the Court appear to have moved away from simply guaranteeing the basic and fundamental rights enshrined in the treaty. Judgments have begun to infringe upon democratic decision making, and there appears to be no obvious way of holding the courts to account. That has been called judicial activism, but whatever we call it, the answer is not to withdraw from the ECHR or to break international law; the answer is to come together again, as we did in 1949, to find the answers to the challenges of the present day. That will take time, of course, and right now the Government must take steps that are within their power to control illegal immigration.
Colleagues may remember my unease about a previous Bill that threatened to break international law. I was unable to support that Bill unamended, and had the same issues arisen with this Bill, my sentiment would be the same. However, the difference is that I have been assured that the Bill, as it stands, does not break international law. It is by no means perfect—we could spend a lot of time seeking perfection, but the challenges we face are real and impacting on lives now. I will therefore give my caveated support to the Bill tonight as a near-term measure to tackle illegal immigration, but at the same time, I give my unwavering support to the Government to engage with our international partners and work towards a long-term, sustainable solution.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
Public services are on the verge of collapse, the gap between rich and poor has widened, and we are slipping back into the Victorian era. Food bank use is at an all-time high, and workers have not had a decent pay rise in 15 years. But we are not here today to talk about those things—in fact, we are barely ever here to talk about them in any meaningful way. We are here to legislate on the dog-whistle, fantasist policies of the Conservative party, who are electioneering when they should be governing, not offering any real solutions to problems and attempting to divert attention from their own failings as a Government. They are wasting the time of this House and squandering the good will of the people of this country.
We keep going round and round on this matter. Our Supreme Court has ruled on it: it found Rwanda to be unsafe, a ruling that was based on evidence. Legislating the opposite is not going to rid us of the facts. This is not an exercise in parliamentary sovereignty, but an abuse of this Parliament’s functions. It undermines the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers. Yes, we are lawmakers and we can make and change the law, but the law cannot be used to change the facts.
Another fact is that the treaty with Rwanda, coupled with the Bill, breaches many of our obligations under international law. If that were in doubt in any way, the Government have helpfully outlined that fact throughout the entire Bill. Clause 3, for example, disapplies key sections of the Human Rights Act. It directly prevents the courts from applying the Bill in a way that is compatible with convention rights, it prevents any consideration of previous rulings of the European Court of Human Rights that have found Rwanda to be unsafe, and it removes human rights obligations from public bodies, including courts. The Bill would place an obligation on every single decision maker who has found Rwanda unsafe to simply rule it as safe. It restricts the courts’ ability to protect people who are at risk of harm, and it restricts individual legal protections. Do the Government fully understand what that means? Do they see how far they have sunk? Are they so fanatical about this flawed policy that they would bar courts from considering the very reasons why Rwanda might be unsafe, stripping people of individual legal protections?
From the very outset, this Bill has been ridiculous. Conservative Members would do well to note that there is no more empire. International law is not whatever we say it is; it is comprised of agreements and treaties adopted by Members of this House, and to dismiss them as the rules of foreign courts is as irresponsible as it is untrue. We signed up to those solemn and binding rules, so the Bill risks our international reputation and makes us hypocrites. How dare we condemn other countries that do not uphold international law, and how dare we preach to them, when we would undermine the rule of law ourselves? This Government do not really care about that, though. They care more about the squabbles of the Conservative party than our standing as a country.
If this Government were serious about resolving the issues surrounding small boats, they would do more to target people traffickers, and they would provide safe and legal routes. People do not take those perilous journeys for fun: they are often fleeing some of the worst persecution. They are some of the most vulnerable people in the world, not the Conservative party’s scapegoats. As has already been said, those who seek asylum from countries such as Ukraine and Hong Kong do not have to come by unconventional means because the Government have given them the ability to come by other means. The Government need to stop misleading the public with their use of the word “illegal”, because seeking asylum in this country is not illegal; it is not against any of our laws, domestic or international.
It is the Government who have exacerbated the problems in the asylum system, not the vulnerable people who are seeking asylum. We know this because the vast majority of claims are justified. After lengthy delays, three quarters of applications are accepted. The longer these processes drag on, the longer refugees and asylum seekers are prevented from rebuilding their lives in this country, and from working and contributing to our economy.
This Government have already spent hundreds of millions of pounds on a policy that is as crap as it is unworkable. [Interruption.] There is nothing more telling than the fact that the Secretary of State has been unable to make a section 19 statement. He could not say that this Bill was compatible with the European convention on human rights. The Home Secretary means to take us all for fools. For the second time this year, he cannot say that his plans for removing asylum seekers to Rwanda will not break international law. The Rwandan Government have been very clear. They have said that they will not continue with this deal if it does not meet the highest standards of international law. This Bill does not do that. This Government are wasting our time. This is not going to work, and I am not even sure it was meant to.
I am sick and tired of being dragged to this House to approve legislation that does nothing to improve the lives of my constituents or uphold the values of our society. This Bill should simply not be allowed to go any further.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am sure that when Members rush to read Hansard tomorrow, they will read the word “crass”.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Thank you, and I am sure that Hansard will have taken note of that.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
The starting point for this debate has been the good work of a series of Conservative Immigration Ministers in working closely with their French counterparts. In particular, it is worth recalling the contribution of our late colleague James Brokenshire, whose work with the French authorities to increase security at the ferry terminals, lorry parks and around the channel tunnel in northern France, while enormously successful in reducing the numbers putting their lives at risk when being smuggled to the UK by that route, has been instrumental in driving those gangs to use small boats across the channel as the means of carrying on their trade.
I started out as something of a Rwanda sceptic, and having spent many years in local government and seen the cost challenges that face many of our local authorities in supporting refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, it did seem to me a very expensive policy per capita. However, having had the opportunity to reflect both on the visits I made to the jungle in Calais in 2016, before the security measures were put in place, and on what I have heard from agencies, including French and UK agencies operating against the gangs in France, as well as directly from some of the migrants waiting to cross the channel, it seems very clear to me that this policy has, as part of a wider range of measures, great utility in acting as a deterrent.
The policy will not by any means apply to everybody, and we know that people will continue to come to the UK, including, as they have done, to the local authority on which I served through the routes to Heathrow airport. However, a measure that helps address the unique circumstances we face in the English channel is absolutely essential. It seems to me that this Rwanda policy and the Bill today have enormous utility in addressing the risks that people are putting themselves to and the profits that the criminal gangs continue to make.
A great deal of the debate has focused on the detail of the legalities of this Bill. It certainly seems to me an enormous improvement on where we were previously. It reflects the judgment of the Supreme Court in saying that the key concern that needs to be satisfied is that anybody who is sent to Rwanda as a result of this policy needs to have sufficient safeguards on human rights that we can be confident, in particular, that they would not be moved to another country where those human rights would be abused. That replicates the agreements we have for deportations to many other countries, and it upholds the standards that we see from the United Nations, the European Union and countries, such as Austria and Germany, that are already exploring with Rwanda and others similar arrangements to address their likely concerns about the impact of high levels of uncontrolled migration across Europe and elsewhere.
I reflect on the fact that I am receiving a great deal of lobbying from leading figures in my local authorities, who are enormously concerned that the cumulative cost of accommodating large numbers of people who have arrived in a fairly short space of time means that we are struggling to ensure that access to housing, access to education and access to other important public services is maintained to the standard we would wish. In that context, dealing with those who, as a number of Members have highlighted, have effectively jumped the queue—rather than those who have played fairly, followed the correct process and come here because of their connections to the UK—represents an unfair loss of public money for that purpose.
Although this Bill is not perfect, it should be set alongside the work being done by a number of Ministers to improve decision making in the Home Office and the arrangements that have been made, working with local authorities, through things such as the national resettlement scheme for refugee children, which has led to the fairly seamless accommodation of more than double the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the UK. We have also seen additional local authority areas volunteering to become dispersal areas for asylum seekers and to take part in resettlement schemes compared with where we have been before, and we have the contribution that foreign students, 600,000 of whom we committed to bring to this country in our election manifesto of 2019, continue to make to our economy, which now represents a foreign currency earner larger than our oil and gas industry. That demonstrates a migration and immigration policy that in the round continues to serve the interests of the British people.
I will finish on this question. We have heard a great deal of criticism of the policy and challenges back to those who aspire to form a Government about what their policy would be. A key issue that I have not yet heard addressed in the points made about a new returns unit with perhaps a thousand staff is this: if a negotiated agreement of this nature and with this legal basis with Rwanda is not sufficient, it is incumbent on the Opposition to answer on which other countries they are seeking to negotiate those agreements with. To what extent have those agreements been reached? If returns agreements are the key policy that the Labour party wishes to have as a point of difference, it is clear at the moment that that emperor has no clothes.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Let us not beat abound the bush: this Bill is in retaliation and is a crass payback for the Supreme Court’s decision on 15 November that the Government’s Rwanda asylum plan was unlawful. It sets a dangerous precedent. It undermines the democratic contracts of the state while also undermining what constitutes the truth. Declaring something to be true does not make it fact. Evidently, this Bill also undermines the UK’s international treaties and conventions, including the European convention on human rights, with which the Home Secretary has stated that this Bill might not comply. Sections 2, 3 and 6 to 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998 are also disapplied.
The UK Government are acting hypocritically by requiring the Rwandan Government to abide by the standards of international law while disapplying them for themselves. This Bill does reputational damage to the UK at home and abroad. The Government may say that others have set a precedent for this Bill, but that argument is flimsy. The UN Committee against Torture has expressed concerns about Denmark’s intentions to move refugees elsewhere. Israel abandoned its agreement to send Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to Rwanda and Uganda, having been halted temporarily after legality challenges.
This legislation faces a series of hurdles, each likely to bring it down, and it comes at an unforgivable price—it has reportedly cost £240 million so far, with another £50 million agreed. Then we heard from the Secretary of State that there will be another £50 million and then yet another £50 million on top. It is in no way possible to justify this, given the cost of living crisis that we face.
No matter what the UK Government believe, Rwanda has been proven not to be a safe country for people seeking asylum. The Bill fails to address key issues raised by the Supreme Court, including human rights issues. Refugees have historically been ill treated after expressing criticism of the Government, with new provisions, such as the appeal body, untested. Fifteen Rwandan nationals have been granted protection since 2020, and this Bill excludes Rwandan nationals from its scope. How is that compatible with any definition of a safe country?
Under this Bill, anyone who arrives in the UK without a legitimate visa and has travelled via a “safe country” would be subject to removal, but what about people fleeing conflict zones who are unable to access documents such as passports and visas as embassies close down? What about the many Afghan men and women who were a crucial resource to the UK Government, and who have been left stranded and in peril? Where are the safe and legal routes?
This Bill is an affront to Plaid Cymru’s values and Wales’s aim of being a true nation of sanctuary. We are proud to be on the side of equality and want every person to have the same opportunities and the same access to justice, resources and services. We want to end recourse to public funds conditions, and allow all migrants and people seeking asylum access to the public services they require. How that is found to be contentious by the UK Government is beyond belief. Instead of engaging in electioneering and distraction policies, the Government should be expanding safe routes to ensure that fewer people decide to take the tortuous journey across the channel and at the mercy of smugglers.
To close, I refer to a model that Professor Emyr Lewis of Aberystwyth University uses when he is teaching public law. It illustrates the legislative supremacy of the UK Parliament through an imaginary potential Act: the Location of Aberystwyth (On the Moon) Bill. If an MP were to promote such a Bill and the Government were to support it, it would become law and no court in England or Wales could overturn it, but the reality of the location of Aberystwyth would remain utterly unchanged. When we are talking about the potential of the Bill to change the reality, I think we would do well to learn the lesson of Professor Emyr Lewis.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
This Bill tackles an issue that is vital to many of our constituents. We all know how important legal and illegal migration numbers are. I know from my own constituency, which is generous and kind, that there are real tensions when five hotels are used for illegal migrants in a town such as Skegness. There is no justification for that, and residents are rightly angry. When we get such issues wrong, we strain the social fabric of our country, and the Government have a duty not just to try to tackle illegal migration, but to strain every sinew to try to tackle it.
Perhaps surprisingly—even to me—I welcome how far this Bill goes. I welcome the fact that it is doing something novel, but I am uncomfortable in that position, because the Bill goes up to the line of international law. International law is important not because of some sentimental approach about what it means or even the fact that Britain was involved in writing some of it. It is important because it is the foundation on which we can do the deals with other countries—Albania, France and Italy, for instance—that allow us to tackle illegal migration. Rwanda cannot be the only thing that we do. If Rwanda is to happen, it must be a part of a meaningful package of measures, and if we go so far in one direction to try to ensure that flights to Rwanda take off, we will knock out other important parts of the deal that we need to do.
We need to be careful about walking a tightrope. While I am uncomfortable on that tightrope, others are uncomfortable for a very different reason, but that is what successful compromise on all sides looks like. If we try to go further, we risk undermining not just our ability to tackle the issue with a multipronged approach but Britain’s standing in the world. We will have a policy that will not work and a country that is less than where we started. No one in this House wants that. To use the phrase that has been around so much recently, there is the risk that we make the perfect the enemy of the good. People who convened a star chamber recently have declared the Bill a “partial solution”—perhaps we should not forget that the very first star chamber started the civil war in England, so maybe we have had enough of star chambers—but we should be alive to the danger in saying that something is a partial solution and is therefore no good. For me, a partial solution is better than no solution.
Tonight, we must grasp the nettle that says, “Yes, much of this is uncomfortable for many across the Conservative party, but we should be united in our desire to tackle an issue that matters to all our constituents.” We should have no shame in saying, “This is a plan that we can get behind, and it contrasts so sharply with the total lack of a plan from the other side of the House.”
If people want to criticise the Conservative approach—I gather that people do—it is incumbent on them to come up with their ideas. They cannot simply say, “We will employ more people to do it”, because the Government have already employed more people to do it. They cannot simply say, “We will try harder.” The BBC accused the Labour party of replacing a Bill simply with hope—I thought that was generous.
There has to be an alternative. A responsible Opposition —a responsible aspiring Government—surely have to come up with those plans, yet we hear nothing. The twofold reason to get behind the Bill is that it is an idea that will work in making a difference to this critical problem, and it is also the only idea in town. We have found ourselves in this excruciatingly difficult position because it is an intractable problem. In the absence of better ideas, people need to be careful what they wish for.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The hon. Member says that there are no credible options, but we have heard multiple speakers, organisations and lawyers say that there are. The Government should create safe routes and stop making people illegal, because no one is illegal. People are human beings, and they are coming here for very good reasons. They are coming from countries that we have happily bombed and interfered in, yet now we are not willing to take them in their hour of need.
Matt Warman
I do not understand the line that we are not willing to take people in their hour of need. When we look at the Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, we see huge evidence of this country—dare I say it, England more than Scotland—housing those people in their hour of need. I agree with the hon. Member in so far as safe routes being a crucial part of the problem, but that should not be a stick to beat people with in pretending that we have not played a huge part. We should be immensely proud of the UK’s role.
I shall vote for Second Reading without huge enthusiasm except for the concept of our having a moral duty to address the problem. The view from a constituency such as mine, with a long and complex relationship with migration, is that when politicians make promises that they do not keep, it fractures not just the social fabric but that vital democratic thread that gives us legitimacy when we come here. We have a duty to tackle the issue in a way that makes a meaningful difference. We also have a duty to unite behind a plan that will make a real difference, even if we do not think it is perfect.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I attended my six-year-old son’s nativity play this morning—he was an angel. I was thinking of the story of baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The young children were playing the knocking noise as they tried to find a room, but there was no room and they were turned away. I thought, what has happened to our basic decency as a country? What has happened to our compassion? People are fleeing, and we want to close the door on them!
Like our public services, the last 13 years of this Government have left us with a dysfunctional asylum system. At the end of September, more than 160,000 people were waiting for an initial decision. We should remember that 75% of asylum claims are granted on the initial decision. Half of appeals against initial decisions are allowed—double the number in 2010. We are talking about people fleeing war and persecution. They go through so much stress, which no one in this House would ever want to experience. These people just want to start a new life after leaving their country of origin in horrific circumstances. For the vast majority, the welcome they get in the UK is a wait of more than six months, running into a year. After that, if they are lucky, they are given just 28 days to navigate the housing system and to find a job, after a break in activity.
I am proud to represent Vauxhall, a place where diversity is celebrated and welcomed. People from all over the country are welcomed. Other communities make our community in Vauxhall stronger. The current situation facing many people fleeing persecution is unacceptable and inhumane, and it gets worse. During their time waiting for a decision, their lives are on hold. They are often stuck in unsuitable accommodation, including a hotel in my constituency.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
The last time I went to the Council of Europe, I got off the train at the Gare du Nord in Paris, walked out and saw a row of north African men asleep in sleeping bags outside. When was the last time the hon. Lady saw that at a London station? Never.
Florence Eshalomi
I am not sure what relevance that has. The hon. Lady tells us what is happening in Paris, but our Government think that people sleeping in tents should not be housed. They want to demonise communities. I hope we never get to that situation, but the reality is that a number of people live in worse conditions: in hotel accommodation with four family members and no cooking facilities, eating bad, processed food. That is not how people should live. Her Government have failed to deal with that.
The Government have created a mess over the last 13 years. We all need to agree that we need urgent action to stop the exploitive gangs that put so many vulnerable people into terrifying and perilous boats. But, sadly, what we have from the Government is another broken plan, and no clue of how to solve the problem. There are two reasons why I cannot support the Bill. The first goes back to the simple waste of taxpayers’ money on achieving the Government’s goal. Under the scheme, £300 million of public money has been spent without a single asylum seeker being sent to Rwanda. It has achieved nothing. It could have been spent on our schools, hospitals or on properly cracking down at source on the criminal smuggler gangs that facilitate dangerous crossing. Instead, we have a failing scheme that risks breaking our international obligations and diminishing our standing in the world. That is why Members should think hard about supporting the Bill. They should think about how much that money could do in all our constituencies.
The UK Government’s own guidance on Rwanda states:
“LGBT individuals can experience discrimination and abuse, including from local authorities.”
We must be aware of the number of refugees who flee their country of origin because of persecution on the grounds of political repression and sexuality. My Vauxhall constituency is a proud LGBT-friendly place, and I will always stand up to protect communities globally from the persecution they face.
Earlier this year, at UK Black Pride, I met people from African Rainbow Family, a charity that helps and supports LGBTQI people from African and black and minority ethnic backgrounds. They spoke about the difficulties they and their members have had navigating the Home Office system. They spoke about people’s long waits for their asylum claims. They spoke about the fact that they feel they are continuously being persecuted and that that is coming from the top of this Government. We should be worried about a Bill that wishes for us not to respect our international treaties and obligations. Demonising and othering people should not be happening in 2023.
There are no signs that the Bill will be effective in its main aim of deterring channel crossings. The Bill pleases no one and does nothing to help solve the problems in our asylum system. Instead, we should be looking at how we can work with our international partners and our community to address some of the humanitarian crises that are the key cause of people fleeing their homes in the first instance. We should look at how we can work with communities so that people do not need to flee their homes in the first instance. We should look at how we can spend money on a serious plan to crack down on the criminal gangs and clear the massive backlog in our asylum system.
We have all sat in surgeries for MPs, raising cases. I see the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) in his place. He was very helpful when he was the immigration Minister. I raise cases that began before I was elected, four years ago, of people who are still waiting for an answer from the Home Office. That is what we should be addressing. I urge the Government to withdraw the Bill and look at other ways to help people.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
I have said it before and I will say it again: Doncaster is full. [Interruption.] I often get challenged, as I just was from the Opposition Benches, when I say as a Christian that Doncaster is full, but I do not think it is very Christian to put people in boats who will, sadly, sometimes fall. I do not think it is Christian to promise people a life in this country when we do not have the services for them. I do not think it is Christian to take the best people from developing countries because we do not train our own in this country. I do not think it is Christian when my constituents have to put up with immigration at the level it is at.
We have heard the lawyers in this House speak so eloquently, as they often do. We hear the left-wing lawyers do the same, but at least the lawyers in this place are probably trying to help—at least those on the Government side of the House. Unfortunately, outside, we have left-wing lawyers making six-figure salaries calling me and people like me awful. We have TV pundits on seven-figure salaries, paid by my constituents through TV licences, again calling me awful. Well, I ask the people on those huge salaries to sell everything they have and give it all away, and come and get a job in Doncaster, probably on £25,000 or £30,000 a year. I ask them to find themselves a partner and then go and buy their dream house.
Those people buy that dream house—a three-bedroom semi or mid-terrace—and they make the garden nice so their kids can play in the garden. There is a couple next door who have kids themselves, and everything is rosy. Then all of a sudden the neighbour decides to move on—he gets a different job or moves somewhere else—and that house is turned into a house in multiple occupation. Then we have nine people who do not speak English bedhopping—[Interruption.] That is what is happening. It is no good saying it is not happening; it is happening. [Interruption.] If anyone wants to come and have a look, then please come and have a look, because I am sorry, but you are burying your head in the sand trying to make yourselves look good in front of people to get votes. This is happening. It is happening in Doncaster and in places throughout the country. We are turning parts of our community into a ghetto. This is what is happening.
All of a sudden, you are living next door to an HMO and there are comings and goings at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, with people outside smoking. The grass does not get cut any more, the windows do not get cleaned any more and, unfortunately, you feel too scared to let your child play out in the garden any more. There are no gated communities here to make people feel safe, because, remember, you are not on a seven-figure salary now; you are earning £30,000 a year. The only protection is a lock on the door. The council might introduce a public spaces protection order, but would probably not enforce it. This is what is happening.
You cannot sell your house, or if you can, you have to sell it at a discount. Your little child falls over in the street and you have to go to A&E, and there is a 12-hour waiting list. The reason the waiting lists are so long is that people do not speak English in these places any more. [Interruption.] This is what is happening! In the schools, the classes are all oversized—[Interruption.] This is what is happening. Members can shout me down. They can say what they want—I really do not care—but this is what is happening.
We have to tackle immigration, including illegal immigration, because it is not fair. The couple I am talking about are paying their taxes week in, week out. They expect to live in a nice street, and to benefit from the services that they pay for week in, week out. They do not expect to be called racist or xenophobic for saying, “We liked it as it was.” If we are going to have immigration, which I do not completely believe is a bad thing, it needs to be controlled, and that is what I was sent down here to do.
I am only here because of Brexit. The people of Doncaster have had enough. They wanted control of their borders, and I say to Ministers that unless we get control of our borders, I will not be coming back down here again. [Hon. Members: “Hurray!”] Members may cheer, but the people of Doncaster are not cheering. This is the first time they have had a Conservative MP to hold to account one of the socialist Labour councils that have been left to get away with murder for the last 60 years. It is absolutely atrocious.
I will back the Bill today, but I have friends on this side of the House who want it to be stronger, and I am going to work with them, and hopefully with Ministers, because we must make this work. We have to stop the boats: that is what the Prime Minister has said, and I will back him until we do. We must stop the boats.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I feel as if I have been sucked back in time to listen to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech again. I represent a multicultural constituency containing many immigrants, many asylum seekers and many refugees, and I can tell the House that my constituents do not support the Bill. At the weekend, all sorts of people stopped me in the street to tell me that they hoped I would speak against it because they found it repugnant. Perhaps the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) needs to inform his constituents that the reason they live in the conditions he described, and the reason they have such low wages, is not immigration, but more than 10 years of Tory government.
What I intend to focus on is the law, not as a lefty lawyer but as someone who tries to do what lawyers are bound to do—look dispassionately at the law. Those who listen to the public debate about the Bill, in the media at any rate, could be forgiven for thinking that the debate about its legality was confined to the competing tribes within the Conservative party, but fortunately it is not. There are sources of advice independent of the Government and independent of their querulous Back Benchers, and it is on them that I want to focus.
This morning, the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights published a briefing based on the independent legal advice that has been given to the Committee. That independent legal advice is for the benefit of all Members of Parliament and peers, which is why it has been published. I have also had occasion to consider the briefing published by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. They are both important, because the Government are trying to position themselves as having stopped short of breaching international law, but those independent briefings make it clear that they have not. The Bill undermines the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers, which are supposedly central to the British constitution, as well as undermining various of our international obligations.
I commend to hon. Members a reading of the independent legal advice that has been given to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I will take a few highlights from it. Requiring the courts to conclude that Rwanda is safe, even though the evidence has been assessed by the UK’s highest courts to establish that it is not, is a remarkable thing for a piece of legislation to do. If the Government were so confident that Rwanda has suddenly become safe in the last month, as I said earlier, why pass this Bill at all?
Another point made in the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ legal analysis is that disapplying the Human Rights Act is very significant. If human rights protections are disapplied when they cause problems for a policy goal, they lose the fundamental and universal quality that characterises them, and that is arguably particularly the case when they are disapplied in respect of a particular group—in this case, migrants who have come to the UK without prior permission. In my own aside, I will just remind the House that history shows that when a country withdraws human rights from a particular group, it is on a particularly slippery slope.
The independent legal advice to the Joint Committee also makes it clear that, crucially, no matter what the legislation says, it can affect only domestic law. That was the point of my intervention on the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) earlier. As the Supreme Court explained only a month ago, the United Kingdom is prohibited from allowing refoulement under the refugee convention and the ECHR, as well as under the UN convention against torture and the international covenant on civil and political rights. Passing this Bill will not change the fact that we are signed up to those obligations in international law, and it will not change the fact that we are breaching our international legal obligations, so the Conservative Members—particularly the lawyers—who have convinced themselves that it is okay to go through the Lobby and vote for the Second Reading of this Bill tonight are simply wrong. If they look at the independent legal advice from the JCHR and the Bingham Centre on the Rule of Law, they will see that that is the case.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Is it not a fundamental problem with the Bill that so many people see it as punishing the exploited and not the exploiter? If the Government were serious about this issue, that is exactly what they would focus on.
Joanna Cherry
Indeed. It has been suggested by a number of speakers this afternoon that no alternatives to the Bill have been suggested, but alternatives have been suggested, including a serious attempt to break the model of the people smugglers and proper international co-operation. Unfortunately, because of Brexit and the Government’s attitude towards international law, the United Kingdom’s opportunities for international co-operation are becoming few and far between. People no longer trust us and we do not have the same avenues for international co-operation as we used to have. Creating safe and legal routes is the way to do it. That is what we used to have. People who are seeking asylum are not seeking asylum illegally; they come across the channel because they have no other way to seek asylum except by coming to this country, so we should create legal routes.
Joanna Cherry
I will in a moment.
I want to say something about how this Bill impinges on Scotland. Conservative Members talk about their mandate and about their constituents wanting this Bill. I want to make it clear that people in Scotland do not want it. This is not the approach that we want in Scotland. It is therefore particularly egregious that the Bill seeks to oust the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts in relation to such fundamental matters as human rights and the basic tenets of our constitution. Scotland’s system of civil justice is a devolved matter under the Scotland Act and therefore the preserve of the Scottish Parliament, yet I do not see any legislative consent motion being sought, despite the fact that the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts is being ousted. Perhaps even more importantly—and this is rather important to us Scots lawyers—the authority and privileges of the Court of Session, including its inherent supervisory jurisdiction, are protected by article XIX of the Treaty of Union, which includes the nobile officium of the Court of Session, a power that exists to give remedies where otherwise there would be none. That is arguably also threatened by this Bill.
I know the Government are not terribly interested in Scotland, but I wonder whether they have applied their mind to whether there should have been a legislative consent motion, and to whether this legislation is in breach of the Treaty of Union by ousting the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. I see the Minister looking at his notes, and I would be particularly interested to hear him answer those points in his summing up.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, having been a solicitor for nearly 20 years. Every lawyer I met during those 20 years of my working life disagreed with every other lawyer on the issue in front of them. I can guarantee that a lawyer’s advice tends to be somewhat in line with their client’s instruction and the ends that their client wants, so Members may want to ponder the source of some of the legal advice that has been mentioned.
I have sat on the Justice Committee for four years, and I also sit on the Home Affairs Committee. I went on a trip to Calais with my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who is no longer in his place, and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. We spoke to people on the beaches, and we saw what some may call France’s functioning asylum and immigration system, but that is not what I witnessed in the slightest.
Calais is effectively a waiting room with no resources, where people are directed to wait for a boat to come to the United Kingdom. We saw that immigrants are housed in tents, and they are treated in the most appalling manner. When the French authorities get fed up with them, they burn down their tents, physically attack them and throw them into the next area or field. The idea that we are an outlier in how we treat immigrants is for the birds.
Too often in this Chamber, as a number of my hon. and right hon. Friends have rightly said, we ignore the concerns of our constituents in order to pontificate about our moral and liberal conscience.
Lia Nici
Does my hon. Friend agree that France is supposed to be a safe country and that people have an option when they arrive in France, or in any other EU country, to claim asylum in that first safe country? When they make a decision to come over the channel, they make a decision to be illegal and to be involved with criminal gangs. Nobody is forcing them to do that.
James Daly
I agree with my hon. Friend. We have heard some blanket statements about immigration, but one of the curious things I found when speaking to people on the beaches was that the people seeking immigration to this country were all males, all single and all of a certain age. There were virtually no females in any of the places we were taken.
We are escaping both from what our constituents want and from the reality that motivates people. When I was in those camps, people told me, “We are told that the United Kingdom’s streets are paved with gold. When we go there, we are going to be provided with a lot of financial support through benefits and other things.” That is what is motivating the vast majority of these people to come to this country. Listening to Opposition Members, we would think that nobody in the world has that motivation to come here; that everyone is fleeing some type of persecution. That is utter nonsense.
Our constituents expect us, as a Government and as a Parliament, to put in place a suite of measures to address the problem happening in the channel. This Bill, as many of my hon. and right hon. Friends have said, is one of a number of measures being taken by this Government, on which they should be congratulated.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness said, although nobody seemed to pick up the point, the French authorities told us that a deterrent effect and policy—the Rwanda policy—is absolutely necessary. We saw, as did the French authorities, that when the policy was first announced, even though people were potentially coming over the channel, there was a drop in cases. The spike came only when it became clear that, through various legal means, the policy would not be taken forward.
Not only do the French authorities think we need a deterrent, and not only are countries such as Germany, the United States, Italy and Austria all saying that they need some type of policy and they need to follow the UK’s lead, but it is what our constituents want. We cannot have a situation where we cannot house people, where people cannot get a doctor’s appointment and where people cannot afford a house. That may be acceptable to Opposition Members, but we cannot have a situation where we have 10,000 foreign national offenders in our prison system. We have to take measures that reflect the will of the people, not the will of middle-class, liberal consciences. I sometimes feel it is more important for some to moralise than actually be concerned about what motivates their constituents and what we should be doing in this place.
I have heard two objections to the Bill, one of which relates to rule 39 injunctions. I wish to ask the Minister about that, because I agree completely with what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) said. May I ask the Minister to comment on the Government’s legal advice? I say that because, technically, the Government can ignore rule 39 injunctions; that is what the Bill states, although he may be able to tell me something different. I think that is an important part of the Bill and I would be grateful if he would comment on it.
I respect every contribution made by a Conservative Member, but I cannot believe that anyone thinks—I have certainly not read any legal advice that thinks this—that we should exclude the right of appeal or, in extreme circumstances, the right to challenge whether someone should be taken to a foreign country. There must be such circumstances. Even the star chamber advice says that there must be at least form of allowance in respect of that. The legal test that the Government have put in place, whereby somebody must show “compelling evidence” that they would suffer “serious and irreversible harm”, is a strong one. It will address, both legally and practically, everything that our constituents want us to do.
This is a good policy—one that the Government have worked hard to refine. It is within the bounds of international law and of what this Government have undertaken to the country, which is to tackle illegal migration and stop the boats crossing the channel.
Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)
I am grateful to a priest in my constituency for recently bringing to my attention the film “A Man for all Seasons”, which I confess I had never seen. A quote from it is very relevant today:
“Some men think the earth is round, others think it flat. It is a matter capable of question. But if it is flat, will the King’s command make it round? And if it is round, will the King’s command flatten it?”
The proposition before us today asks us to accept that Government can simply define “facts” as facts, even if they are not so. The attempt to bend our entire legal system to fit the will of Government is a high price to pay for some meagre political cover for a party that promised to deal with this genuine issue—Members from across the House would agree that it is that—and has singly failed to do so. We see, as we have seen in the past five and a half hours, the Prime Minister appeasing his right flank with promises of amendments later in order to bring some people on side, while others are debating how those very amendments would pull them away from supporting the Bill. A complete mess is playing out before us.
What a distance this Tory party has come. Its former leader, now brought back from the wilderness as Lord Cameron, said only a decade ago:
“I believe that immigration has brought significant benefits to Britain...this is our island story: open, diverse and welcoming, and I am immensely proud of it-”
From that, we get to the repugnant rhetoric of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), in one of the most appalling speeches I have ever heard—he is not in his place, but his was a shameful speech; to the spectacle of the Immigration Minister resigning from his post, not in protest at the Government’s novel policy, but because it does not go far enough; and to speech after speech by Government Members criticising the Bill, but then saying they are going to support it.
Perhaps more important than any of the legal challenges is the moral case for why the Bill must be blocked. I take issue with the idea that we should not think about the morality of these issues. We talk about planes, boats, targets and backlogs, and forget the human beings who are seeking shelter and a better life. The Home Office’s own statistics show that at least six out of 10 of those who made the dangerous channel crossing will be recognised as refugees through the asylum process. Given that many are fleeing extreme situations to embark on one of the most dangerous routes possible, how can the Bill possibly stand as any kind of deterrent?
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that those who support refugees in our country deserve our respect and should be commended by the House for their excellent work in local communities up and down this land?
Michael Shanks
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Over decades, immigrants have contributed so much to the country that we enjoy today, not least to our public services, and we should give them immense thanks.
Instead of thinking of other solutions to deal with the criminal gangs that are causing such misery and death as they smuggle people across the channel, the Government have decided to hold firm to a course of action that has already cost us hundreds of millions of pounds and, as we have heard throughout the debate, will cost us even more. Instead of challenging the criminal gangs at source and building better co-operation with our European neighbours to tackle them, we have a Government fixated on a plan that the Home Secretary himself does not seem to be particularly convinced by. And for what? For a law that is unlikely to succeed in even the aims it has put forward.
The assumption made in the Bill is not that Rwanda is a safe country but that all decision makers must treat it as such. In other words, they have to put aside any reality they may know and accept that Rwanda is a safe country for the purposes of decision making. There will be neither recourse to appeal on the basis that someone removed to Rwanda may be sent to another country, even if it could be demonstrated that that was a genuine possibility, nor recourse to appeal on the basis that a person may not receive fair consideration of their asylum claim, because the Government have decided that these things are all safe.
The provisions mean that only in exceptional personal circumstances would an individual have a means of legally challenging the decision. It is a deeply unsettling proposition that the Government are removing one of the key components of constitutional democracy—the right of any citizen to test any law in an independent court. Never could that be more important than on an issue of human rights.
The question of parliamentary sovereignty has already been clarified. Lord Hope stated:
“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute. It is no longer right to say that its freedom to legislate admits of no qualification whatever.”
The Bill leaves open the possibility of individual challenge to the ECHR and, as we heard from a number of Members, we might be back here, a few months from now, discussing that very issue as the Government seek to withdraw us from the ECHR.
Until a few months ago, I was in the classroom teaching pupils how to identify truth from sources of information, among other things. We told young people that there is such a thing as objective truth, and yet here I am, in the so-called mother of Parliaments, faced with a morally reprehensible and legally questionable farce—a charade that even most of those who will, I suspect, eventually be persuaded to walk through the Aye Lobby do not actually endorse. At the heart of the issue is the idea that a Government can simply state what is true, even if the evidence points the other way. It is for this House to challenge the Government’s shoddy attempt to do that and to do the right thing by voting down the Bill.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I will start by looking at the foundation and principles of the Bill. It is worth remembering that it tries to do what our constituents want us to do. That is not a bad start for any Bill on Second Reading. I knock on doors week in, week out, and I have spoken to hundreds, if not thousands, of my constituents over the past few years. Without question, the single most common issue raised in those conversations is illegal migration, so we in this place owe them an absolute duty to do our very best to deliver on their wishes to produce an effective control on migration and illegal migration. That is what this Bill intends to do: to provide an effective deterrent that breaks the business model and that will lead to stopping the boats. However, it will not do so by itself. This is not an isolated policy; it is part of a whole suite of policies that this Government, to their enormous credit, have introduced over the past years and that are already bearing fruit. We have seen this year crossings by small boats down by a third—I think it is slightly over a third—at a time when they are going up by a third in Europe as a whole and up by 80% in the Mediterranean countries.
Therefore, the schemes that the Government have already implemented are working. They include bilateral agreements with countries such as Albania, a dedication of a safe country status, which is not novel to this Bill. That has had an immediate deterrent effect. It is not that everyone who comes to this country has then been immediately deported to Albania—that has not been the deterrent effect. It is the fact that people know that they will be deported that they have stopped coming in the first place. Crossings by Albanians have dropped by more than 90%. That is why Rwanda is so important. It is not that the capacity of Rwanda has to accept every single migrant who currently comes across the channel; it is the deterrent effect to stop them coming in the first place. We have seen it work, so why not follow the evidence?
We also have the upstream destruction of equipment. As I understand it, just last week there was a Bulgarian seizure of boats, engines and engine parts, preventing the ability of people to cross the channel. There is also increased co-operation with France, which I wholeheartedly welcome, as it has led to increased patrols and increased interdiction of attempts to cross the channel—although not all of them. There has been a 70% increase of raids on illegal employment in this country, and an enormous increase, which I very much welcome, in the number of claims handlers to speed up the process of assessment, bringing down the backlog from 90,000 to below 20,000 now.
The Rwanda Bill is important, but it is just one tool of many. Let us be clear about what the real dispute is in this Chamber today. It is not about the intentions of those on the Government Benches, as we are united in wanting an effective policy for Rwanda. Where the real dispute is—[Interruption.] Yes, every single Member on the Government Benches are entirely united in that objective; it is how we get there that we are debating.
While we want an effective deterrent, those on the Opposition Benches do not. Labour and the Liberal Democrats do not want an effective deterrent. They want to scrap it. Even if the Rwanda policy is demonstrated to be working, they have committed to replacing it. We want flights to take off to Rwanda, as do our constituents. Opposition Members want to prevent them. We want to restore control over our asylum processes, but Labour and the Liberal Democrats say that the only policy is to hire more staff—“Hire another 100,000; have safe and legal routes.” That is important, I accept, but it does not answer the question of how many people come over in the safe and legal routes.
We can have a process that welcomes everyone, but the UN tells us that there are 108 million people in the world at the moment who have been displaced by violence from their own country. Safe and legal routes is a great cliché, a great strap line, but it does not solve the problem of control of our borders.
This Bill responds to the Supreme Court judgment. It does not say that black is white. It does not say that the risk of refoulement then was a false decision by the Lords. The Bill solves the problem by an international treaty, preventing refoulement, and that, in the rare occasions where Rwanda may wish to export people to a third country, they come back to the UK. That is sensible. That is not going against the Supreme Court; it is respecting its judgment and solving the problems that the Supreme Court judges raised in their judgment, and I wholeheartedly support this Second Reading.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
There have been some absurd and ridiculous Bills presented to this Parliament in the course of the past few centuries that it has been in existence, but it would be hard to find a Bill that is more absurd and ridiculous than this one. It is a Bill that wills something to be just because it wants it to be, and asks us to ignore reality and experience because it decrees it. That is just about as absurd and ridiculous as you can get. It takes some imagination to concoct something as comedically callous as this Bill. It would take a particularly warped mind to think that this type of rendition is a solution to anything, far less a sensitive and complex immigration problem.
It has been totally dispiriting to listen to some of the contributions from hon. Gentlemen and Ladies on the Conservative Benches—the dehumanising language, the talk of invasions and culture wars, treating people as commodities to be dealt with, and as scourges to be legalled away. I will single out two speeches that I think were utterly appalling: the disgraceful speech from the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher); followed closely by the speech from the former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick).
But have the Rwandans not played an absolute blinder? They must have seen this Government coming from thousands of miles away. They have solicited hundreds of millions of pounds from them, and apparently they will get another £100 million more. They have done all that without taking one single deportee. I say, “Go Rwanda! You have made utter mugs of this chaotic Government.”
Nobody has won from this Bill other than Rwanda—certainly not the wretched people who will be subject to this ongoing problem and will be getting on the boats, at the mercy of all the dreadful people who smuggle them across the channel. This Bill will do nothing to disincentivise them. If they are prepared to risk their life to come across the channel, why would they concern themselves with the infinitesimal chance that they might be rendered to Rwanda? It just does not make sense.
This Bill certainly has not helped the Government, has it? I do not know whether they will win this vote tonight—apparently it is still in the balance, if that is news for colleagues on the Conservative Benches. I think the Government might just about have got it, but apparently it is still in the balance. Look at the list of all the different groups we have. We have the One Nation Conservatives, the European Research Group, the New Conservatives, the Common Sense Group—I would love to go to one of their meetings—the Northern Research Group, the No Turning Back group and the Conservative Growth Group. That is a group of factions that would make the People’s Front of Judea look like a model of unity and political consensus. This might be the very Bill that brings down this Conservative Government, and what a hill to die on—an obsession with immigration and with stopping the small boats. By God, they deserve to be brought down, if this is the Bill that will determine that.
Here is a novel idea: why do we not start to consider immigration as some sort of opportunity, a potential boost to our society and communities? Why do we not design safe and secure means to harness international talent as they seek to flee conflict and carnage in their own countries? We live in a world where the movement of people has never been so far-reaching and profound. One thing the right hon. Member for Newark got right is that that is going to be an ongoing feature of the international community. It will be something that we will have to deal with not just this decade, but for the rest of the century. Can we not be imaginative about solutions? Can we not look to see whether there are benefits to having people who were the cream of their countries coming to this nation? Instead, we are all about closing borders, stopping people coming here and making life as miserable as possible for the poor souls who manage to end up on our shores.
I am just pleased that this Bill is not in my name. It is not in the name of the people of Scotland. If we ever were in control of our immigration policy, everything that the Conservatives are proposing and presenting is the exact opposite of what we would do. Scotland rejects this Bill. My constituents want nothing to do with it. I will proudly and defiantly be voting against it this evening in the name of the people I represent, and I know that I will be joined by my colleagues. What a disgraceful Bill. What an appalling piece of legislation. It deserves to be shoved right in the furthest bin in the furthest corner of this country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I advise colleagues that the winding-up speeches will begin at 6.30 pm.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
It is somewhat comical to get a lecture on unity and financial probity from the Scottish National party, to say the least—[Interruption.] Well, if we really want something comical.
I particularly welcome this Bill because it was me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and the current Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who were the original architects of the Rwanda plan.
A lot of that is because we in this country face challenges that other countries in Europe face—namely that, even if we turn down someone’s asylum claim, there are countries that we would struggle to return them to. There are countries around the world with Governments that we would not wish to deal with, for example, or countries that refuse point-blank, as a matter of policy, to accept enforced immigration returns. In fact, we even struggle to deport criminals back to some countries not necessarily because of concerns about those countries, but because of the domestic policies that they adopt. As was touched on by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), we cannot just drop people off; we need to get permission to do so.
Similarly, if we cannot get a returns agreement with the safe and democratic third country that someone has just left, we need to look for alternatives. That is where looking to Rwanda came in. Rwanda is a specialist in refugee resettlement. Someone listening to comments from the Opposition would never know that there are 130,000 refugees in Rwanda and that the UNHCR relocates people there. That shows that Rwanda is a specialist in that area, and it is one of the reasons we worked with it.
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling was based not on the idea that Rwanda was inherently unsafe, or that if someone went to Rwanda they would actually be in danger there, but on the potential for refoulement elsewhere. I expect that many of the people who cite the Supreme Court judgment did not bother to listen to it. It is important to consider what the Bill is based on and what has changed since the judgment to allow Parliament to take a different view from that of the Supreme Court justices. Not only is Parliament entitled to do that, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) rightly pointed out, but we do so on the basis that there is now a treaty that directly addresses those points.
The Bill ratifies that treaty and makes it part of international law. It guarantees against a person being transferred on further when they have been transferred from this country to Rwanda, in order to meet their protection needs. That is the absolute core of what has changed since the Supreme Court judgment. It is why Parliament is now entitled to take the opinion—based on assurances that will be upgraded into international law by our treaty, and on the clear assurances against refoulement to a third country where someone may face persecution—that Rwanda is safe for the people transferred there.
That is why the Bill needs to pass its Second Reading. There are clearly points of detail that we can explore in Committee. The Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery and the Minister for Illegal Migration, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), for whom I have huge respect, will know my thoughts. Where will the evidence threshold be for the clause 4 provisions? Given my right hon. and learned Friend’s former role as Solicitor General and his direct experience before the courts, it would be particularly interesting to hear where he believes the courts may draw the line for interim relief. One reason interim relief is always important is that, in many cases, although a lot of the challenges thrown up at the last minute usually fail in the end, they are used to frustrate the flights. When I used to deal with the Jamaica flights, for example, we could only have so many a year, so people knew that if they could get themselves off that flight, it would be some time before there was another, if even their claim ultimately failed.
There is a wider debate to have about the refugee system. There is a debate to have about how the current law and international practice work. We have had examples of people who have lived lawfully in the European Union for a number of years with a visa, and then come to the UK and claim a protection need. Well, if they had been living in a safe and democratic European country, what was their real protection need to leave that country, particularly if they had the lawful right to be there? Those are not debates that we can settle today. What we have before us is a Bill that allows us to take forward part of our plan to tackle the issue of illegal migration. That is why we need to ensure that it passes Second Reading.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
We have heard the sounds of optimism over truth coming from the Conservatives. The idea that the measure is a deterrent has not yet been proven, yet it has been cited as if it is actively deterring people from arriving in boats. We all know that the boats are a challenge. They are a real problem; people are dying in the channel. But let us be clear: the Government were the architects of this policy, and it is the second time they have legislated on it. Its architects have stood up, including the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) just now, and said how proud they are that they drew up the policy. But they drew it up so badly that they are having to revisit the legislation. I think they should be a bit less proud. Even though I do not agree with the policy, proper policy making means ensuring a policy works before announcing it. There are so many flaws in this scheme that the Government are struggling along, believing that a headline and a pledge that it will deter people is enough. That is not good policy making.
We on the Labour Benches have often been challenged on what we would do differently. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and I were on the frontline dealing with immigration matters during the last Labour Government, and my right hon. Friend was the architect of a system that meant that one person was being returned every eight minutes. I have people in my constituency who have reached the end of the line, and they know it. They come to me and we talk about voluntary return, but it is difficult to do that when the Home Office does not return those people’s documents and they have all these problems. These are people who actively want to leave because they know that is their only option, but they cannot do so.
This Government must look much more closely at the existing system and how it is working. It has been 13 years of downgrading the asylum system and the immigration system generally, and now all these extra people have gone into dealing with the backlog of asylum cases—there are 20,000 legacy cases still left. Was 13 December the day on which the Prime Minister said that number would reach zero? He has missed that target, and 160,000 people have been backing up in the asylum system. People in my constituency, including a top surgeon, those coming in on work permits and those on student visas, are all behind in the queue because all the Home Office’s effort is going into the Prime Minister’s pledge to deal with the backlog, which is just creating more chaos in the entire system. That approach is not working.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) touched on the question of money, and of course, we on the Public Accounts Committee have been trying to look at the money on this issue. I will not go through the figures, because my right hon. Friend has already set them out, but this is a five-year plan, and we have no figures for how much money will go to Rwanda in years four and five. My right hon. Friend and I, along with the other members of the Public Accounts Committee, asked the permanent secretary that question yesterday, but he was not forthcoming on that figure. He only released a figure to us when it was leaked to the International Monetary Fund—an investigation is happening into why that was. That is a ridiculous way of releasing figures. It is not normal parliamentary protocol to release information about major projects in the annual report and accounts, especially when we are voting on them in this House.
For the benefit of colleagues who may not follow the annual accounts of Departments with the same enthusiasm as members of the Public Accounts Committee, the accounts for the financial year we are in will be published to Parliament in July next year, 15 months after the £100 million was allocated this year. That is not scrutiny. In other areas and for other projects—I look to the Minister to answer on this point, or take it back to the Home Secretary—we get updates to the House every six months, or even more frequently, through Committees or laid before the House. That is not uncommon, yet the Minister’s permanent secretary was saying that it is normal to provide updates just through the accounts. We need more scrutiny of this issue: if it is a flagship Government policy, there is nothing to hide, so let us see those figures. The Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Committee will work together on that issue—it is really important that we do that.
We need to tackle the backlog and we need transparency on the numbers, and I would be also be grateful if the Minister clarified whether any conditions are attached to the money going to Rwanda. We got a useful breakdown from the permanent secretary in Committee yesterday—I will not repeat it, but it is on the record from yesterday’s Committee meeting—but is there anything that it would be out of order for the Rwandans to spend that money on? It has been spent on reasonable things such as education, health and so on, but is there anything on which the Rwandans cannot spend the money that is given to them by the UK? It would be very helpful to know that.
There was also an expression of interest for a contract for Manston and Western Jet Foil. That is a £700 million contract for the first six years, which could extend to be worth £1.16 billion over 10 years. The money is intended to improve those reception centres, which definitely need improving, but according to that pre-tender document, the facilities are expected to be active between 2030 and 2034. I am a bit puzzled: £700 million is being invested in Manston and Western Jet Foil, and although that may be necessary, we have been told all afternoon—I have been here for five and a half hours—that the Rwanda policy is already deterring people. If it is working so well, why do we need to invest that much money in those facilities? They need the investment, but it seems to me that the Government are trying to have it both ways. I would welcome clarity from the Minister.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
I will support the Bill this evening, because it is a fundamental right that a country must be able to protect its borders. As a basic requirement, it should know who is entering the country, even more so if they are trying to do so illegally. I support the Bill because we simply cannot rest on our laurels with the current action we have taken, as positive as that already is.
As we have heard this afternoon, across Europe major countries have seen illegal migration rising, with Mediterranean crossings 80% up, yet thanks to the steps we have taken in this country, our numbers are down by a third. People cite the figure of a third over and over again, but what does it mean? The number is approximately 17,000 people down on where it was last year, and that is way down on the forecasts that were expecting it potentially to be double the number last year. However, reducing the figure and being happy with 29,000 people this year is not stopping the problem.
Stopping people being put on boats and trying to enter the country illegally requires a multifaceted approach. Return agreements have worked, putting our Border Force into French control rooms has worked and trying to dry up the supply of rubber boats has worked, but there must be a deterrent as well. It is simply another piece of the jigsaw, and it comes on top of all the other measures we are using. Those who seem not to be able to understand why we need that deterrent should look at the situation not through the lens of the tens of thousands we have seen this year but at migration around the world and where it is going. If we do not tackle it with a strong working deterrent, we will see not tens of thousands of people trying to cross into the country, but hundreds of thousands, and that is the forecast we are being shown year after year.
The Government’s official release yesterday was the most startling statistic I have read yet. It estimates that if illegal immigration goes unaddressed, the costs of asylum accommodation alone could increase to £32 million per day by 2026, which is equivalent to £11 billion a year. Imagine how that £11 billion a year could be used on our public services. The Government are absolutely right to use every power they have at their disposal to prevent and deter unlawful migration. To the people who say that we have spent an unbelievable amount of money already—£250 million—in trying to get the scheme up and running, I reply that that figure pales into insignificance when we put it in the context of that £11 billion a year. Our NHS, our housing provision and our welfare state—indeed, all our public services—simply cannot take unsustainable levels of illegal migration.
I am not a lawyer, and there are all manner of opinions on whether the scheme will work, but my answer is that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As has been said, it may not stop every legal challenge—that is fair enough, because some of those will be valid—and it does not have to do so. What it needs to be is a deterrent to help to slow down and stop the numbers that are coming. Despite the commentary on the Bill, it contains plenty to counter the spurious reasons given for not sending people seeking asylum to Rwanda. The UN and the EU have been sending refugees to Rwanda since 2019, so I find it extremely difficult to understand why people have accused Rwanda of not being a safe country. To have an optimal Bill, and one that is fair and that international partners will stand alongside, we must tread a fine line.
Plenty of times I have been told in this House that things will not happen and things will not work. We were told we would not get the numbers of boat crossings down, and we have reduced them by a third. Everybody said we would enter a recession; we did not enter a recession. Everybody said we would not halve inflation; we have halved inflation. This Government have done many things in the last year that we were told were simply unachievable, and we have achieved them, and that is why I will back this Bill tonight.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) compared the Home Secretary with Humpty Dumpty in “Alice in Wonderland”, who uses words to mean just what he chooses them to mean. I wonder if the Prime Minister could be compared with the Red Queen, who believed six impossible things before breakfast: that Brexit has been a success; that Britain is a soft-power superpower; that the Scottish Parliament is the most powerful wee devolved Assembly in the entire world; that we can reach net zero while abandoning net zero policies; that this Bill is actually going to stop irregular arrivals in the United Kingdom; and that his party is actually going to win the next election. Even for those on the Government Benches, that is too unbelievable. They do not think this Bill will work, and they do not think they will win the next election.
The Bill will not work, because it fails under the crushing weight of its own internal contradictions. Rwanda is deemed to be a safe country—desirable even, as a place for asylum seekers to be processed and to remain. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) did not take my intervention earlier, but I wanted to ask her this: if Rwanda is such a desirable place to be deported to, why on earth should deportation there be a deterrent? How will that have a deterrent effect, if the Government are saying, “This is a wonderful, safe and secure place for you to go”? Perhaps more people will come to the United Kingdom in the hope of being sent to Rwanda.
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman must recognise that Rwanda has successfully resettled more than 130,000 people, and that is through international institutions and norms.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I must ask the hon. Gentleman to keep within the five minutes, although he has taken an intervention.
Patrick Grady
I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think I just heard the former Home Secretary encouraging more people to come to the United Kingdom so that they can be settled in Rwanda.
The UK Government say that the republic of Rwanda is to be trusted to fulfil its obligations under the Rwanda treaty because the treaty is binding under customary international law, but the same Bill grants the UK Government derogations from that corpus of international law and instruct the courts to ignore it. The Bill is supposed to slash costs to the taxpayer from housing asylum seekers in UK hotels, but the Government have already paid Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds without a single flight taking off.
The price for this performative, weak Bill is a weakening of the courts and judicial system, a weakening of the UK’s standing in the world and a weakening of the entire system of international law, because if it is okay for the UK Government to derogate from its international obligations and commitments when it suits, how can the UK object to other countries—Russia, China or anywhere else for that matter—when they flout the rule of international law?
The Bill is supposed to be an assertion of parliamentary sovereignty, as if Parliament simply asserting particular statements makes them true. To pick up on the theme from the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks), perhaps the Prime Minister should have simply brought forward a Flat Earth Bill to assert that the Earth is flat and the Home Office is empowered to simply push people and unwanted asylum seekers off the edge of it and into the cold vastness of space. It might come as a surprise and perhaps even a disappointment to some elements on the Conservative Back Benches, but the Earth is not flat. The Earth is round, and if they keep pushing people in one direction, eventually they will come back to them.
It is important in all of this to be clear that despite our debating the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, little of this debate is actually about the safety of Rwanda. In 2018, I had the privilege of visiting Rwanda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. It is a beautiful country with huge potential, and the people there have had to live through horrors and overcome unimaginable difficulties. For wealthy tourists and those who fly in to go on safari and stay in nice hotels, Rwanda is indeed a safe and welcoming country. However, citizens who speak up too loudly with questions about the regime, or who perhaps ask why international observers have been unable to report that presidential elections have been free or fair, or who perhaps belong to the LGBT+ community in that country—or, indeed, Rwandan citizens living in London under the protection of the Metropolitan police because they are being stalked by their own country’s intelligence services—might not find it as safe and welcoming. Whatever the Bill might say, the UK Supreme Court has made a finding of fact that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda are at risk of refoulement. Simply saying that they are not does not change that fact.
The question of the safety of Rwanda is a distraction. The very principle or idea of forcing people to move to any other country against their will should be enough to oppose the Government’s policies. People seeking asylum have chosen to come here to the United Kingdom for good reason—perhaps because they have friends or family or perhaps simply because they speak the language. If someone has chosen to seek asylum here, they should be assessed here, and if their claim is valid, they should be allowed to remain. If their claim is not valid then by definition it ought to be safe to return them to their country of origin.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that this time last week, this Bill did not even exist. In less than seven days, the Prime Minister has brought himself, and possibly his Government and party, to a crisis point entirely of their own making. It is a Bill that nobody wants and nobody likes. It is another creaking internal Conservative contradiction. It is too extreme for the mainstream of the party, and not extreme enough for the red wallers, the ERG and the Maastricht rebels, who simply cannot get enough of the sweet dopamine hit that comes with rebelling against the party and getting invited on to all kinds of podcasts. Some of them have been at it since the 1990s, and they just have to keep getting more extreme in their rebellions to achieve the same hit.
Scotland wants none of it, as I hear from my constituents in Glasgow North and the constituents who are refugees, who want to play a full and active part in our society and economy. If the Government want Bills that will change the reality of the situation, they can devolve the power over immigration to the Scottish Parliament, or they can give us the chance to choose a better, fairer future that respects human rights and global citizenship by becoming an independent country in a referendum.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I would say it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), who served with me on the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, but he rehashed quite a lot of what has been said from the Opposition Benches, with various misunderstandings and inaccuracies. He had his moment of fun trying to describe different groups of colleagues on the Government Benches, but let me pull him back to something that he will recognise, as I think all colleagues in the House will.
I recently had a conversation with a distinguished recently retired UN senior official who was previously the British ambassador in several countries in Africa. He not only painted for me, but described for me factually the statistical possibilities of what is going on in that great continent at the moment. He described vividly the combination of civil wars, mismanagement, instability, insecurity, climate change challenges and food shortages that are affecting millions of people in Africa. Of course, we know that has added to the incredible level of insecurity in the middle east and, indeed, further east from there.
All of this amounts to one of the great challenges for democracy in our time. We are dealing with a huge issue that will get bigger, and we are all going to be stretched in our answers to those challenges. It is not just us in the United Kingdom; as we know, there are issues in the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, France, Denmark—you name it, all our European neighbours are wrestling with similar challenges. Therefore, it is simply not enough for Opposition Members to point at various things that they do not like about this Bill without really considering what a constructive alternative might look like.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) said earlier that immigration should be looked at as an opportunity to be seized, not a problem to be managed. He is partly right, but he would be more convincing if county after county in Scotland were taking more asylum seekers and putting up their hands to the Government of the United Kingdom in order to take more, because the truth is that it is a challenge to be managed.
We need a practical response, because we do not outsource immigration to people smugglers. The point of stopping the boats, and the point of the Bill, is to play a trailblazing role, not just for us but for other countries. On balance, I believe that we will see more such agreements, and that this will not be the only one. While I have always taken the view that none of us can be sure that the Rwanda scheme will work in terms of the number of asylum seekers who will transfer to Kigali, we should keep an open mind and not assume, to quote Labour’s amendment, that the Bill
“will not work to tackle people smuggling gangs, end small boat crossings or achieve the core purposes of the Bill…whilst applying to less than one per cent of those who claim asylum”.
That is fundamentally wrong, and we can show so in a number of different ways.
First, will the Bill actually act as a deterrent? Migration Watch says it will be a powerful deterrent if illegal migrants are swiftly and continually sent to Rwanda. How many would we be able to send? The Rwandan spokesperson said himself only a few days ago that the country is
“ready, and willing, to take in as many people as the UK is able to send”.
All those Opposition Members talked about 100 or 200 people going there, but that is not at all the potential of the scheme. As other people have mentioned, Rwanda is already hosting 130,000 asylum seekers and the UNHCR has 1,700 Libyans there, so clearly the numbers are not the fundamental issue with the proposal.
We have had a lot of red-herring soundbites—“can’t work”, “won’t work”, “unprecedented”—but there are precedents. In fact, the Labour party knows that better than anyone, because in 2001 the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), was in a very similar position in not being able to confirm to the ECHR that the Government were necessarily compliant in a proposal that she was putting forward. We know that the Blair Government talked to Tanzania about something similar; in fact, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 built on the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. So there are precedents and reasons to believe that the Bill might work. It will be awkward, and it is an issue that we and many other Governments will have to tackle, but the most important thing is that we get behind the Bill and see it through safely.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Rwanda is not a safe country. This country is using the Bill as a distraction from the Government’s failure to sort out the immigration backlog. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are being spent on hotels every day. Hundreds of millions have been spent on this fantasy Rwanda policy without a single person being sent there. That money would be better spent sorting out the backlog and getting people processed.
Immigration policies are already in place, but they are not being enforced. The Home Office is working too slowly, as it has previously with passports. Processing claims quicker is the best way to free up hotels. In the past decade, the backlog of asylum claims has risen four times faster than the number claiming asylum. This is ultimately a crisis of the Government’s own making, and it has been years in the making. The system is failing and it needs fixing.
This country needs a solution to the crisis, not a distraction. The Bill claims that Rwanda is a safe country, because the Bill says that is so. That is not the type of country that Britain is. We are not like that. We believe in the rule of law and obligations under international laws and treaties. The Rwandan Government have been involved in many questionable events across Africa, including the kidnapping and beating of dissidents abroad. The Rwanda policy is an attempt by the Government to look tough and to distract the country from the sorry state they have got us into. Even on the off-chance that flights to Rwanda take off, they will deal with less than 1% of asylum claims. It is a Tory vanity project. It will not solve any problem. As a country, we are better than this.
Labour’s plan to tackle the criminal gangs directly with a cross-border police unit and to clear the backlog is the only way to stop the small boats. Vanity projects for headlines are not befitting of such a serious issue. The Government should go back to the drawing board—I bet we will be here in a few months or a year.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
There are sometimes advantages to being the last speaker. Because the previous speech was a little shorter, I shall lift the time limit, as long as Claire Hanna sits down at 6.30 pm.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It has been a long day and a long debate. Perhaps the Government could legislate for a few extra hours for us all. That would not be out of place with this mind-bending Bill from a Government who continue to prioritise prejudice over objective reality.
The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) purported to speak for my constituency of South Belfast, which does indeed have a relatively large proportion—I think it is the largest population per head—of the UK’s asylum seekers. Our schools, churches and community groups are trying valiantly to support people whom the Home Office has left in hotels for many months at a time.
Like me, those constituents have moral and practical objections to the Bill. Their moral objections are to the language used to frame and justify it and to the demonisation of those who seek international protection in the UK, who have little or no opportunity to secure that before they travel. Equally, they have practical objections to the Bill, because they know that it will not work. They know that there is no evidence that the deterrent works—a fact that was confirmed by the permanent secretary—and they know that it relies on a simplification by this Government that applies only if people have never met or spoken to an asylum seeker. The cost of this gimmick is running into the hundreds of millions of pounds—money that should have been used to end the chaos of processing in the Home Office or to go after the people traffickers instead of bettering their market by closing off safe routes.
No one is saying that the UK can or should take everyone who requires sanctuary for reasons of conflict, prejudice or climate. Everyone in the Chamber knows, no matter what they say in their tweets, that only a fraction of people try to get here. No one is saying that the UK should not take legal steps to deter erroneous claims. The Minister has spoken about fruitful engagement with Albania, and hon. Friends on the Opposition Benches have set out numerous constructive proposals, including swifter processing and justice and, crucially, modern and mature engagement with neighbouring countries.
It is impossible to view the Bill outside two core dynamics. The first is the UK’s recent disregard of international law—a rules-based order that it proudly shaped. The second is the overall irrational opposition to migration, including regular migration. People often say, “You can’t even talk about immigration.” We absolutely can, but we must be prepared to be honest about it and to trade in more than just Twitter memes. We must be prepared to talk about how the national health service and social care would collapse without it. We must be honest about the net positive impact on GDP, and about the poor political decisions about how we spend those gains that have left public services in the mess that they are. We must be honest about our higher education model and the higher fees that students from these areas and countries would face if we did not have overseas students. We must be honest about how it is anti-family to tell UK citizens that they cannot fall in love with someone from another country and marry them unless they are among the top 25% of earners.
Of course we can talk about immigration. I am happy to talk about it, and I am happy to tell the House that Northern Ireland has an immigration problem. Young people are leaving our region to make their lives elsewhere because they feel stifled and limited by the politics of our region, by intolerance, by prejudice and by refusal to accept difference. Britain risks losing its vibrancy and talent if it goes further down this path—a path that I am glad to say the mainstream of British politics has honourably resisted, mostly, until now. Ireland, north or south, is not immune to these currents, as the street disorder in Dublin a few weeks ago showed, but we are a nation of people who have been the source of immigration for many centuries: you do not get to be Irish and racist. I am proud of the political leadership from across the spectrum against far-right agitation in Dublin in recent weeks.
I want briefly to address the applicability of the Bill in Northern Ireland. Human rights exist precisely to protect people from the type of politics that are behind the Bill. Human rights frameworks exist to stop politicians degrading shared values for their narrow political interest. The protection of rights for everyone from all communities in Northern Ireland, under article 2 of the Windsor framework, has been welcomed across civil society. Even the UK Government have called article 2 uncontroversial.
Not for the first time, I say thank goodness for the Good Friday agreement, which has been a lifeboat for our region given some of the terrible, damaging politics of recent years. That is a large part of why so many people—including in this Chamber—desperately tried to undermine the agreement through Brexit. Thanks to the agreement, which the international community prevented this Government from trashing under their previous two Prime Ministers, we continue to enjoy—in theory—rights and protections that this Government are so determined to burn for people in England, Scotland and Wales.
The existence of those rights has enraged the far right in Northern Ireland—a few voices who angrily prowl the internet, seeking to suffocate anything positive or humanitarian that happens in our region. They seem so desperate to strip legal rights away from everybody else; they would like to legally review themselves everything they cannot run away. They protest that this miserable Bill might not apply in Northern Ireland due to the Windsor framework. I regret to say that, in practice, immigration law has already been applied in Northern Ireland without differentiation, as will be heard in an upcoming challenge to the Illegal Migration Act.
We will oppose this Bill, and we will oppose other attempts to unite and balance the Conservative party on the backs of the most vulnerable. The Illegal Migration Act failed to do that, as did the Nationality and Borders Act. This is just red meat for a common-sense group with no common sense, a research group that does no research and a star chamber that has no stars. This Bill is for them and for no one else.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
I rise to join the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), in supporting the reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
I start by sending my condolences to the friends and family of the asylum seeker who tragically died while on the Bibby Stockholm this morning.
I thank all those across the House who have sent their condolences to me and my family over the past 10 days. We have been overwhelmed by the flood of tributes and messages, which have made us prouder than ever of what my mum was and all she achieved. It is very tempting to respond by taking a more conciliatory approach to this debate, but given the state of the legislation before us, and given everything that my mother stood for, I think she would be absolutely appalled that such a thought might ever cross my mind. So, let’s get stuck in, shall we?
First, I thank the House for an excellent debate. I express gratitude in particular to my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches, who spoke with such passion, logic and conviction. I also of course welcome the latest immigration Minister to his post, the Minister for Illegal Migration. I note that the performance of his predecessor led the Prime Minister to conclude that the job was too big for one Conservative Member alone, so they cut the position in two. Well, the more the merrier, I say. Welcome one and all!
When I began in this post two years ago, my first opposite number was fronting the Nationality and Borders Bill, which effectively handed each asylum seeker who crossed the channel a badge saying, “I am inadmissible for asylum” while making no provision for what practically could be done with those unprocessed claimants. They duly ended up in taxpayer-funded emergency hotels at the cost of £8 million a day. Next up was my second opposite number, with the Illegal Migration Bill. It was rushed through Parliament, yet not a single one of its core measures on detention and removal have been enacted. The Act is on the shelf, gathering dust. Now we have my third opposite number, who has well and truly taken one for the team by agreeing to introduce this utterly absurd piece of legislation, a Bill that his predecessor described as
“a further betrayal of Tory voters”.
The deckchairs have been rearranged, but the Titanic is still steaming towards the iceberg.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Rwanda scheme is the story of its origin. Cast your mind back to April 2022, Madam Deputy Speaker. Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, and he was in the eye of the partygate storm, so he cooked up a cunning plan to rescue his premiership, which I believe became known as Operation Save Big Dog. And lo, the Rwanda scheme was born. Like every other scheme Mr Johnson has ever been associated with, it was extortionately expensive and doomed to fail. Yet here we are 18 months, two Prime Ministers, two Home Secretaries and three immigration Ministers later, and those on the Conservative Benches are still shackled to a policy that was only ever designed to be a diversion from a scandal. True to form, the Rwanda scheme is still being deployed as a skin-saving operation, the only difference being that it is the current Prime Minister who is desperately trying to cling to power by burnishing his Faragiste credentials to keep the circling vultures at bay. It really is déjà vu all over again.
I turn now to this new “Please, Please, Please Make Rwanda Safe Bill”, which is without doubt the most absurd piece of legislation I have ever seen. It does nothing at all to make Rwanda safe; it just asserts that Rwanda is safe and that our courts are not allowed to say otherwise. It argues that black is white and white is black; that the grass is blue and the sky is green. In the spirit of this legislation, I might try to introduce a Bill that deems that Wales actually won the rugby world cup recently.
Further still, the Rwandan Government are calling the shots. Having extracted £300 million from the British Government—today we think we heard £400 million—Mr Kagame is now instructing the Prime Minister not to do anything that might break international law. It really is quite extraordinary. How ironic that some on the Government Benches rail against our international legal obligations, yet seemed content to allow Kigali to dictate the terms of our asylum policies. So much for taking back control!
The upshot of this fiasco is that the Prime Minister has gone for a fudge. The Supreme Court judgment was his opportunity to stop flogging the dead horse that the Rwanda scheme has clearly become, but he has chosen not to take it. He is also not prepared to go with the full-fat option that some on the Government Benches are urging him to adopt. So, inevitably, his semi-skimmed formula satisfies no one, because, as everyone—from this side of the House to even the former Home Secretary —has said, it is destined to fail, both legally and in operational terms.
The fundamental contradictions at the heart of the Bill are also quite astonishing. First, the Home Secretary told us from the Dispatch Box last week that it complied with international law, but the very first page confirms that he is actually not sure that it does. Secondly, the Bill says that Rwanda is safe for refugees, but then also states that the Government might need to offer refuge to asylum seekers from—checks notes—Rwanda. Thirdly, the Bill is meant to be about preventing what the Government call “illegal migrants” from seeking sanctuary in the UK, but if one of those asylum seekers commits a crime in Rwanda, that person can be sent back to—checks notes again—the UK. Never mind Operation Save Big Dog. This Bill is Operation Dog’s Breakfast.
The Rwanda scheme is not only unlawful; it is also unaffordable and unworkable. First, let us give credit where credit is due. The Rwandan Government have played a blinder on this one, and they are laughing all the way to the bank. They really did see this Prime Minister coming. After all, £400 million with absolutely nothing in return, no questions asked, really is a sweet deal—although never let it be said that the Government have failed to get any flights off to Rwanda, because they absolutely have. They have proudly flown not one, not two, but three Home Secretaries to Kigali. I suppose we could say that so far it is £130 million per Home Secretary, which I am sure the British people will see as an excellent use of their taxes.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
As my hon. Friend will know, I worked for his father and my daughter worked for his mother. Does he think that all this is a façade for a form of international development? The Government do not like international development, so is this a way of targeting one country and giving it £140 million, or £200 million?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. He is right to suggest that the vast majority of people fleeing war and persecution end up in neighbouring countries in the region in which their plight is generated, and of course we need an overseas development programme that is focused and seeks, through enlightened self-interest, to ensure that we support those countries.
We are constantly told by Conservative Members that the Rwanda scheme will act as a deterrent, but that claim simply does not stand up to scrutiny, because Rwanda can take fewer than 1% of the asylum seekers who cross the channel in small boats. It is inconceivable that people who have already risked life and limb to get as far as northern France will be deterred by a 1% risk of anything. The Labour party has therefore been steadfast in our opposition to this madness from the very outset. We are absolutely committed to stopping the Tory boats chaos, but we will never vote for a madcap gimmick that is unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful.
We have constantly said that the Government need to redirect the money that is being squandered on this nonsense to a cross-border police unit, a new returns unit, and a security partnership with Europol that can stop the Tory boats chaos at source. We have also consistently called for the Government to speed up decision making and remove swiftly and safely the 30% of asylum seekers who fail to secure leave to remain. A small upfront investment in Labour’s plan would save the taxpayer an enormous £2 billion. Our reasoned amendment sets out why this Bill is a sham and what the Government should be doing instead, and I urge all Members across the House to get behind it. I trust that, in his concluding remarks, the Minister will confirm whether the Government will be accepting any significant amendments in Committee, because the House really deserves that clarity.
The Conservative party is no longer a serious party at all. It is a rabble, an alphabet soup of factions and cabals. The former Home Secretary is constantly on manoeuvres and the former Immigration Minister is firing broadsides on a daily basis. We have a Prime Minister who is so desperate to save his own skin that he apparently invited an outfit called the New Conservatives to No. 10 for breakfast this morning. The reality is that the Prime Minister was not actually at the table at all; he was on the menu, being consumed by the warring factions in his party and devoured by his own weakness and lack of judgment.
Our country simply cannot afford more of this chaos. We are in the midst of a cost of living crisis and our public services are crumbling, but we have a Conservative party that is at war with itself and completely incapable of governing. The good news is that the Prime Minister does have a way out of this mess: he can call a general election so that voters across this country can kick him and his shambolic Administration out of office and finally give our country the leadership that it needs and deserves.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the Minister, can I say once again how important it is for those who have contributed to the debate to get back in good time to hear the Opposition Front Bencher as well as the Minister, and not to be late?
The Minister for Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)
I first want to join the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), in sending my sincere condolences to the friends and family of the person who died on the Bibby Stockholm. May I also thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome to me? I have received warm messages of congratulation from many colleagues on both sides of the House on taking on this role, and I am sure that at least some of them were genuine and that they meant it.
I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), for his work in this role and personally. I should like to say, within the privacy of this Chamber, how sorry I was to see him resign, how I welcomed and respected the work that he has done in this role, and how I look forward to working constructively with him in the future. I agree with him that there is a disagreement between us, but it is a good faith disagreement. I also agree with his point about the need for legal certainty and I commit to working with him on that very point.
I want to take the central thrust of the Bill and tackle head-on the point that the hon. Member for Aberavon has made. The point of this Bill is to address the concerns that the Supreme Court set out on 15 November. It is right to say that I respect the judgment of the Supreme Court. Members would expect me to say nothing less as a former Law Officer. It is because we respect that judgment that we have looked at it so carefully and that we have responded not just with this Bill but with the internationally binding treaty that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary secured in Kigali last week. That seems to have escaped the notice of many Opposition Members. This Bill was subsequently tabled and we are debating it here on Second Reading. This builds on the memorandum of understanding that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) secured all those years ago. I will come back to her speech later; I was very grateful for her contribution.
I will now pick up some of the threads of the debate. We heard in some of the contributions what I would phrase as the moral case, or the compassionate case, for stopping the boats. We heard that it is a moral imperative to stop these modern-day slavers and smash these criminal gangs that are trying to push vulnerable people across the busiest shipping lane in the world, where people have lost their lives. On this side of the House, we are determined to take action. We are determined to smash the gangs and the modern-day slavery.
And some have raised the monetary cost, asking, “How much is this costing us?” I ask, what about the human cost? What about the human misery to which the slavers are driving people? There is nothing compassionate about an open-borders policy, and we have heard too much of that today and in previous weeks and months.
On the strength of the Bill and the legitimate concern, which many Conservative Members have raised, that spurious claims may be made—
Michael Tomlinson
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, specifically on the point about spurious claims.
Pete Wishart
Can the Minister tell the House how many people will be deported to Rwanda next year?
Michael Tomlinson
It will start off in the hundreds and scale up into the thousands. I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Whenever he speaks, I always think he has a smile behind the grimace and the stare. I always enjoy his speeches, and I always enjoy hearing him being heckled from this side of the House.
Conservative Members are anxious about spurious claims; about people asserting that they are unwell and unfit to fly, when the contrary is the case. Those who are making the crossing in small boats are not unwell; they are fit, young men. Some 84% of those making the crossings are male, and 77% of those are aged between 18 and 39. I agree with my right hon. and hon. Friends when they say they want to make this work and make it legally tight. That is absolutely right, and I want to join them in that endeavour.
Sir William Cash
I wish to be a little formal about this. Will my hon. and learned Friend seek a ruling from Mr Speaker that the Bill’s long title and scope may be amended, to ensure that amendments may be tabled and selected, at least by the Government and even by Back Benchers, as on previous occasions?
Michael Tomlinson
I say directly to my hon. Friend that I will continue to work with him on this. I will come back to his specific points, and I hope I will address his very concern, perhaps in response to the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones).
My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, my hon. Friends the Members for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and others spoke powerfully and directly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham rightly talked about the UNHCR and the EU. How galling it was to see that, the very day after the UNHCR advocated in the Supreme Court that Rwanda is not safe, the UNHCR itself sent 168 refugees to Rwanda as part of hundreds and thousands under a scheme that is already up and running, and supported and backed by the EU to the tune of millions of euros. We need to hear more of that, so I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) raised a specific point that I want to address head-on. This Bill will apply in full in Northern Ireland, in the same way that it applies in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is explicit, it is on the face of the Bill and will always be the case, reflecting that immigration policy is a UK-wide matter. I want to be particularly clear that nothing in the Windsor framework or the trade and co-operation agreement affects that. Where people have raised concern is on the rights chapter of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which I want to be clear does not affect any clause in this Bill in any way.
I think I have time to address the specific concern that the hon. Member for Strangford raised. It is important to be clear that the 2005 procedural directive is not within the annexes of the Windsor framework.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I am grateful to the Minister for addressing those points as clearly as he did. He will acknowledge that although he has addressed them in his closing remarks this evening, the Home Office published legal advice yesterday that did not touch on any of those points. May I ask him to take steps in the coming days to go further and update that legal advice in a way that encompasses the points he has just raised, in order to assuage the concerns of the House this evening?
Michael Tomlinson
May I give the hon. Gentleman this commitment: I will continue to work with him on the points that he has raised? I need to be careful about legal advice, as a former Law Officer. What has been published is a Government legal position statement, and that is different from legal advice. He will understand the differences in relation to that position. He has heard what I have said, and I was grateful to him for welcoming the points I made in response to the specific concerns raised.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which gave me flashbacks to my grilling by that illustrious Committee, when I was sitting alongside my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General in my former role as Solicitor General. We followed that very report mentioned by my hon. Friend.
Turning to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), I make the simple point that I cannot address each and every one of the points made by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North here. However, I know she is looking forward to asking me some specific questions tomorrow afternoon when I attend her Committee with my hon. Friend the Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery.
We then had from a former Law Officer-fest, as we had the pleasure of hearing from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox), my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who now chairs the Justice Committee, and from my illustrious predecessor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). I am pleased to say that I am now a former Law Officer as well. We therefore have a joint endeavour and interest in making sure that this legislation works.
I have mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham and her important point about Rwanda and the rather patronising tone sometimes raised by Opposition Members when it comes to our international partners who have signed up to an internationally binding legal treaty with this country.
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the immigration Minister to his place. Is he aware that while he has been speaking the New Conservatives, the European Research Group, the Northern Research Group, the Conservative Growth Group and the Common Sense Group have all said that they cannot support the Bill and are going to abstain tonight? Does he accept that this looks like the Prime Minister’s breakfast meeting was a total failure? And does he accept that this is just complete civil war in the Conservative party?
Michael Tomlinson
The answer is: no, no and no. [Interruption.] I am here; I have been in the Chamber.
Turning to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Sir Conor Burns), I thank my constituency neighbour for his delivery of a powerful and compassionate speech, as he always gives. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) asked me to work with him, to be open-minded and to look at ways to make the Bill more effective. In contrast to my response to the previous intervention, my answer is: yes, yes and yes. He and I have worked together before and I commit to continuing to work again with him during the rest of the passage of this Bill.
Michael Tomlinson
Forgive me, but I will not.
In the time I have left, I will refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), who I hope will continue to work with me on this Bill. I listened carefully to what he had to say. I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who is a member of the Home Affairs Committee and spoke with great authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) spoke clearly about her position, the direct impact on her constituency and the imperative of ensuring we stop the boats. My notes about the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) say that he was “on fire.” I am grateful for his contribution; those who missed it should go and watch it on playback.
My hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) made a powerful, measured and careful speech, and I was grateful for his earlier intervention. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for his contribution, particularly and sincerely for mentioning our late colleague James Brokenshire and his able work in this area.
There was common sense from my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman); I thank him for his contribution. There were attempts to shout down my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) while he was speaking. He stood up, as he often does in the Chamber, in the face of that barrage. He talks openly about his faith. I respect him sincerely for the way he does that and for the way he conducts his business in the Chamber.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) has the distinction of serving on not one but two Select Committees. Not only does he do that, but he does it with distinction and diligence, and I always like listening to his speeches. He had the temerity to suggest that lawyers may, from time to time, disagree with each other—what an outrageous suggestion. I am only sorry that there were not more lawyers in the Chamber to hear that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) made an outstanding speech. More people should have been in the Chamber to hear the inescapable, inestimable and irresistible logic of his compelling speech. As one of my predecessors, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for his work in this area and for pointing out what has already happened since the Supreme Court judgment—namely, the treaty. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) gave us actual numbers, not just percentages, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) took us on a tour du monde. It is not just our country that faces these challenges; this is a global challenge of our time.
Let me end by saying that I have sat through more than six hours of this six and a half hour debate. I heard every single speech from the Government Benches and most speeches from the Opposition Benches. I heard every single speech made from the Labour Front Bench, and what was missing was a plan. Labour has no plan. There was intervention after intervention, but where was the plan? There was chuntering from a sedentary position by the Home Secretary, asking “Where is the plan?” Answer came there none. There was a verbal vacuum—not even a cut-and-paste solution. There was no plan whatsoever. Contrast that with the clear determination of all those on the Government side of the Chamber to stop the boats. Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
|---|---|
First day | |
Clauses 2 and 4; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to the subject matter of those Clauses. | Six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill on the first day. |
Second day | |
Clauses 3 and 5 to 10; remaining new Clauses and new Schedules; Clause 1; remaining proceedings on the Bill. | Six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill on the second day. |
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Tuesday 16th January 2024
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 16 January 2024 - (16 Jan 2024)
17:38 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 66 / Noes: 337 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:52 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 68 / Noes: 529 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:11 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 331 / Noes: 262 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:24 - divided: - Ayes: 58 / Noes: 525 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:40 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 330 / Noes: 55 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:54 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 262 / Noes: 336 - Question accordingly negatived.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind Members that in Committee, Members should not address the Chair as Deputy Speaker. Please use our names when addressing the Chair, or Madam Chair, Chair, Madam Chairman or Mr Chairman are also acceptable, so there are lots of options.
The First Deputy Chairman
That is my name— I mentioned that.
Clause 2
Safety of the Republic of Rwanda
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 45, page 2, line 33, leave out “a safe” and insert “an unsafe”.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, page 2, line 34, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament no later than one year after this Act is passed, and at least once in every subsequent calendar year, on whether in the judgement of His Majesty's Government the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to monitor on an ongoing basis whether Rwanda remains a safe country and to report the outcome to the House.
Amendment 46, page 2, line 41, leave out “not”.
This amendment would require a court or tribunal to consider review or appeals of decisions relating to the removal of a person to Rwanda.
Amendment 47, page 3, line 3, leave out “not”.
This amendment would require a court or tribunal to consider claims about actions of the Republic of Rwanda.
Amendment 35, page 3, line 4, leave out paragraph (a).
This amendment would permit courts and tribunals to deal with systematic risk of refoulement from Rwanda.
Amendment 56, page 3, line 12, at end insert—
“(d) any claim or complaint made by a person on the grounds that the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country if the person has—
participated or engaged in any activity, or made any communication containing serious allegations, which has led directly to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in general or in relation to that person, or
(ii) colluded or conspired with any other persons who have participated or engaged in any activity, or in any communication containing serious allegations, which could lead directly to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in general or in relation to those persons.”
This amendment would prevent a court or tribunal considering a claim that Rwanda is not a safe country from persons who deliberately tried to put themselves in jeopardy if they were removed to Rwanda.
Amendment 10, page 3, line 13, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
“(5A) This Act and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 will have effect in relation to removals to Rwanda notwithstanding—
(a) any provision made by or under the Immigration Acts,
(b) the Human Rights Act 1998,
(c) EU derived law and case law retained under sections 2 to 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018,
(d) any other provision or rule of domestic law (including any common law), and
(e) international law, including any interpretation of international law by the court or tribunal.
(5B) Nothing identified in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (5A) may prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, or affect the interpretation or application of any provision of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, including the actions or policies of public authorities, in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda.
(5C) To the extent that any provision or requirement included in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (5A) has been given effect to in legislation (including the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004), that legislation does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to the removal of an individual to Rwanda, and shall not prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.
(5D) A person or body to which subsection (5E) applies may not have regard to international law, in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (5G).
(5E) This subsection applies to—
(a) the Secretary of State or an immigration officer when exercising any function related to removing, or considering for removal a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023,
(b) a court or tribunal when considering any application or appeal which relates to a decision or purported decision to remove, or to consider the removal of a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.
(5F) No inference is to be drawn from this section as to whether or not a person or body mentioned in subsection (5E) would otherwise have been required to have regard to international law.
(5G) The Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 is amended as follows.
(5H) In section 2 at the end insert ‘except in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda under the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023’.”
This amendment specifically excludes the legislation raised in AAA v Secretary of State of the Home Department [2023] UKSC 42 as potential blocks to removal and excludes from consideration any international law (including the ECHR and anything put out by its court).
Clause stand part.
Amendment 19, in clause 4, page 4, line 11, leave out from “whether” to the end of line 14 and insert
“and in what manner a person is to be removed, or considered for removal, to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023”.
This and other amendments to Clause 4 are intended to remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel.
Amendment 48, page 4, line 13, leave out from “circumstances” to end of line 14.
This amendment is intended to allow the decision-maker to consider whether the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country in general.
Amendment 20, page 4, line 18, leave out from “that” to end of line 22 and insert
“are expressly permitted by this Act or by the Illegal Migration Act 2023”.
This and other amendments to Clause 4 are intended to remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel.
Amendment 49, page 4, line 20, leave out from “circumstances” to end of line 22.
This amendment is intended to allow the court or tribunal to consider whether the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country in general.
Amendment 37, page 4, line 23, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment ensures that decision-makers are still able to consider the risk of refoulement when making individual decisions on removals to Rwanda.
Amendment 50, page 4, line 23, leave out subsections (2) to (7).
Amendment 2, page 4, line 27, at end insert —
“(2A) Any review or appeal under subsection (1) may be considered only after the person in question has arrived in Rwanda.
(2B) The Secretary of State may provide any necessary technical assistance, including access to video-links, to the person in question if it appears reasonable to a Minister of the Crown that such assistance should be provided in order to enable the person in question to request a review or make an appeal after their arrival in Rwanda.
(2C) The Secretary of State may provide any necessary incidental or medical assistance to the person in question if it appears reasonable, in the circumstances of that individual person in question, to a Minister of the Crown that such assistance should be provided in order to enable the person in question to travel to, and if necessary to be looked after or quarantined following arrival in, the Republic of Rwanda.
(2D) Any decision by a Minister of the Crown in relation to subsection (2B) or (2C) shall be final for all purposes and may not be considered or questioned in any tribunal or court.”
This amendment would allow reviews and appeals to take place only after the person had reached Rwanda; allow video-links for an appeal made from Rwanda; authorise the provision of any necessary medical help or quarantine on the way and if necessary after arrival in Rwanda; and prevent the courts from questioning decisions on assistance made by Ministers.
Amendment 3, page 4, line 28, leave out subsections (3) to (6) and insert—
“(2E) No order for an interim remedy under this section may be made by any tribunal or court.”
Amendment 21, page 4, line 34, leave out from “is” to end of line 37 and insert
“expressly permitted to do so by this Act or by the Illegal Migration Act 2023”
This and other amendments to Clause 4 are intended to remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel.
Amendment 57, page 5, line 1 , at end insert—
“‘compelling evidence’ may not include foreseeable risk of any kind of harm to a person if that person has—
(i) participated or engaged in any activity, or made any communication containing serious allegations, which has led directly to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in the particular individual circumstances of that person, or
(ii) colluded or conspired with any other persons who have participated or engaged in any activity, or in any communication containing serious allegations, which could lead to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in the particular individual circumstances of that person.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State, an immigration officer or a court or tribunal considering a claim that Rwanda was not a safe country for the particular individual circumstances of a person if that person had deliberately tried to put themselves in jeopardy if they were removed to Rwanda.
Amendment 22, page 5, line 7, at end insert —
“(8) The Illegal Migration Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(9) In section 8 at the end insert—
‘(18) In relation to notices under subsection (2) which specify Rwanda as the country of destination —
(a) paragraph 2(b) does not apply, and
(b) subsections (3) to (7) do not apply.’
(10) After section 8 insert—
‘8A Finality of decisions
(1) Subsections (2) and (3) apply in relation to persons named in notices as described in subsection 8(18), and all matters, decisions, or conclusions reached in relation to their selection, processing, detention, and removal.
(2) These matters, decisions, and conclusions are final, and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court or tribunal.
(3) In particular—
(a) the decision maker is not to be regarded as having exceeded its powers by reason of any error made in reaching the decision;
(b) the supervisory jurisdiction does not extend to, and no application or petition for judicial review may be made or brought in relation to, the decision.
(4) Subsection (5) applies only in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel to Rwanda.
(5) Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply so far as the decision involves or gives rise to any question as to whether the decision maker is acting or has acted in bad faith.
(6) The court of supervisory jurisdiction is not to entertain any application or petition for judicial review in respect of a decision relating to a removal or proposed removal to Rwanda that it would not entertain (whether as a matter of law or discretion) in the absence of this section.
(7) In this section—
“bad faith” means dishonesty or personal malice, and does not include unreasonableness or actions taken which are inconsistent with international law;
“decision” includes any purported decision;
“first-instance decision” means the decision in relation to which permission (or leave) to appeal is being sought;
“the supervisory jurisdiction” means the supervisory jurisdiction of—
(a) the High Court in England and Wales or Northern Ireland,
or
(b) the Court of Session, in Scotland,
and
“the court of supervisory jurisdiction” is to be read accordingly.’
(11) After the cross-heading ‘Entry, settlement and citizenship’, insert—
‘29A Exclusion of certain provisions relating to entry, settlement and citizenship
Sections 30 to 37, and the other legislation therein mentioned or referred to, shall not apply if they have the effect of preventing or delaying any removal notified under this Act to Rwanda.’
(12) After the cross-heading ‘Legal proceedings’ insert—
‘37A Exclusion of certain provisions relating to legal proceedings
(1) Subsections (2) and (3) apply in relation to persons named in notices as described in subsection 8(18).
(2) Suspensive claims, as defined in section 38, are not available in relation to such persons.
(3) Where suspensive claims (including any appeals) have been commenced prior to the giving of notice, such claims and any pending appeals are null and void and shall not prevent removal or have any other legal effect.’”
This amendment limits the ability of courts to review, and restricts suspensive claims that may be made, in relation to the decision to remove a person to Rwanda.
Clause 4 stand part.
New clause 6—Changes to the classification of Rwanda as safe—
“(1) A Monitoring Committee overseeing removals to Rwanda must be established
and maintained in accordance with Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty.
(2) Section 2(1) of this Act does not apply if—
(a) the Monitoring Committee established under subsection (1) has formally concluded that the Republic of Rwanda is in breach of its obligations under that Treaty,
(b) the Secretary of State has advised against travel to the Republic of Rwanda, or
(c) if a court or tribunal has found the Republic of Rwanda to be unsafe in accordance with subsection (3) below.
(3) On an application for judicial review, if a UK Senior Court determines that credible evidence exists that the Republic of Rwanda is no longer safe on the basis of non-compliance with its obligations under the Rwanda Treaty, nothing in this Act shall prevent a court or tribunal from further considering an application for judicial review brought by an individual so affected.”
This new clause places the Monitoring Committee for the Rwanda Treaty on a statutory basis, and places conditions on when the classification of Rwanda as ‘safe’ can be suspended in accordance with material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations under the Rwanda Treaty.
Amendment 28, in clause 9, page 6, line 38, after “Act” insert “except section 2”.
This is a paving amendment for Amendments 29 and 30.
Amendment 29, page 6, line 39, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument bring section 2 into force.”
This Amendment makes the commencement of Clause 2 (Safety of the Republic of Rwanda) subject to a commencement order.
Amendment 30, page 6, line 39, at end insert—
“(1B) The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (1A) before—
(a) at least 30 days have elapsed since the Rwanda Treaty entered into force, and only if
(b) the Secretary of State is satisfied with the extent of the implementation by Rwanda of its domestic obligations under the Rwanda Treaty since the Treaty entered into force.”
This Amendment makes the commencement order for Clause 2 (Safety of the Republic of Rwanda) contingent on the Secretary of State being satisfied with the implementation by Rwanda of its domestic obligations under the new Treaty.
Alison Thewliss
The SNP has brought forward these amendments to this appalling Bill not because we really believe that there are improvements that can be made to it, but because that is the limitation of the process we have in front of us this afternoon. The Bill is irredeemably awful in each and every provision and clause, and in the intent behind it. And it will not work. Like the hostile environment that came before, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which got Royal Assent only 180 days ago, it will fail to reach its objectives because it fails to engage with reality. The more I hear from Members on the Government Benches on the issue, and from the many Home Office Ministers who have come and gone, I can only feel that they just do not understand why people seek sanctuary on our shores. They are astonishing in their ignorance and baffling in the lack of effort they put into understanding.
One reason people come to the UK is its—now clearly defunct—reputation for fairness and the rule of law, which the Bill comprehensively shreds. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has highlighted the impact that all of that has had on the people it deals with, and told me about a Kurdish client who fled Iran under a death sentence from the Iranian Government. On arriving in the UK, he was issued with a removal notice to Rwanda. He said:
“The reason I came to England was that I knew I will be safe in the UK, and also, I was trapped by the smugglers…When I received the news”—
that he would be sent to Rwanda—
“it felt like death again to me.”
He was relieved by the Supreme Court ruling because he thought he would be safe, but now he has had the rug pulled from underneath him yet again.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Chairman. The hon. Lady’s speech seems more appropriate for Second Reading. It would be helpful if she could direct her attention to the amendments, about which we are interested to hear what she has to say.
The First Deputy Chairman
It is actually amendments and clause stand part, so that gives a wider scope than perhaps the right hon. Gentleman realises.
Alison Thewliss
I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has had your advice, Dame Rosie, on the subject of the debate.
To put the issue into context, every single week I sit in front of people at my advice surgery and listen patiently to the stories of the constituents who come to see me. I have read their Home Office statements: they have been through trauma, made perilous journeys at unimaginable cost, been tortured and bear the scars, both physical and mental. They have seen their relatives murdered, run rather than be forcibly recruited into an army that would kill and rape their loved ones, and been victims of trafficking and slavery. They have been unable to hide their views or their identity from those who would persecute them, and seen the stable life they had built crumble before their eyes. They never planned to be sitting on a random Friday morning in a community centre in Glasgow, in tears, before a Member of some other country’s Parliament. They do not understand why this UK Government treat them so poorly, disbelieve them, force them to wait, prevent them from working and keep them apart from the only loved ones they have left. I cannot comprehend it either.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?
Alison Thewliss
I will if the hon. Gentleman can tell me why the Government treat people so cruelly, I will.
Michael Fabricant
I have been listening with interest to the compassion that the hon. Lady is expressing, but could she tell me how many illegal asylum seekers per head of population Scotland is accommodating, and how many illegal asylum seekers per head of population England is accommodating?
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Gentleman should inform himself, because there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker in the first place.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Gentleman can sit down; he has made his point.
Fellow human beings, from Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon, Tamils from Sri Lanka, Ahmadiyyas from Pakistan—all of those and more—have given me just the tiniest of insights into their lives. It is a privilege to know them and to help them as much as I can as their MP.
Glasgow is home to many different nationalities and it gives me great pleasure to attend community events and celebrate the diversity that enriches us: to learn to dance the attan sway and to teach Afghan Scots to do the Gay Gordons and Dashing White Sergeant in return; to sing, very badly, alongside the wonderful Maryhill Integration Network Joyous Choir; to share the most delicious food with AfricAlba and Africa Future; or to play football, as badly as I sing, in the refugee football tournament that is held every year in Scotland, organised by Councillor Abdul Bostani.
Sir Desmond Swayne
On a point of order, Dame Rosie. I do not want to try your patience, but clause 2 is about the safety of Rwanda and what the hon. Lady is saying has nothing to do with that at all.
The First Deputy Chairman
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Please can he leave it with me? It is rather discourteous to keep disrupting the debate. I assure him that I will keep a close eye on proceedings. If the hon. Lady veers off track, I will make sure she gets back on track, but can we not have the debate disrupted constantly like this?
Alison Thewliss
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to come along to listen to Olivia Ndoti and the women at the Women’s Integration Network in Glasgow. Perhaps he will hear from people from Rwanda—this Government grant asylum to people from Rwanda, because their country is not safe.
I do not believe that anyone who supports this awful Bill can do so knowing the people it will affect. It is laid out in such cruel terms that they would remove the rights of our fellow human beings simply for seeking sanctuary and safety. It undermines our obligations under international law and denies the need for individualised protection, which is guaranteed under the anti-trafficking convention. That this Government seek to declare a country safe by legislating for it to be so is an absolute affront. Amendment 48 simply seeks to change “safe” to “unsafe”. For every decision maker to be forced to declare any country safe—regardless of the facts in front of them, regardless of their own knowledge and regardless of circumstance—flies in the face of the justice and the rights that the UK is supposed to stand for. It is illogical. Amnesty has called this “treating fact as false”.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Amendment 45, as the hon. Lady has just said, would permanently designate Rwanda an unsafe country. She has just complained about decision makers having to designate it the other way. Therefore, first, what is the difference? Secondly, is that not offensive to Rwanda? Thirdly, is that not worrying to the 100-plus refugees from Libya whom the UN recently settled in Rwanda? Under what circumstances would she then agree to legislation that recognised Rwanda again as a safe country?
Alison Thewliss
I believe that it is fundamentally unwise to recognise countries as safe in perpetuity, because things are unsafe. This amendment highlights the illogicality of this Bill. These things should not be legislated on at all. The hon. Gentleman mentions the Libyans who are being transited through Rwanda. They are not settling in Rwanda; they are being transited through Rwanda to other countries such as Canada.
Alison Thewliss
I wish to make some progress. The hon. Gentleman will be able to contribute later on.
I wish to touch on what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said about this. It has reviewed the updated UK-Rwanda scheme and it says:
“It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated in the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme, does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible”—
it is not compatible—
“with international refugee law.”
Equally, this Bill does not have any kind of sunset clause, or a set of circumstances by which it can acknowledge a change in the situation in Rwanda. That is foolhardy, and it is bad legislation. The clauses that talk about mere monitoring of the situation do not go far enough. That is a prime example of the incompetence of this legislation and how it cannot really be made to work.
There has been ongoing tension, for example, with the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where recently re-elected President Tshisekedi has been quoted as saying in relation to Rwandan-backed M23 rebels:
“If you re-elect me and Rwanda persists…I will request the Parliament and Congress to authorise a declaration of war. We will march on Kigali. Tell Kagame those days of playing games with Congolese leaders are over.”
I ask Conservative Members what would happen to their precious treaty and to this legislation should such a situation escalate. None of us wants to see that, but it could happen. More importantly, what would happen in the interim to anybody the Home Secretary had sent to this unsafe situation in Rwanda? They would not be able to bring them back. That person would be stuck in a situation of conflict.
It is beyond me how Conservative Members, including former Ministers and members of the legal profession, can sign up to amendments shredding the rule of law and human rights. Our amendments 46 to 50 are, at the very minimum, an attempt to reinstate the powers of our courts and tribunals to do their work. They are the people qualified to make these decisions, and they do so for the most part with great diligence. Their services are stretched and there is much more that could be improved were the UK Government not chucking away hundreds of millions of pounds on distractions such as this legislation that they bring here today.
The Government have recently published their consultation response on safe and legal routes, following the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and it offers nothing. It offers no change whatsoever—no new safe and legal routes that would help to resolve the situation. The Refugee Council has presented a credible alternative, and the Minister could not be less interested.
I honestly do not know what to say about the amendments of the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and his cabal. It sickens me that they would treat people in this way. Surely the only way in their minds that they can justify treating asylum seekers in this way is if they consider them to be less. If they do not matter, they can therefore be shipped off as if they were some kind of inconvenient waste. This is stirring up fear and hatred of people who only came here to ask for our protection. These are real lives; it is not some political game. I say to Conservative Members who are focused on this Tory psychodrama that this is about real people and real people’s lives. We on the SNP Benches see them as humans, just like us. Shame on all those Members.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I rise to speak in favour of the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash).
A single question—at least on the Conservative Benches—hangs over this debate: what works? It does not matter whether this is the most robust piece of immigration legislation that we have ever considered. That is not relevant. It does not matter whether this is a suitable compromise between this faction or that. That might be a noble aim, but it is not what we are here to do on behalf of our constituents today. What matters is whether this scheme works. Why does that matter? It matters because illegal migration is doing untold damage to our country. It is costing us billions of pounds. It is exploiting tens of thousands of people. It is leaving a trail of human misery across Europe, north Africa and beyond. People are drowning in the English channel and will continue to do so month after month. We must fix this problem. We in this House have the power to do so, and the responsibility is on our shoulders. The question is: are we willing to do it.
The current Bill does not work. The test of whether it works is not whether we can get a few symbolic flights off in the months ahead, with a small number of illegal migrants on them. The test is whether we can create the kind of sustainable deterrent that we set out to achieve— the sustainable deterrent that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) set out to achieve when she secured this groundbreaking deal with Rwanda. It is the kind of deterrent that protects not just this country for generations to come from the scourge of illegal migration, but the whole continent of Europe. I can tell all right hon. and hon. Members that, having spoken to almost every Interior Minister and Immigration Minister not just in Europe, but in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey, they all ask, “When will you get this policy up and running? Will it work?” And they want it to work. They know that if we can create a sustainable deterrent, we will stop people coming, we will secure Europe’s borders and we will save lives. In an age of mass migration, this is one of the most important challenges that we face.
Sir Chris Bryant
I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman about one thing: this Bill will not work. I do not think it will work if it includes the amendments that he has tabled, either. That is because he and I have come to a completely different position on the nature of the deterrence and whether it would work at all. It seems to me self-evident that there must be an enormous deterrent if you have to get in a tiny boat, risking your life as a pregnant woman with children beside you, having paid thousands of pounds to a vile, despicable people trafficker. What evidence does he have that this plan, this gimmick, is any more of a deterrent than that?
Robert Jenrick
If the hon. Gentleman were right, hundreds of thousands of people would not be making that very journey every year. Millions of people in the world want to make that journey. There are thousands of people in France seeking to pay people smugglers to come to our country. The only way we will stop that is if we break the people smugglers’ business model once and for all, so that it is clear beyond doubt that if people come to this country, they will be detained and swiftly removed to Rwanda or another safe country.
Where the hon. Gentleman is wrong is that he, like those on the Labour Front Bench, believes completely erroneously that we can arrest our way out of this problem. The National Crime Agency does not support them in that contention, and I have not seen any evidence that that will work. Nobody who has looked into this problem believes that the fungible and complex gangs that stretch across Europe and beyond, which import boats for next to nothing from China, Bulgaria and Turkey, can just be arrested out of existence. Everyone says the same thing: “Create a deterrent.” That is what the Rwanda policy does.
Robert Jenrick
I will not give way again to the hon. Gentleman. Let me move forward and speak more directly to our amendments, because that is the purpose of today.
The amendments tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone are in four groups, two of which will be discussed today and two tomorrow. They seek to address the evident flaws of the Bill, and they represent the last opportunity for us to get this policy right. I shall speak directly to mine, and my hon. Friend can speak to the one that he leads on. Mine speak to individual claims. This is a point I have made time and again.
All my experience at the Home Office teaches me that every single illegal migrant who comes to this country will try every possible way to avoid being removed. We know that; that is what they do today. It is human nature that people would do that. We have to legislate for human nature, not against it. Every legal representative and lefty lawyer will try everything they can to support those claims. We see it every time, and experience teaches us that.
The Bill improves the situation; it makes it tighter, but in respect of only the general safety of Rwanda, not an individual’s circumstance.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Robert Jenrick
I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment. As night follows day, every migrant will say, “Rwanda may be generally safe”—I believe that it is—“but it is not safe for me.” That is one of the central intellectual incoherences, as the Government’s own lawyers have said, at the heart of the Bill. It envisages that Rwanda is generally safe but, for a range of unspecified reasons, foresees that it will not be safe for others. Of course, as we have seen in the past, one person will mount a successful challenge, and that will create a precedent. Every legal representative and non-governmental organisation like Care4Calais will then school everyone to make exactly the same challenge and, time and again, we will lose those cases in the courts. The Bill, in that respect, is legally flawed, but it is also operationally flawed because of that.
Let me explain to those who are, understandably, not as well versed as those of us who have been Ministers in this field: we have only 2,000 detained spaces in our immigration removal centres in this country. On a single day in August, 1,200 arrived illegally on our shores, so in a weekend, all the detained capacity in the whole United Kingdom would be consumed. When hon. Members are considering whether the Bill works, they should see it through that lens.
We have to get people out of the country within days, not months, and the operational plan behind the Bill foresees that it will take months for people to be removed from the country. What will happen is our detained capacity will be filled, and people will be bailed to hotels. They will then abscond and never be seen again. Within a single week in August, this scheme will have failed. That matters for the country and, of course, for the Government. It matters for trust in politics and Westminster, because we will have told people that it was going to work, knowing that it would not work. It also matters for all those other European countries that want the scheme to succeed in protecting our borders.
Tim Loughton
My right hon. Friend makes a good case for deterrents but, I fear, a bad case for his amendments. As the Home Affairs Committee found out, when the Rwanda scheme was announced, a big surge of people in Calais tried to regularise their status in France because they did not want to risk being sent to Rwanda, so deterrents do work. He has just said that this is the last opportunity to get this right. Does he not acknowledge that there is a large chance that his amendments would make the Bill unworkable, not least in the eyes of the Rwandan Government? In that case, there would be no deterrent, so what is the alternative?
Robert Jenrick
Let me address that question head-on. I have known my hon. Friend for a long time—he was not born yesterday. That argument is not a plausible one, in my opinion. The argument that the Rwandan Government would walk away from the scheme was raised not just at the eleventh hour, but at one minute to midnight. It is predicated on the belief that the Government of Rwanda would walk away from a scheme on the grounds that it might conceivably fall foul of the European convention on human rights, which Rwanda is not a party to, when the only reason we would fall foul of the convention would be conduct in Rwanda itself. I do not find that a plausible argument.
If that were the correct response, why then pilot a Bill through Parliament where the very front page says that the Government cannot attest to the Bill’s compliance with international law? Why would the Prime Minister say that he is willing to ignore foreign judges when his own legal advice says that that is in breach of international law? Why would we pursue a policy that the UNHCR said yesterday is, in its opinion, in breach of international law? That is not a plausible argument from the Government.
It was unwise of the Government to solicit that press release from the Government of Rwanda. I do not think that we should cast blame on the Government of Rwanda, because they are honourable people who want this scheme to work, and I have the highest opinion of our interlocutors in Rwanda. It is for that reason that I want to do what we said we would do when my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham created the scheme, which is to work with them in good faith to get the job done.
Robert Jenrick
I will not give way at the moment; let me make some more progress on explaining the amendments, if I may.
The way that flights will work when the scheme commences is not under the Illegal Migration Act 2023 at all. The first several months of flights will involve a group of individuals whom my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham and her officials at the time selected when the Rwanda policy was first devised. Those individuals have been in the United Kingdom for years. We have lost contact with many of them and none of them can be subject to the protections in that Act.
Even if hon. Members believe that the serious and irreversible harm test within that Act is a very strict one—I will come to that in a moment—that will not apply to the flights that will go off in the months ahead. It might not apply to any flights that go off before the next general election. If we want those flights to be full of illegal migrants and for there to be a deterrent effect, hon. Members need to support the amendments I have set out, which create that strict approach.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Robert Jenrick
I will give way in a moment. When we come to those individuals who are subject to the strictures of the Illegal Migration Act, the Government’s contention is that the serious and irreversible harm test is a very high one. I do not think that is right. The Supreme Court’s judgment lowers the bar. The revealed preference of the judiciary is to be generous towards illegal migrants and to make the scheme difficult to operationalise. As this is the last legislative opportunity for us to tackle the issue, I suggest we get it right and narrow the opportunities for the judiciary to intervene, or else we are going to find that these flights are symbolic flights, with very few individuals on them at all.
Mr Roberts
I want to touch on something the right hon. Gentleman said earlier about whether the Bill will work at all. He has often gone on the record talking about the Albania scheme, which has been very successful: there are 90% fewer Albanians coming across. In the year to September last year, 2,749 illegal migrants were returned to Albania. They did not require the amendments. The law that we currently have allowed them to be returned, and I do not remember hearing about any appeals from those people. On that basis, and given that this Bill is stricter than what we currently have, why will it not work, if the Albania scheme already works?
Robert Jenrick
I have heard that argument advanced before, and of course I am proud of what we have achieved with the Albania scheme, but that is to judge two quite different propositions. The Albania scheme takes somebody who is in the United Kingdom and asks them to return to their home country, which is a European, highly developed country. That is a very different proposition from enforcing somebody’s removal from the United Kingdom to a third country to which they do not wish to go. Also, as the hon. Gentleman may know, very few small boat arrivals have been removed to Albania. Almost all those individuals who have gone to Albania have been time-served foreign national offenders in our prisons, individuals who have voluntarily chosen to return to Albania and those who have been in the United Kingdom for a long time.
The success of the scheme rests on taking people off small boats, detaining them for very short periods of time and then removing them swiftly to Rwanda. For the reasons I have set out, I think that is extremely unlikely to succeed at any scale in the way the Bill is currently structured.
Caroline Lucas
I just point out to the right hon. Gentleman that people arrive in small boats because legal routes have been blocked. When it comes to his amendment in particular, clause 4 of this disgusting Bill already provides a very limited route for individuals to challenge their removal to Rwanda based on their individual circumstances, yet my understanding is that he is seeking to go even further to override individual legal protections—even decisions that contain errors would not be open to challenge under his amendment 22, as I understand it. How on earth is that fair, just or justifiable?
Robert Jenrick
On the hon. Lady’s first point, we have had this argument many times before, and she is completely wrong. This country is one of the world’s most generous countries in supporting those in need around the world. Since 2015 we have issued more than half a million visas on humanitarian grounds, more than at any time in our history. On her point about my amendment, it is not correct to say that we would not enable people to challenge on their individual circumstances; they could, but those challenges could not be suspensive. Individuals would arrive in the UK and within days—which is critical to the success of the scheme—they would be removed to Rwanda. There they could bring forward claims as they might wish, but it would not block the flights, and that is critical. Without that, the scheme will simply not succeed.
Robert Jenrick
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
The amendment also says there very narrow grounds on which individuals will not be put on flights, grounds that the Home Office is very used to dealing with through fitness to travel requirements. That is a concept that is well known and understood and I am certain it would work.
What does the amendment do that is different? It narrows down the reasons for which individuals could make claims and makes the scheme legally and operationally workable for the first time. We have tried to be constructive in tabling amendments. The Prime Minister set a test for me, and for anyone who shares my determination to tackle this issue, as follows: that he would accept any amendment, whether or not it strengthened the Bill, if there were respectable legal arguments in international law in their favour. We can argue about whether that test is the right one. Personally, I feel very strongly that there are times when contested notions of international law should not surpass either parliamentary sovereignty or, above all, the interests of our constituents, and border security and national security are the prime responsibilities of any Government. But that was the test, and we have met the test.
We instructed a very eminent lawyer, John Larkin KC, former Attorney General of Northern Ireland, to provide us with an opinion. The opinion says that each and every one of the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone are compliant with international law. Unless the goalposts have been shifted by the Government, I see no reason why the Prime Minister and the Minister could not accept the amendments and enable us to strengthen this Bill once and for all.
In conclusion, at the outset I said there was one question hanging over this debate: what works? However, there is a further question: how much are we willing to do to stop the boats? How willing are we to take on the vested interests, balance the trade-offs and take the robust steps that will actually work? The only countries in the world that have fixed this problem, latterly Australia and Greece, have been willing to take the most robust action. Are we? I am. I want to stop the boats and secure our borders.
This is a difficult issue, but we are not a parish council struggling with some kind of intractable legal problem. We are a sovereign Parliament. The power is in our hands. We have agency. The law is our servant, not our master. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support the amendments in my name and the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and create a scheme that works. That is what our constituents expect of us and that is the promise that the Prime Minister has made to them and the whole country.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
I rise to speak in favour of amendments 35 and 37 and new clause 6, tabled in my name and the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow home Secretary.
I start by reminding the Committee and anyone watching at home that the Labour party is opposed to this Bill in its entirety, for the simple reason that we are opposed to the Rwanda scheme in its entirety. We have been clear that we need to stop the Conservative small boats chaos and we need to fix our broken asylum system, but those aims can only be achieved by way of measures that are based on common sense, hard graft and international co-operation, as opposed to headline-chasing and government by gimmick from those on the Conservative Benches.
The Conservatives like to accuse us of opposing everything that the Government are doing to stop the Tory small boats chaos, but that is simply not the case. We on the Labour Benches fully support measures such as the deal with Albania, because that is the sort of sensible, pragmatic action that can make a tangible difference. We have repeatedly made our support for that course of action crystal clear, if only the Conservatives would care to listen. However, the Labour party will never support any proposal that is unaffordable, unworkable or unlawful.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are being extremely neglectful with the public purse by throwing money at a Rwanda scheme that simply will not work?
Stephen Kinnock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is quite remarkable that a party that used to pride itself on being the party of fiscal rectitude is throwing £400 million of taxpayers’ money at the Government of Rwanda for precisely nothing. So far, all they have got for it is that they have sent three Home Secretaries to Rwanda, but not a single asylum seeker.
The Rwanda plan is all of the above: it is unaffordable, it is unworkable and it is unlawful. It is unaffordable to the British taxpayer because a truly staggering £400 million of our taxpayers’ money is on the way to the Rwandan Government without a single asylum seeker landing in Rwanda. It is unworkable because we know that the Rwandan authorities are capable of taking less than 1% of the 30,000 who crossed the channel in small boats in 2023, according to the Court of Appeal. In order for a deterrent to be effective, it must be credible. Surely even the most ardent supporter of this policy would acknowledge that such a tiny chance of being sent to Rwanda will never deter someone who has risked life and limb and crossed continents to escape persecution and violence.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Foreign Office recently admitted that hundreds of Afghans who are eligible for resettlement have not been brought into the UK. They exemplify the need for safe and legal routes. Are they not exactly the people who are risking life and limb because they do not have access to legal and safe routes, which the Government should provide?
Stephen Kinnock
The hon. Lady is right. The Afghan schemes are a case in point. The Afghan relocations and assistance policy has more or less collapsed, the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme is not working at all, and which nationality is always in the top two or three that are crossing on small boats? The Afghans. It is pretty straightforward.
We oppose the Rwanda policy because it is not a deterrent; it is a distraction. It would be far better, as the shadow Home Secretary, I and others have set out many times in this Chamber, to redirect the vast quantities of taxpayers’ money being wasted on the Rwanda scheme into a new cross-border police unit and a new security partnership with Europol that can smash the criminal smuggler gangs upstream.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important point about how we need to co-operate much more intensively with the law enforcement agencies across Europe. The brutal fact is that these gangs are putting people into boats that were made for rivers, not seas, in treacherous conditions. Who in their right mind would go in one of those dinghies in the English channel right now? But people are being forced to do that by the gangs. We need to smash the gangs, and we can do that only by working with our colleagues across Europe to ensure that we bring the situation to an end.
Stephen Kinnock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we accept that international co-operation with our European partners and allies must be at the heart of dealing with the gangs, as he so eloquently sets out, the possibility of that co-operation is fundamentally undermined when our Government are flagrantly prepared to break international law, which should underpin the trust that is a prerequisite for all such co-operation. Co-operation based on joint working and intelligence-sharing with our partners and allies is possible only if Britain is deemed a trustworthy partner.
That brings me to the third reason for our opposition to the legislation and the amendments tabled by so many Conservative Members. We find ourselves in the utterly extraordinary position of debating a Government policy that has been found to be unlawful by the highest court in our land. Amendment 35, which I will come to shortly, reflects that very fact. We find ourselves confronted by a Government who are seeking to legislate for an alternate reality. Although Ministers appear to believe that they can pass a Bill that determines that the sky is green and the grass is blue, that does not make it so.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Has it escaped the hon. Gentleman’s notice that one claim was dismissed by the Supreme Court judgment on Rwanda? That was an Iraqi in the case of ASM. The reason was very simple: the Court made it crystal clear in paragraph 144 of its judgment that the issue in question, as far as that claimant was concerned, was undermined by clear and unambiguous words in an Act of Parliament. In other words, the sovereignty of Parliament prevailed.
Stephen Kinnock
Of course Parliament is sovereign, and of course we in this place are sent here to make laws, but we must make those laws with restraint; we must make them while respecting the judicial function. The separation of powers is fundamental to our identity as a liberal democracy, so although the hon. Gentleman very often talks about the sovereignty of Parliament, it is vital that his comments are always founded on the principle of separation of powers and the checks and balances that it gives us.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Just to tease out a little more Labour policy on the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman referred to, is he ruling out any consideration of this House determining to overturn the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters simply because that would set a new precedent in the relationship between this House and the courts?
Stephen Kinnock
Well, that is an interesting one; I did not have talking about the sub-postmasters scandal on my bingo card today. Parliament is free to legislate in any way it wishes, but it has to do so in full recognition of the view of the courts. I know that a number of eminent legal experts have raised concerns about the Government’s proposed approach on the sub-postmasters. We have to see precisely how the detail looks, and it is our duty in this Parliament to scrutinise it carefully to ensure that we are not setting dangerous precedents. I would argue that there is no doubt whatsoever that the Bill before us would set a profoundly dangerous precedent because it seeks to directly overturn the findings of the highest court in our land, and that is a toxic approach.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Has the shadow Minister not seen all the comments and budget lines that the Government have put out stating that they are co-operating extensively and fully with continental countries in trying to crack down on the awful trade that is leading to deaths in small boats? The proof is that money is sent to France to help the French with their task. There is no evidence that they are not co-operating.
Stephen Kinnock
The co-operation with France is to be welcomed. The problem is that it is too far downstream. We need far better co-operation upstream, which is about sharing data and fixing the issue with the databases—the shadow Home Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition visited Europol recently to come forward with very practical and detailed plans around getting the data-sharing right. That may address the issue of the falling number of prosecutions of criminal smuggler gangs on this Government’s watch and the number of returns and removals falling by 50% since 2010. Again, we go back to the point about putting more energy and resources into the pragmatic and sensible things that can actually make a difference, as opposed to being distracted by this madcap Rwanda scheme.
It is mark of a liberal democracy that courts are independent of Parliament and the Executive. We on the Labour Benches believe passionately that that separation of powers is a fundamental and immutable element of what makes us proud to be British. Not only are we opposed to the specifics of the Bill, but we are deeply troubled by what it represents in a broader sense.
Robert Jenrick
Over the Christmas period, the Labour Front Benchers anonymously briefed The Times saying that they would want to pursue an offshore processing model. Is that the position of the hon. Gentleman and the shadow Home Secretary, and if so, why would they want to do something that is known to be more expensive and less effective—everyone would have to be brought back to the United Kingdom one way or another, so that would create no deterrent whatsoever—and not move forward with a scheme such as Rwanda?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank the former Immigration Minister for his comments. I enjoyed opposing him and, on some occasions, working with him. Look at the Ukraine scheme. That is an example of offshore processing: people’s applications were processed in Poland before they came to our country. Look at the Hong Kong scheme. There are plenty of ways of doing upstream and offshore processing. To coin a phrase, what matters is what works. What is absolutely clear is that it is difficult to imagine any scheme that could be more expensive than the Rwanda policy. I will now make some progress.
I cite the view of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and countless other legal experts, who have stated that the Bill is contrary to the rule of law because it amounts to a legislative usurpation of the judicial function. It is an assault on our country’s constitutional conventions, which require the legislature to respect the essence of the judicial function. Moreover, there is a staggering hypocrisy at the heart of the Bill when we consider it in the context of the treaty that has been signed with Rwanda. The purpose of that treaty is to bind the Rwandan Government into respecting the rule of law, and in particular the principle of non-refoulement. How on earth can Ministers hold the Rwandan authorities to account on these matters if they themselves are so blatantly and egregiously failing to practise what they preach?
Tim Loughton
It is a little disingenuous to liken this process to the Ukrainian scheme. The only criteria for the Ukrainian scheme were that a person had to be Ukrainian and come from Ukraine.
The hon. Gentleman has said that enforcement has gone down. Up to the end of November 2023, Home Office immigration enforcement arrested 246 people for people smuggling into the UK, and there were 124 convictions. That is in addition to those arrests and convictions that have happened on the continent, so in what sense are those figures declining, as the hon. Gentleman has just claimed?
Stephen Kinnock
There has been a 30% drop since 2010 in convictions of criminal smuggler gangs, and a 50% drop since 2010 in removals. I would be very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with clear details of those facts—we have the receipts.
It is against that fundamentally flawed and farcical backdrop that we seek to modify the legislation that is before us today. Our amendments are an attempt at damage limitation—an effort to moderate the most egregious aspects of this nonsensical and counterproductive Bill. Our amendment 35 acknowledges that, in November of last year, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal judgment. It ruled unanimously that the Rwanda policy was unlawful, because there were substantial grounds to believe that people transferred to Rwanda could be sent to countries where they would face persecution or inhumane treatment if Rwanda rejected their asylum claims, a practice known as refoulement.
The reason for those concerns relates to an issue that I first raised at this Dispatch Box back in April 2022, when the Rwanda plan was first announced. When Israel signed its deal with Rwanda in 2013, many of the asylum seekers who were sent from Israel to Rwanda were routinely moved clandestinely to Uganda, and in three cases, refoulement to Eritrea via Kenya was prevented only by the UNHCR intervening. It is little wonder that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the scheme unlawful in 2018, and it was closed down. In December, the Government signed a treaty with the Rwandan Government that says that refoulement is prohibited, and that anyone removed to Rwanda from the UK must be allowed to stay in Rwanda. Indeed, the only country to which people can be transferred from Rwanda is the UK, which under the deal must also accept some of Rwanda’s most vulnerable refugees and offenders sent back from that country.
That in itself tells a story. The fact that the UK Government and the Rwandan Government have agreed that Britain might need to take some Rwandan refugees is a stark admission that Rwanda is not a safe country for many people. Indeed, since the first £120 million payment by the British Government to Rwanda, six Rwandans have been granted safety and refuge in the UK. Then there is the tragic fact that Ministers are simply too afraid to address. In 2018, 12 Congolese refugees were shot dead by Rwandan police for protesting against food shortages. Our amendment 35 therefore permits British courts and tribunals to recognise and deal with the specific risks of refoulement associated with Rwanda by removing the relevant text from clause 2 of the Bill.
Likewise, our amendment 37 makes clear that decision makers must be able to take the risk of refoulement into consideration when processing asylum claims. The Bill designates Rwanda as a safe country, and therefore makes clear that
“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda”
as such. It states that the Bill
“does not permit a decision-maker to consider any matter, claim or complaint to the extent that it relates to the issue of whether the Republic of Rwanda will or may remove or send the person in question to another State in contravention of any of its international obligations (including in particular its obligations under the Refugee Convention).”
However, as the Government have previously acknowledged, the facts on the ground can change, and decision makers should therefore be able to make their own judgments based on the latest court rulings. As such, we see no reason not to let decision makers do their jobs and make decisions based on all the knowledge available to them as the situation evolves, as opposed to the frankly absurd idea that Rwanda can be defined as safe in perpetuity.
I turn now to our new clause 6. The new treaty states that Rwanda is committed to addressing concerns that are laid out in the Supreme Court judgment, including refoulement. New clause 6 would help to ensure that Rwanda can be held accountable on its treaty commitments by placing the monitoring committee for the Rwanda treaty on a statutory basis, and by placing conditions on when the classification of Rwanda as safe can be suspended in accordance with the material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations under the treaty. As things stand, the Government could vary the operating principles of the monitoring committee without it being possible for such changes to be challenged in our domestic courts. Our new clause 6 therefore addresses that unacceptable position by placing the monitoring committee on a statutory footing, making it judiciable and thus, by definition, more transparent and accountable. We see no reason why Government Members and Members across this House should oppose the principles of transparency and accountability on which our new clause 6 is based, and we hope they will join us in the Aye Lobby later.
Turning briefly to the amendments tabled by Government Members, I would point out that even one of their own colleagues, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)—the chair of the One Nation group—has described many of those amendments as “authoritarian” and a betrayal of Conservative values. He is right. The Bill in its current form is already an assault on our reputation as a country that upholds the separation of powers and the rule of law, and the majority of the amendments tabled by Government Members would take us even further away from those basic democratic principles. Let me be clear: Labour Members will proudly be voting against the amendments that are being promoted by Conservative Members, because the Government’s Rwanda policy is unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful; because the Bill is an affront to the values that we hold dear; and because we will always stand up for the separation of powers, the rule of law, and ensuring that we can stand tall in the world.
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Gentleman is very kind to give way a second time. I have listened to him carefully, but I have not heard an answer to one of the central questions of the debate. It is the Government’s view that Rwanda is a safe country; what is the view of the Labour party? Is Rwanda a safe country? I think we would all be interested to know the Labour party’s position—I know the Government of Rwanda would be interested.
Stephen Kinnock
I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I do not think I could have made it any clearer that we believe in the rule of law and the judicial function, and when the Supreme Court of our land rules that it is not safe to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, we on the Labour Benches absolutely agree with that position.
We have seen some pretty bizarre stuff emanating from the Conservative Benches over the decades, but when the history books of the past 14 years are written, the Conservatives’ psychodramas over this Rwanda policy will surely take centre stage. Just think of the astonishing amount of Government time that has been ploughed into this unaffordable and unworkable nonsense, when Ministers and officials could have been focused on the design and delivery of the sorts of sensible, practical measures that I mentioned earlier. Just think of the vast amounts of political capital that the Prime Minister has squandered on a policy that he does not actually believe in, that his Home Secretary has privately pooh-poohed—if you will pardon the pun, Chair—and that has left his leadership in tatters.
The legislation before us is a sham, but in the interests of damage limitation, I urge Members to get behind Labour’s amendments today. Of course, most crucially, I urge them to vote down this Bill on Third Reading, and get behind Labour’s plan to deliver the security partnership and cross-border police unit that will smash the criminal gangs, defeat the people smugglers, and stop the Tory boats chaos once and for all.
Sir William Cash
We want the Bill to succeed. We want it to work and to do what our voters want, but at present it does not. Clause 2, as it stands, does not work, which is why I shall press my amendment 10 to a vote, supported as it is by well over 60 Members of Parliament. Clause 2 needs to be amended with clear and unambiguous words, and with a full “notwithstanding” formula, not the one currently on offer. This formula has been used throughout our legislative history, for hundreds of years, but most recently it has been enacted in our most important domestic constitutional legislation, without opposition—namely, in section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
The sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament is democracy, and it is described in a leading case by the great Lord Bingham, our greatest modern jurist, as the “bedrock of our constitution”. Democracy delivers the wishes of the voters who elect us through the legislation that we pass as Acts of Parliament, and it is this democracy for which people fought and died. Nothing can be more important to their daily lives, including illegal immigration, and that is why this issue is so important.
However, it is also important to stress that genuine refugees are fairly protected—this country has always done that—as in the case of Afghanistan, Hong Kong and so forth. Yesterday’s YouGov poll makes it clear how strongly people feel about all this. It is a legal and constitutional, and therefore also essentially political, problem.
The reason why sovereignty is so fundamental is that the courts recognise that they have a duty to interpret, adjudicate on and obey the laws made under that parliamentary sovereignty, where legislative words are clear, express, explicit and unambiguous. Therefore, the use of a comprehensive “notwithstanding” formula, as in my amendment, would ensure that we make the Bill work in line with its intended purposes, and that it would not be frustrated by claims of international law or other contrary law.
The Bill in its current form will not prevent, as everyone knows, further ingenious individual claims, followed by further Supreme Court decisions. The recent Supreme Court judgment on 15 November 2023, as I pointed out in an intervention, makes my very point. It shows that the words in the immigration and asylum Acts at that point in time were not clear and unambiguous. However, and this is vital, it seems to have escaped many people’s notice that one of the claimants—ASM, an Iraqi—had his claim dismissed in that very judgment because, in the words of Lord Reed, the President of the Supreme Court himself,
“in any event, the principle of legality does not permit a court to disregard an unambiguous expression of Parliament’s intention such as that”—
I say this to the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on the Opposition Front Bench—
“with which we are concerned in the present case.”
This was emphatically because the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 and related immigration legislation was so clear and unambiguous in that case as to require the Court to dismiss the claim of the Iraqi precisely as a matter of parliamentary sovereignty.
John Redwood
My hon. Friend is doing a wonderful job, as always. Did he see the recent briefings, which seemed to come from the Government, that they are expecting a lot of cases under their law and are going to provide a lot more judges for them? Are they not telling us that this is not going to work?
Sir William Cash
I am afraid to say that does appear to be the inevitable inference to be drawn from the statements that have been made. The worry is that, unless the law is completely clear and unambiguous, there is going to be more trouble, and if the Bill was to be passed with clear and unambiguous words, the Government would not need the judges that they seem to want to employ—and nor, for that matter, all the fees that the lawyers will accumulate as a result of taking part in some very spurious cases.
As I have said, the Rwanda judgment is in line with all previous judgments by pre-eminent jurists in recent generations, such as—I mention but a few—Lord Denning, Lord Reid, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Bingham and others. Months ago, I sent the Prime Minister a seven-page memorandum, each line of which set out breaches of international law in almost every jurisdiction in the world, including even the EU itself, the United States, France and Germany, where clearly apparent breaches of international law have occurred without international sanctions. As for the Vienna convention, what really matters is whether the internal domestic law is of fundamental importance in the national interest, and this illegal immigration law manifestly is.
In the UK, we have a dualist system of law in which the sovereignty of Parliament is fundamental to our rule of law and cannot be trumped by international law, the opinions or conventions of the Government Legal Service or—speaking as a former shadow Attorney General—if this be the case, even by an Attorney General. We have a dualistic approach to these matters in which domestic law and international law are seen as independent of one another. The recent Miller 1 judgment states, at paragraph 57, that our
“dualist system is a necessary corollary of Parliamentary sovereignty…it exists to protect Parliament not ministers.”
Furthermore, as Lord Hoffmann made so clear in R v. Lyons in 2002, the courts will have regard to the words of the statute, not the treaty. This is because we have no written constitution defining the internal status of international law within the United Kingdom. As Lord Bingham has said, international law is
“complementary to the national laws of individual states and in no way antagonistic to them”.
International law is not supranational, unlike European law.
British courts cannot deem a statute unconstitutional. Under our constitution, it is the King in Parliament who legislates, not His Majesty’s Government—I thought they had learned that in the civil war of the 1640s. The court does not require to have regard to functions of Government when interpreting the law. A statute, even when arising from an international treaty, will always prevail over a rule of international law. Lord Hoffmann, in the case of R v. Lyons in 2002—I will quote what he says, as I cannot improve on it—stated that
“it is firmly established that international treaties do not form part of English law and that English courts have no jurisdiction to interpret or apply them… It is not the treaty but the statute which forms part of English law. And English courts will not (unless the statute expressly so provides) be bound to give effect to interpretations of the treaty by an international court, even though the United Kingdom is bound by international law to do so... The sovereign legislator in the United Kingdom is Parliament. If Parliament has plainly laid down the law, it is the duty of the courts to apply it, whether that would involve the Crown in breach of an international treaty or not.”
Nothing could be clearer.
In Bradley and Ewing’s authoritative book “Constitutional and Administrative Law”, it is clearly stated that the legislative supremacy of Parliament is not limited by international law. The courts may not hold an Act void on the grounds that it contravenes general principles of international law. Indeed, the Labour Government in 1998 specifically reaffirmed the sovereignty of Parliament in relation to their Human Rights Act, saying that they would not seek to transfer power from future Parliaments to the courts because that would confer on the judiciary a general power over the decisions of Parliament and would draw the judiciary into serious conflict with Parliament. Their own White Paper stated of the judiciary:
“There is no evidence to suggest that they desire this power, nor that the public wish them to have it.”
I do wish the hon. Member for Aberavon was listening to this, because it is about the Labour party, and this still applies today.
Indeed, under paragraph 53 of the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s report of 18 January 2023, the Committee accepts that UK domestic law can
“diverge from obligations agreed by the Government under an international treaty, and ratified following the CRAG”—
Constitutional Reform and Governance Act—
“procedures... And parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament could legislate to ensure that domestic law differed from the requirements of a treaty.”
Paragraph 54 states:
“Parliament having enacted legislation that is not compliant with the UK’s international obligations, the courts are bound to apply that law.”
Paragraph 58 goes on to state:
“Parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament can legislate contrary to the UK’s obligations under international law.”
There we have it. And I should add that many members of that Committee, such as Lord Falconer of Thoroton, are certainly not Conservatives or Brexiteers. So there we are—we are all agreed.
In our unique unwritten constitution, our sovereignty patently prevails over international law, which is, for example, in contrast with that of Germany. What happens there? Article 25 of its written constitution, which I have taken from an established work on public international law, states as follows—these are the words of the very constitution in Germany:
“The general rules of public international law are an integral part of federal law. They shall take precedence over the laws, and shall directly create rights and duties for the inhabitants of the federal territory.”
Similar provisions apply under the Dutch constitution, in articles 65 and 66. That tells us that there is a dualist system, and some countries take a view that is different from ours. We just happen to be on the right side of the fence. Similar provisions may be applied by specialist international lawyers, and they may seek to make out that international law in this country prevails over clearly explicit words in Acts of Parliament and parliamentary sovereignty. But no House of Lords or Supreme Court case supports that proposition.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech, as always. He gave the example of Germany, which for obvious historical reasons has imported principles of international law into its own domestic constitutional law. For example, the German Supreme Court, the Federal Constitutional Court, still reserves its right to be the final arbiter of whether, for example, European Union law is compatible with German basic law.
Sir William Cash
I am extremely glad that my hon. Friend has made that point, because I had the disobliging necessity to read some of the Supreme Court judgments from Germany. Sometimes—believe me—they run to nearly 1,000 pages, for the simple reason that they are struggling to find something that will support the German people, compared with some of the rules of law that are applied more generally on an international footing, which cause them so much trouble.
As I have said—my hon. Friend has just made my point for me—the European Union is in a complete mess on the issue of illegal migration, and we are well out of it. It still has the charter of fundamental rights, which we excluded in our withdrawal agreement, and legal changes to its immigration law, all of which will require hotly contested constitutional changes and referenda in its member states. It is going to be bedevilled by referenda and constitutional change, and I fear it will not succeed. Very many are up in arms about compulsory quotas and fines for non-compliance being imposed on them under the new pact on migration and asylum, which was passed by majority vote. It is noteworthy that recently the French Government defied rulings of the Strasbourg Court regarding the deportation of an Uzbek national, but they cannot apparently trace him as ordered by their own Supreme Court—[Interruption.] In reply to the barracking I am receiving, I simply point out that the relevance of this is that we are talking about our constitution, which can solve the problem, and about theirs, which cannot.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling argument about the difference between this country and those abroad who failed to take back control when we did. He will know that constitutionalists from Dicey to Denning, and from Lord Woolf to Lord Sumption, agree with him that this place is supreme. The supremacy of Parliament is at stake as we debate his amendment and the Bill.
Sir William Cash
I have to say, with all humility, that it is not so much that I agree with them, or that they agree with me, but that this is the law of our land. This is the rule of law as it applies to the United Kingdom, and it is a tribute to the British people that they took that decision in 2016.
As I said to the Prime Minister in December’s Liaison Committee, he can be a world leader on the issue of illegal migration, not only in the EU, but also in the United States, Canada and Australia—every country in the world. The international refugee convention, among other conventions, is seen as requiring reform. In Europe, it is clear that they need to change the European convention on human rights as well as EU immigration law, and European Union voters are voting with their feet.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I start by raising my concerns with the Government about using a Committee of the whole House for this part of the scrutiny of the Bill. We had this with the Illegal Migration Act 2023. In that case, there were hundreds of amendments and the Minister just got to speak at the end for a short time. When we are debating and scrutinising such Bills, we need to do so line by line, and we need to debate and hear the argument from the Minister and the argument from the proposers of amendments. The process we are going through does not allow Parliament to conduct that effective scrutiny that we all want to see when passing laws in this place.
Turning to the Bill, when the Home Affairs Committee published our report on channel crossings 18 months ago, we were clear about the potential problems posed by the Rwanda scheme. As I have highlighted on several occasions in this Chamber, we said that the small boat crossings are an issue on which “no magical single solution” is possible and that:
“Detailed, evidence-driven, fully costed and fully tested policy initiatives are by far most likely to achieve sustainable incremental change”.
We warned that the Government risked
“undermining its own ambitions and the UK’s international standing if it cannot demonstrate”
that the scheme was
“compatible with international law and conventions.”
We said that aspects of the scheme carried
“significant reputational risk for the UK”.
The amendments we are debating today contain provisions that are incompatible not only with the UK’s obligations under international law, but with basic principles of liberty and freedom under common law. The amendments’ implications are therefore profound and affect every single one of us. Despite what the former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) said, I take in all sincerity the Rwandan Government’s view on the importance of upholding legal obligations. We can conclude that some of the amendments would prove fatal to the implementation of the Bill. Indeed, yesterday, the UN Refugee Agency declared that the Rwanda treaty and this unamended Bill are
“not compatible with international refugee law.”
I will speak to amendments 2, 3, 10, 56 and 57 and then focus my comments on amendments 19 to 22. Amendments 2 and 3 would prevent any claim based on risk derived from individual circumstances being considered until the person in question had arrived in Rwanda. That would effectively exclude the very narrow possibility for suspensive claims that the Bill currently allows, and it could result in the person being exposed to the risk on which their claim is based—including claims based on fear of persecution and torture—before it is even considered. The European convention on human rights requires
“independent and rigorous scrutiny of a claim that there exist substantial grounds for fearing a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3”.
It also requires that the person concerned should have access to a remedy with automatic suspensive effect. The amendments would therefore be inconsistent with that requirement of the ECHR.
Amendment 10 would extend the notwithstanding provision to apply to all the Bill and the Illegal Migration Act 2023. It would effectively prevent a claimant relying on any pre-existing legal protection to prevent or delay their removal to Rwanda. The amendment would expressly allow removal to Rwanda, despite that removal otherwise breaching domestic law and despite that removal being in breach of international law. That includes fundamental human rights from which we know no exception or derogations are permitted, such as the prohibition on torture. Needless to say, the amendment is not compatible with the UK’s obligations under international law and risks undermining our international standing.
Amendments 56 and 57 would provide that courts and tribunals would not be permitted to consider a claim on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe country where the claimant has engaged in activity or made serious allegations that have brought into question the safety of Rwanda, or colluded or conspired with others who have done the same. Worryingly, the amendment appears to exclude people who have made serious allegations about the safety of Rwanda from asylum and human rights protection. That would be inconsistent with rights to asylum and humanitarian protection under international law and could also be inconsistent with freedom of expression as guaranteed under article 10 of the ECHR.
Amendments 19 to 22 have profound implications for us all. They would prevent any individual set to be removed to Rwanda from arguing that they could not be sent there on the basis of their own circumstances. In the inevitable absence of absolute certainty that no risk to any individual could arise in Rwanda, that would mean that legitimate claims based on a real risk of persecution and human rights violations would not be heard, and that those people whose claims are unheard would be removed to face the persecution and human rights violations in Rwanda on which their claims are based. That is clearly inconsistent with the refugee convention, the ECHR and the other international legal obligations cited by the Supreme Court in its recent judgment.
Amendment 22 would prevent the courts from reviewing not only the asylum claims of individuals being sent to Rwanda, but also claims for unlawful detention, for assault in the course of removal or for discriminatory treatment in the course of the removal process. To be clear, denying those claims would be inconsistent not only with human rights law, but with fundamental principles of liberty and freedom under our common law that have been protected for centuries, including by the writ of habeas corpus. All Members who do not want to see habeas corpus sacrificed today can surely not support these amendments.
Finally, I add my support to amendments that would make sensible and logical revisions. Amendment 1 would require the Secretary of State to monitor whether Rwanda remains a safe country. New clause 6 places conditions
“on when the classification of Rwanda as ‘safe’ can be suspended in accordance with material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations”.
Sir John Hayes
The right hon. Lady will know that under this Government and previous Governments of all political colours, many people who came here illegally have been deported from this country. When that happens, it invariably does so notwithstanding claims they make about their circumstances. Sometimes, those are claims about their personal circumstances; sometimes, those are claims about the place they are being deported to and from where they come. On the basis of her speech so far, she would deport no one.
Dame Diana Johnson
I do not know whether I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because that is clearly not what I am saying. What I am talking about—the Home Affairs Committee is clear about this—is the rule of law, recognising the international obligations that this country has freely entered into, and doing things properly and legally. That is what I am questioning, because some proposals tabled by Conservative Members go to the heart of our common law, our belief in the right to go before a judge and our belief that if one is detained, it cannot be indefinite. Those are important matters that are before us today.
I want to get a couple of other things on to the record. Going back to amendment 1 and new clause 6, while the Government have determined in the Bill that it is possible to stipulate in law that Rwanda is safe—as we know, that is to the contrary of a finding of fact by the Supreme Court—it does not seem sensible for the Government to propose that that status should be fixed forevermore, which would, by extension, make Rwanda the only country on Earth in which nothing can ever happen or change. As such, amendment 1 and new clause 6 have merit; I hope the Minister will consider them.
Amendments 35 and 37 would allow the courts to consider the risk of refoulement in decisions on removals to Rwanda. Given that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Rwanda policy was unlawful precisely because there were substantial grounds to believe that refoulement could take place, those amendments also have merit.
I understand from media reports that when the Minister gets to his feet, he will give some undertakings about increasing the number of lower level judges—or, I should say, moving lower level judges up to the upper tribunal—to hear any appeals. That is apparently to deal with some of the concerns of Government Members. The Home Affairs Committee is concerned generally about the lengthy delays in court cases. In particular, in one of our recent reports on the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences, particularly rape, we were worried about how long it was taking for those cases to be heard.
I am concerned about the Government’s initiative—perhaps I am prejudging what the Minister will say, but it is being reported in the press—given the amount of resource and finance that will have to be put into training up 150 judges. It strikes me that they seem to be using an enormous amount of political time and resource on this policy. I look forward to what the Minister has to say about increasing the number of judges when we have so many other problems in other parts of the court system that they have not so far been able to deal with. That concludes my remarks on today’s amendments.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I rise to speak to amendments 28, 29 and 30 tabled in my name. Although they would amend clause 9, they relate to the operation of clause 2; hence their selection for debate today.
It is important that we focus on what clause 2 actually means, what its effect is and what the changed reality is with regard to the position in Rwanda—and, indeed, the position between the United Kingdom and Rwanda—since the decision of the Supreme Court in November and since the facts on which it based its decision, which relate to the spring and early summer of 2022. There is no doubt that matters have moved on significantly. We have not only a treaty between the United Kingdom and Rwanda, which was signed late last year, but an indication in the form of a policy document published by the Government, and indeed further information, as to the hard and fast changes that the Rwandan Government will be making to, in effect, answer the questions asked of it by the Supreme Court decision.
The Supreme Court decision really was not about the law; it was about the evidence. When we look at what the Supreme Court justices decided, we see that it was very much narrowed down to whether refoulement was still likely, bearing in mind the position of Rwanda. The Court decided that it was, and that is the sole reason why the policy was held to be unlawful. Other grounds were tendered in that case, including one on retained EU law. A specific ruling of the Court was that that did not apply; the law was clear that that part of retained EU law had fallen with our departure from the EU. Other aspects of the appeal were not ruled on by the Court. The decision was not, for example, based on compatibility with the ECHR. Importantly, the decision was not based on a challenge, which was upheld, to the legality of the removal of people to third countries.
In my view, it is neither illegal nor immoral to seek third-country assistance when it comes to this unprecedented challenge. Indeed, other European countries either are doing it or wish to do it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was right to say that other countries are looking to what happens here and to the precedent that we might set.
In setting precedents, we have to tread carefully. That is why the amendments that I tabled are very much focused on the factual reality and the need to ensure that Rwanda does indeed carry out its policies. When we look carefully at the policy statement, we see that particular tasks will need to be completed, including new operational training for decision makers in Rwanda—I think the latest figures show that over 100 people have now been trained to implement the deal—and the need for clear standard operating procedures with regard to the reception and accommodation arrangements for asylum seekers, the safeguarding of their welfare and access to healthcare.
Of course, there needs to be strengthened procedural oversight of the migration and economic development partnership agreed in 2022 and the asylum processes under it. That means that bodies have to be set up—the new MEDP co-ordination unit and the MEDP monitoring committee of experts. The involvement of experts is needed, certainly in the early days of the decision making to be made by the new body, which will be set up by the Government of Rwanda. There will be a new appeal body that consists of panels of three judges, with subject-matter experts, including Rwandan judges and judges from other Commonwealth jurisdictions. All those details are important, because they go towards answering the question, which I think will be answered in the affirmative: that individuals in the scheme will not be at risk of refoulement and, therefore, there will not be a breach of the 1951 convention.
That reality has to match the deeming provision. I know that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister will be anxious to ensure that deeming provisions do not either perpetuate or encourage legal fictions. This is difficult law, but it is not unprecedented. Deeming provisions are used often in tax legislation. The leading authority is fairly recent: Fowler v. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs back in 2020 in the Supreme Court, in which Lord Briggs made it clear that deeming provisions creating statutory fictions should be followed as far as required for the purposes for which the deeming provision was created, but the production of unjust, absurd or anomalous results will not be encouraged. That is clearly somewhere that the courts do not wish to tread or to encourage, and neither should we as a Government or a Parliament.
We must dovetail the coming into force of the deeming provisions with the reality on the ground in Rwanda, so that we create not a statutory fiction but a series of facts reinforced by statute. That degree of care does not have to take ages—it can be done in weeks, bearing in mind the quick work that has been done already. That would go a long way to satisfying the natural concerns that many of us have about the use of such provisions. We understand why they have to be made, and we do not oppose the principle of their use, but I simply caution that we take care to make sure that we get that co-ordination right.
Many of us have been down the road of discussing ouster before, and it can take many forms. There have been examples where ouster proceedings and clauses have clearly not worked, and they are not the sole province of this Government. Previous Labour Governments tried to enact bold and sweeping ouster clauses, only to find that their efforts fell flat either before the Act became law or as a result of court intervention. I think of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, when Labour tried to be too extensive and expansive.
Experience has taught us that where we have clearly defined reasons—and, importantly, limited exceptions—ouster clauses will work. We had a recent example of that in the removal of the Cart jurisdiction in the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, where my hon. and learned Friend the Minister finished the job that I started. In the consultation on the judicial review, my noble friend Lord Faulks and others embarked upon those provisions at my direction. That worked—it has been tested not just in the High Court but in the Court of Appeal in the Oceana case, and it is held to be sound and watertight. Why? Because there was a clear rationale behind it, and there were limited exceptions. Herein lies the danger posed by the otherwise well-intentioned amendments by my right hon. and hon. Friends: without those limited exceptions, we are setting the Bill up to fail. That is what history has taught us.
I am a strong believer that it is from this place that the core of our constitution comes. It is from Parliament that our constitutional authority is derived. To contradict the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who in many respects couched his remarks well, we do not have a separation of powers constitution. We have a checks and balances constitution, where each part of the body politic respects each other. I do agree with him that restraint is an important principle.
Sir John Hayes
My right hon. and learned Friend is making a profound and important point about the nature of the separation of powers. There is a lot of misunderstanding about it. The separation of powers is not about equal bodies or each of those bodies performing the same role. As he describes, it is entirely a matter of the balance between those bodies. This House is the body that makes laws. Judge-made law is something he and I have debated, discussed and agreed on many times, and it is invidious because, as I said earlier, this House is supreme when it comes to making or changing law.
Sir Robert Buckland
I entirely agree. My right hon. Friend and I are both romantic Tories of an old school, which might surprise many Members. We share that common fount of Toryism that is important to us both and, within that, we utterly respect the independence of the judiciary. It is a separate part of our constitution. To trespass upon its domain—as, sadly, in the Post Office case we have had to—is something that we do extremely reluctantly, and I hope in a very rare and unique way in that tragic and scandalous example.
Richard Graham
I want to bring my right hon. and learned Friend back to the amendments. Does he agree that between the absolute conviction of the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and the Opposition that the Bill cannot ever work, and the absolute conviction of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) that it can work only with his amendments, there is a landing space where we can deliver something that will make a difference and will act as a deterrent, without getting rid of all the individual rights in our domestic and international law? That is what we should aim to achieve.
Sir Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend puts the point very well. There is a landing space for this policy. I disagree with Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition and their leader when he said that he would not support the Rwanda policy even if it worked. Frankly, that is an extreme position and not one that chimes at all with what the British people want, because they want solutions to these problems. This party and this Government are coming up with solutions. They might be novel or untested, but at least we are working on it.
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. and learned Friend is generous in giving way. With all his experience as former Justice Secretary, is it his view that the Ministry of Justice will be able to recruit hundreds of tribunal judges—from where, I do not know—and use them to process and decide the claims that will surely come from each and every illegal migrant who comes across the channel, in sufficient speed that we do not fill up our detained estate capacity and have to bail those individuals, so that they abscond, even in the peak season of August and September? His professional opinion would be much appreciated.
Sir Robert Buckland
I will give, if not a professional opinion, my right hon. Friend an opinion born out of experience. Anything is possible, but it is quite a task. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor will talk to the Senior President of Tribunals, Sir Keith Lindblom, about this very issue, to make sure that not just full-time but part-time tribunal chairs will be available to deal with a large number of cases. But if we can do that in immigration, can we not do it in crime as well, please? It is a timely reminder that our justice system is pretty important and, despite my best efforts to increase funding—which we did do—more needs to be done to ensure that the backlogs are dealt with. I declare my interest, and I know that my colleagues at the Bar would tell me off if I did not say that. To answer my right hon. Friend’s point, it will be a challenge and will require probably some changes to practice directions, and cases will have to be dealt with much more quickly than the status quo.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend is being very generous and I appreciate the speech he is making. On that last point, does he also acknowledge that the Government’s intention of recruiting a large number of extra judges implies that they expect a large number of claims to be made on behalf of migrants, rather than their being swiftly detained and removed, as we all wish them to be?
Sir Robert Buckland
I am inclined to be kind to my hon. Friend. It is probably not an either/or, but an and. He and the Government will want to achieve not only a further spur in dealing with current cases in the system, but any particular influx we might get because of novel points that will need to be tested. I am satisfied, having looked at the terms of the clauses currently drafted, that it is narrow. If not quite the eye of a needle, it will certainly be a pretty restrictive process. I remember feeling deep frustration at the time of covid in not seeing backlogs in the immigration tribunal come down, despite the fact that people were not coming into the country.
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. and learned Friend may not be aware that after has left office the current waiting time for an appeal before an immigration tribunal is 48 weeks. Given the thousands of cases we successfully cleared in the backlog—many of which, thankfully, have been rejected—that backlog is probably likely to double in the coming weeks. Currently, immigration tribunals will be taking between one and two years to hear a case.
Sir Robert Buckland
My right hon. Friend is right. He is building on the frustration that I had. That is not a criticism of Ministers. The way in which the Home Office was working did not seem to allow the expedition that was needed. I know that he and others have done a lot of work to improve that—by scaling up the number of officials dealing with cases and creating a sense of urgency with a wartime emergency approach that is entirely right—but I can tell him that back in 2020 I was deeply frustrated not to see a decrease in the backlogs, bearing in mind that in other areas we were actually making a difference and taking at least some benefit from the awful covid crisis. The challenge facing my hon. and learned Friend the Minister is significant and we should not pretend otherwise.
Richard Graham
The practice of Government, certainly over the last 14 years, has been that where there were bottlenecks—we saw them during the pandemic in the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Passport Office and the Home Office—the answer to those questions was for Ministers to energise that particular department, recruit more people, allocate more resources and get the backlogs down. If it can be done in all those places, there is surely no reason why it cannot be done in this hypothetical instance of lots of extraneous claims by people to avoid extradition to Rwanda, given the very narrow scope allowed in the Bill.
Sir Robert Buckland
Where there is a will there is a way. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I do not want to detain the Committee unduly lengthily today—some would perhaps say uncharacteristically, but I really do not—[Laughter.] Self-deprecation takes you only so far in this place! I yield to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) in that department.
To conclude, the Privacy International Supreme Court case from about three or four years ago is a warning. Where Governments, with good intention, try to overreach and wholly exclude a particular judicial review approach, they will often fail. In that case, we saw an inevitable consequence of a line of thinking that has gone back in our law for about 50 or so years since the Anisminic case. We have to be alive to that reality. We should not put the courts in a position where we end up with what was a highly contested case with dissenting judgments. In the end, it gives us a very important guide on how carefully we need to approach these matters.
I will not pretend that I can ever love notwithstanding clauses. I do not like them, because they create all sorts of internal conflicts. Those conflicts are not necessarily in international law—I am less interested in that; I am more interested in conflict in our own domestic law—but anything that this House does that is ambiguous, contradictory, self-contradictory or unclear serves only to draw the courts further into the realm of politics, where none of them ever want to go.
We do not have a constitutional court in this country and I hope we never, ever see one. Because of our unwritten constitution, we are able as a Parliament to legislate as we wish. But—this is the qualification—I said on Second Reading that the principle of comity, that mutual respect that needs to exist between the arms of the constitution, is one that means we need restraint and to take care when we legislate. However grave the situation might be—previous generations faced wartime challenges—we must remember that in legislating in this place, we do not protect ourselves out of the very freedoms we cherish.
At some point there will not be a Conservative Government sitting on the Treasury Benches, but a Government of another hue. I hope, having been in my party for nearly 40 years—I am much older than I look—that we do not see that day, but a day will come when we, as an Opposition, will be worried about an overweening socialist Government that will try to impose their will through the will of Parliament and will not show the restraint that we expect a democratically elected Government to show. That is why the challenges we faced during Brexit were exceptional. I do not think that, despite the maelstrom we all went through and some of the things we had to do to get that done, we should be seeking to normalise them now.
Sir John Hayes
My right hon. and learned Friend is once again right that this place should not act in an arbitrary way. I mentioned Dicey earlier and he will be familiar with Dicey’s view on that subject. But in the end our legitimacy is derived from the people and we are answerable to the people. On this issue above all others, the people expect us to stand by our pledge and to stop the boats.
Sir Robert Buckland
I agree with my right hon. Friend that we are not just another public agency. This is Parliament and this place has a particular status, position, responsibility and privilege—that word privilege that he and I know and cherish so much in its true sense—that means we are absolutely at the core of our democracy and our constitution. But it is also our responsibility to make sure that the legislation we pass works. I know that he and my hon. Friends who are supporting the amendments want this law to work—I absolutely accept that—but I say in all candour and frankness that I genuinely think the amendments they have tabled will make it less likely. I do not say that with any pleasure; I say it with a heavy heart. History has taught us that where, despite good intention, we end up being too expansive and we overreach, the check and the balance that exists in our constitution will then apply. All that we will do is end up having the sort of arguments about the constitution—not arcane to me, but arcane to many people—which, while important, do not solve the problem, and do not deal with the issue that is facing us as a people.
That is why I urge the Government today to ensure that the intention in the treaty becomes a reality, that Rwanda does what it says it is going to do so that we can avoid refoulement, and that we focus on the practicalities and also avoid more unnecessary legal clash. If I may paraphrase Matthew Arnold, ignorant armies clashing by night is something that we as Conservatives should seek to avoid at all costs.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
Let me begin by declaring my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which refers to the help that I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project, and my position as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration.
I agree with much of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) about the process involved in the Bill and the way in which we are debating it today. This is our third immigration Bill in less than two years, and throughout that time Ministers and Back Benchers alike have engaged in progressively more inflammatory rhetoric about refugees without addressing any of the real problems in our asylum and migration system.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
Many of the amendments relate to whether or not Rwanda is a safe country. Would we not be in a different place if there were a much broader range of safe and legal routes? We would not see small boats crossing the channel, and there would be no need for us to discuss whether or not Rwanda is safe, which is not helpful to Rwanda or to us.
Olivia Blake
I entirely agree. That is an important point, and we are struggling to get much sense out of the Government on it. I have asked repeatedly whether safe and legal routes are available to people trying to flee from parts of the world where genocide has been declared, but unfortunately the answer has always been “The safe and legal routes that exist are all that we will offer.” I do not think that that is good enough, and I think we need to have that conversation about safe and legal routes.
The problems that I have listed are the real, human problems. That is the real cost to human life and wellbeing that the Government’s “hostile environment” policy brings. This Bill is another example of Ministers’ doubling down on that approach, and the amendments tabled by Conservative Back Benchers—I believe they are amendments 10, 19, 20, 21, 22, 56 and 57—take it even further.
Tim Loughton
As the hon. Lady knows, I agree with her that we need to extend safe and legal routes—that is why I tabled my amendment previously, which I hope the Government will honour—but does she not also acknowledge that, even if there were safe and legal routes that could be used by legitimate refugees fleeing from genuine violence and oppression, the bogus asylum seekers who do not meet those criteria would still use people smugglers? That is why we need to be able to deter and clamp down on them so that they do not set foot on our shores.
Olivia Blake
We need the safe and legal routes first. The rates at which people are accepted as having a reasonable claim and are given a form of leave to remain in the UK are very high: in recent years, the rates at which applications are accepted have been as high as 67%. I do not believe that a large number of people are coming here illegally without good claims. Indeed, I think the opposite is true, given the evidence from our own systems.
Tim Loughton
That is an interesting point, but how does the hon. Lady explain the fact that France receives more asylum applications than we do but rejects twice as many? What are we doing differently?
Olivia Blake
I would hope that our system has the trust of its politicians and is robust enough to ensure that we are making the right decisions whenever possible, although I still believe that there should be an appeals process within that system. I cannot say that the system always gets it right, and that is certainly borne out by the casework that I have seen. It is more complicated than saying, “This action will reduce this and that action will increase that.” It is a very complicated system, and the most obvious thing to say about it is that in the past few years and months the second or third highest number of people arriving here in small boats has been people from Afghanistan. We are also seeing people fleeing from Syria and from all sorts of other complex and difficult situations at the moment. That does not take away from the fact that it is not necessarily about the nation those people come from and that it is also about their individual circumstances. I have spoken a lot about the rights of LGBT people and disabled people seeking asylum and how we need to make sure that any system maintains that individual view of an individual going through our system. That is a lesson that should be learned from the Windrush review.
At its core, the hostile environment is a policy designed to make life as uncomfortable as possible for everyone who comes here and to prevent anyone from accessing the support that international law says is rightfully theirs, and now the Government are proposing to outsource what little responsibility they have taken by offloading their obligations and offshoring refugees against their will. It is no wonder that they are recklessly declaring Rwanda as safe, despite the known risks. As the shadow Minister pointed out, since the Government signed their deportation deal, six people from Rwanda have been granted asylum here in the UK. Torture persists there, along with continued risks of refoulement to third countries, which is the reason I support amendments 35 and 37.
Human Rights Watch’s reports on Rwanda as part of its World Report series published in 2021, 2022 and 2023 all include examples of torture in Rwanda. In the UN Human Rights Council’s periodic review of Rwanda published in January 2021, it was the UK Government who criticised Rwanda for
“extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture”.
The country has a continued history of breaching obligations under the refugee convention, and between 2020 and 2022 the UNHCR found that Afghan, Syrian and Yemeni asylum seekers had 100% rejection rate in Rwanda. Those are statistics that I am sure people would find shocking given our granting rate. It is common for discrimination and abuse to be faced by LGBTQ+ people in Rwanda. Same-sex marriage is prohibited, and LGBTQ+ people are not protected from discrimination by any specific legislation there. All this makes a mockery of clause 2 of the Bill.
Ministers can continue to use ad hoc Bills such as this one to paper over the cracks in their asylum policy, but the truth is that the foundations of their approach are completely rotten. Rather than chasing headlines, it is time they thought again and built an asylum system that puts respect for international law and basic human dignity first.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Immigration is quite possibly the most important issue facing this Government or indeed any Government in Europe. It is the issue of our age, and mass immigration, whether legal or illegal, is undermining trust. This debate has to be held against the backdrop of the overwhelming numbers coming into our country. Sir Roger, you and I entered Parliament on the same day in 1983. During that year, net legal migration was only about 17,000. It is now 600,000. This debate about small boats is held against the backdrop of this huge influx into our society, on which the British people have not been consulted. It is changing our society and undermining the work ethic of our own people. Too many people are languishing on benefits. Perhaps some of our public services are not paying adequate salaries. We are bringing more and more people into this country, whereas we should be encouraging and training our own people to work.
The whole small boats crisis is made much more toxic by that debate. When people say, “Well, 40,000 people a year isn’t a great deal compared with the sort of numbers coming across the Mediterranean”, we have to see it in terms of that overall debate. Unless the Government can sort this out and actually stop the boats, which was the commitment made by the Prime Minister, it will be extraordinarily politically damaging to the Conservative Government and also damaging to the public’s perception of and belief in democracy. When the Prime Minister says he wants to stop the boats, he should stop the boats. That is why, tonight and tomorrow, I will support the amendments tabled most ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I tabled amendments 56 and 57, which I will explain in a moment.
Against this backdrop, we have an extraordinary and absurd situation in which people are arriving in Calais having travelled through an entirely safe country. There is no threat to their human rights. They may find it difficult to speak French, or they may not want to learn to speak French, and they may not be able to find a job, but they are in an entirely safe country. They are putting their life at risk—even this week, there has been an appalling tragedy—and we are encouraging the most horrible criminal gangs to get involved in this trade. They then arrive here and claim asylum.
Unbelievably, we are putting them up comfortably in hotels, which other European countries do not do. Even more extraordinarily, and I will not labour this point because I have made it many times before, such is the crisis in our hotels that the Government are now spending tens of millions of pounds on trying to convert former military bases such as RAF Scampton in my constituency—by the way, we have now been arguing about RAF Scampton for nine months and not a single migrant has arrived there. The court cases are still ongoing.
If we put ourselves in the migrants’ place, we can see that the draw factor to this country is extraordinarily high. First, we speak English. Secondly, unlike in France or Germany, they will be put in a comfortable hotel. Thirdly, they are given benefits. Fourthly, there is probably a 95% chance that they will be given asylum at the end of the process. If they have come from a hell-hole like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, why would they not want to take that risk? We must be mugs, frankly, and the rest of Europe must be laughing at us.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) also asked that question. If it is so attractive to come to the United Kingdom and nothing else has been a deterrent—if the risk to life of crossing the channel is not a deterrent—why should the prospect of being sent to Rwanda be a deterrent? If Rwanda is a safe and secure country where they can have a comfortable life, why should the prospect of being sent there be a deterrent?
Sir Edward Leigh
What is the hon. Gentleman’s solution? When Opposition Members make these arguments, they have to say what on earth they would do. I agree with the Opposition on one thing: with modern surveillance technology, drones and all the rest of it, it is a mystery why we are not managing to stop more people. With modern police efforts, it is a mystery why we cannot interdict more of these criminal gangs.
It is so easy to get involved in this trade. We close down one criminal gang, as the Opposition want to put more resources into doing, and another springs up. It is incumbent on the Opposition, given that we are such an attractive country, to explain how on earth they would stop this trade. I question whether we can proceed with the policy of keeping people in hotels, paying them benefits and approving 95% of applications when they have come through a safe country.
The problem I have with the Government is not their Rwanda policy because, looking at Australia and elsewhere, I accept that the only policy that seems to have any chance of discouraging this mass movement of people is offshoring. My argument with the Government is that, if we pass this Bill and keep passing Bills, such is the nature of our legal system that people will make spurious claims based on their political opinions, which will make it impossible for them to be put on a flight to Rwanda. That is the nature of my amendments, which is why I talk about spurious claims.
Alison Thewliss
The right hon. Gentleman is talking, quite ridiculously, about people concocting stories—I feel that he is perhaps concocting one himself. Will he tell me when he last spoke to an asylum seeker?
Sir Edward Leigh
They may not concoct it; it may be entirely true—we do not know. However, what we all know is true is that every asylum seeker who arrives in Dover will say that they cannot be sent to Rwanda because of their own personal history, and every single one of us would do the same thing.
Last year, we had the farce of the judgment issued by the Council of Europe, which we will be discussing in more detail later. I have been a member of the Council of Europe for 14 years. We now know that this ex parte judgment, this rule 39, was perhaps not delivered according to international law, and apparently, in discussions with the European Court of Human Rights, we have now sought assurances that it is going to be tidied up. But even if our own courts allow somebody to proceed through them, with their case to be heard, even if we manage to appoint a sufficient number of judges, even if the person does not create a history and even if our own courts allow them to be put on a flight, there is this right of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. We therefore have no certainty that these cases will not be heard and delayed.
I accept that this is the toughest Bill we have ever had. It is a good Bill in its own right. If we had produced it two years ago, we may have been getting people to Rwanda by now, but time is running out. We have perhaps nine months until the next general election. If we do not amend the Bill, we could end up in the worst possible situation, where we, as a Government, say that we are committed to stopping the boats, we have passed the necessary legislation and then we have egg all over our face because nobody is actually put on the flights. We will look extremely stupid.
In my view, the only solution is that when people arrive here, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark said, they are detained, but within a matter of days they are offshored, and the only justification for not being put on a flight is a proper medical condition. That is the only way we will get people on these flights.
Richard Graham
May I posit a slightly different approach? As my right hon. Friend says, all of us on the Government Benches want to do something about the problem. There are Opposition Members who are quite happy to subcontract our immigration decision making to the evil people smugglers operating small boats across the channel, but we are united on trying to do something. The only issue on which we differ is the extent to which we wish to override domestic and international law on individual human rights. My right hon. Friend has stood up for his constituents in their most difficult times, so he will understand that to do so would be a massive step that most of us on the Government Benches are not prepared to take.
Is my right hon. Friend prepared to see the Bill through, in the face of opposition from those who, at times, risk looking as if they are keener on putting sub-postmasters in jail than illegal immigrants, and make sure we have an option and a deterrence that will almost certainly work? Or is he prepared to sacrifice that huge step forward on the altar of an amendment to try to rule out all possibility of any individual human rights complaint being upheld?
Sir Edward Leigh
To be fair to my hon. Friend, I do not like what I am suggesting, but we are faced with a national crisis and we have to look at our own experience of what has and has not worked. We all know that overwhelmingly the people who are crossing are economic migrants. They are all perfectly nice people—I make no complaint about them personally; they are just trying to get a better life—but we all know the truth is that they would do anything to avoid being put on one of these flights.
I agree with my hon. Friend that we would not normally want to circumvent human rights, but in this case we know that is what is going to happen. We are almost arguing on the head of a pin about legal uncertainties, when we know from practical experience that everybody will appeal and be able to create a credible case, based on personal political involvement, mental health or some other reason, and nobody—or only a derisory number of people—will be put on the flight. The Government should grasp this nettle and accept these amendments, although I fear they will not. If they do not, we will be in a very dangerous place in relation to public opinion.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
It is always interesting to follow the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary.
As we consider the amendments and new clauses before us, I start by acknowledging, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) has done, how awful it is that more lives have been lost this weekend in the cold waters of the channel. More families are grieving while dangerous criminal smuggler gangs are making huge profits from these perilous boat crossings, whenever the weather calms. They must be stopped before any more lives are lost and that requires action, but it must be the right action.
The Tories are in total chaos about this failing scheme, which is costing the British taxpayer £400 million with more money promised, even though not a single asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda. Every new detail of the plan is more farcical than the last and, as we know, more Home Secretaries have been sent to Rwanda than asylum seekers so far.
Even if the Tories get the scheme off the ground, it will cover less than 1% of people arriving in the country, or people in asylum hotels, making it astronomically expensive. That is why I support new clause 6, in the name of the shadow Home Secretary. This would place the monitoring committee for the Rwanda treaty on a statutory basis, and place conditions on when the classification of Rwanda as “safe” can be suspended in accordance with material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations under the Rwanda treaty. This new clause is absolutely the right thing to do, and I urge Ministers to look at it very seriously indeed.
In April 2022, the British Government and Rwanda signed a memorandum of understanding to provide a Migration and Economic Development Partnership. It is a five-year agreement, from 2022 to 2027, and, under the deal, the UK pays Rwanda large sums of money as part of its economic development fund, which has no impact on the asylum system. In return, Rwanda has agreed to take responsibility for some of the people who arrive in the UK on small boats. Those people will be removed to Rwanda where their asylum claims will be processed, but the UK will have to pay extra costs for asylum processing, decisions and support.
In June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights issued an injunction that halted the first attempted removals until legal proceedings had concluded in the UK courts. The High Court backed the policy; the Court of Appeal declared it to be unlawful. In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal judgment and ruled unanimously that the Rwanda policy was unlawful because there were “substantial grounds” to believe that people transferred there could be sent to countries where they would face persecution or inhumane treatment—a practice known as refoulement —if Rwanda rejected their asylum claims.
That is why new clause 6 is so important and would be a welcome addition—and a much needed one at that—to the Bill. Through our Front-Bench amendments, Labour has tried to guide Ministers in the right direction and, importantly, to stand up for our values and our commitment to the strongest border security. That is why Labour’s plan is so important and has my support.
Labour’s plan will strengthen our border security and smash the criminal gang networks and their supply chains with new powers and a new cross-border police unit, so that we stop the boats reaching the French coast in the first place. We will clear the backlog with new fast-track systems, end hotel use—saving the taxpayer more than £2 billion—and improve enforcement with a new returns and enforcement unit to reverse the collapse in returns for those who have no right to be here.
We on the Labour Benches believe in strong border security and a properly controlled and managed asylum system, so that the UK does our bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, but returns those who have no right to be here. That is why new clause 6 is so worthy of support from across the Committee. It means that we stay true to who we are—good neighbours, committed to doing what is right and to standing up for those most in need. That is the kind of global Britain that I am committed to.
Getting this wrong would not just be a cost to our reputation; this whole scheme has a massive financial implication too. The full costs of the Rwanda scheme have not been disclosed and what details are available have emerged in a haphazard way, through Home Office documents, official letters, comments in Parliament and a leak.
Sir Matthew Rycroft has said that he is “not at liberty” to disclose the full costs as they are contained in a “confidential” memorandum of understanding between the two Governments, saying that it was “commercially sensitive” information. He said the Home Office annual report and accounts sets out details of the costs for the relevant financial year—the report is usually published in July. However, the Government have set out the costs for future years for the UK’s security collaboration with France. In addition to payments of at least £232 million between 2014 and 2023 to combat illegal migration, the Government have agreed to pay the French sums of £124 million this year, £168 million next year and £184 million the year after. These costs were set out before the payments were made in a public document. This is why our Front-Bench amendments are so important. This Bill is way off the mark, as are the motivations behind it. Anything we can do to improve it should be a priority.
Let me turn specifically to amendments 35 and 37, which also have my full support. Amendment 37 would ensure that decision makers are still able to consider the risk of refoulement when making individual decisions on removals to Rwanda. Amendment 35 would permit courts and tribunals to deal with systematic risk of refoulement from Rwanda. Those are two important amendments, and I urge the Minister, as I did with new clause 6, to think carefully about their merits.
Mr Roberts
Good afternoon, Mr Evans, and thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate in reference to my amendments 1, 2 and 3 to the Bill and some others that I will cover during the course of my remarks. I am not a lawyer or an immigration specialist, but I have sought advice, done my research and, above all, spoken to the people of my constituency.
This is the first time that I have been sufficiently animated to speak in a debate on this issue. Contrary to what we hear regularly from hon. and right hon. Members, when I walk the streets of Delyn and speak to my constituents, almost none of them raise the issue of illegal migration as being among the things they are most concerned about. I appreciate that rural north Wales is a different place to many constituencies, but it is worth noting for the record that it is not the priority of everyone in the country. They would rather the Government spent more time improving public services, making our streets safer, returning us to a period of greater economic stability and—dare I say it—aiming for prosperity, but here we are in another effort to solve the intractable problem of small boat crossings with this Bill.
Some elements do not necessarily sit well with me, but some of the amendments, sadly, sit even worse. Some of the rhetoric that we hear on this subject is quite alarming. I have tried in my small number of amendments to apply a little common sense and compromise, neither of which appear to be in abundant supply when it comes to discussing this issue.
I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who is sadly no longer in his place, who spoke passionately on this issue and answered my question and others put to him in interventions very well, but I cannot help but retain a feeling of the fundamental unfairness of some of his amendments. I will expand on that later.
Turning to my amendments, amendment 1 seeks to compel the Home Secretary to confirm on an ongoing basis that Rwanda remains a safe country. I have no interest in restarting the debate about whether it is safe now; for the purposes of this legislation, we assume that it is. What I am trying to address in the amendment is the political and social instability that exists in many parts of Africa, and that regime change is more common in that part of the world than any other.
It will be 30 years this year since the horrific Rwandan genocide in 1994, and a lot of things have happened in those years, largely down to stability and the steps taken by President Kagame. It is probably worth noting that since 1994, Rwanda has had two Presidents, whereas the UK has had eight Prime Ministers of varying levels of honesty and competence. It might therefore seem unusual to table an amendment on regime change, but it is a real concern none the less.
In 2021, coups d’état ousted four Heads of State in sub-Saharan Africa. Elected leaders in other African nations were accused of enacting a more authoritarian approach, presumably to stave off a similar rise of forces against them. Between 2017 and 2019, President Bouteflika of Algeria, President al-Bashir of Sudan and President Mugabe of Zimbabwe were ousted after a combined 90 years in power. In a paper released two years ago almost to the day, experts from the London School of Economics and Political Science showed that,
“their removal, rather than a direct consequence of mass protests and economic downturns, was the culmination of ripened factionalism, which had blossomed after the leaders’ attempts to centralise power.”
That simply illustrates the potential volatility of politics in the region and the rationale behind my amendment. It is not an onerous requirement that the Home Secretary must lay before the House a report every 12 months confirming that Rwanda remains safe. As a responsible partner to various international agreements and conventions, it would seem the least we should do in that regard.
I will take amendments 2 and 3 together, as they are related, as well as commenting on other amendments on the same issue. As a layperson who is not legally trained in any way, but hopefully has a decent dose of common sense, I find it unthinkable that individuals against whom any kind of judgment is made would not be allowed the right to appeal against that judgment. That type of thinking puts our legal process back 100 years; it is frankly beneath us and beneath what this Parliament should stand for.
We have in this country a robust and well-established legal system, from magistrates to county court, Crown court, High Court, Court of Appeal and finally the Supreme Court, with various tribunals and other such devices for specific purposes. As a matter of law and simple fairness, we allow people to question and appeal. Shoplifters can appeal. Car thieves can appeal. Abusers can appeal. Perpetrators of domestic violence can appeal. Rapists can appeal. Murderers can appeal.
I have listened carefully to the arguments of some of my colleagues, both personally and what has been said in the House and in various media outlets. I feel compelled to conclude that the trend towards dog-whistle politics and putting the label of enemy on people where no such label needs to apply seems to have got the better of some people. I point out to colleagues that although it is often the noisiest voices that call for migrants simply to be rounded up and shipped out, the noisiest voices are almost certainly not the voices of the majority of the people of the United Kingdom, which is and always has been a welcoming and kind country to those in need.
We can point to all manner of schemes to show that that has been the case. Even recently, between 2015 and June of last year, more than 179,000 people arrived in the UK from Ukraine. Over that same period, more than 123,000 people have come to the UK on the basis of being granted British national overseas status and more than 50,000 people have come as part of the Afghan and Syrian resettlement programmes. We are a kind and supportive country to those in need—but have we become what many consider to be a soft touch? Perhaps in some ways we have.
I look at the movement of people in two distinct ways: they are either moving away from something or moving towards something. What I mean by that is that some people are, as we all know, in a horrific situation. Whatever people think of the Government in the UK, it does not carry out large-scale attacks against its own people, as we have seen in Syria, and the Government of the UK does not routinely persecute and incarcerate people who dare to speak out against them. Of course we recognise that people in many places across the world need to flee. They need to move away from that situation.
Where I end up, however, and where I have sympathy with some of the arguments made by those on the right among Conservative Members, is that there is a clear and distinct dividing line between someone moving away from danger by necessity and someone moving towards something else by choice. That is where much of the message is lost and drowned out by noisy activists on both sides, when a calm and common-sense approach to thinking about the problem would make it very clear. Those people I mentioned earlier, in danger and in fear of persecution, incarceration or worse, must of course do all they can to remove themselves from that situation and to save their lives and those of their families. I have absolutely no problem with that.
Where the problem lies, however, is that once there is no danger and the fear of persecution, incarceration or worse has passed, movement is out of choice rather than necessity. People are then moving towards something they consider preferable, rather than away from danger—the danger is over. I completely understand the arguments and the confusion about why people need to move from France, a perfectly safe country. Aside from the occasional street protest, and baggage handlers battering luggage when they actually turn up for work, France is a civilised, modern and, above all, safe country where people are not in danger, so people who come from there are no longer seeking to escape but are in fact moving towards something preferable. That is where the arguments of certain charities and some Opposition Members sadly lose their credibility.
The problem is that, once they have made that journey across the channel, they are our responsibility, and we simply cannot send them back unless France agrees to take them, which it will not—why would it? Aside from the fact that the French have no desire to increase their own problem, we have just spent the last decade calling them and their friends everything under the sun and saying that we do not want anything more to do with them, so of course they are not inclined to help us deal with this problem.
What do we do when we cannot just send people back and have to deal with the situation ourselves? We have heard many Opposition Members say that we cannot do this or that, but no one has said, “Here is what we would do instead.” Many people have said throughout the debate that there is no capacity in the UK—that we do not have enough houses for everyone, or enough doctors, dentists, hospitals schools or general infrastructure for even our existing population—and they are right. Relocating asylum seekers to a safe third country is a long-established mechanism used all over the world—it is nothing new—but I do not like the push for a lack of due process in order to remove people’s rights in favour of speed, expediency and a populist movement.
Amendments 2 and 3 would balance those competing needs by allowing for appeals if they are heard remotely from Rwanda post-deportation, which seems perfectly feasible. If covid taught us anything helpful, it was that we could be a lot more flexible in our use of technology than we had been. Since 2020, courts have been rapidly moving online: the cloud video platform was introduced in response to the pandemic, and a video hearing system is already being used nationally in tax and property tribunals, as well as in Chester Crown court, not far from my constituency. By all accounts, it works seamlessly and is a great success. His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service plans to transition to a new service of video hearings covering more areas, so it seems perfectly reasonable for the same technology to be used to hear appeals against asylum decisions.
As the Government have considerably narrowed the eligibility of appeals in clauses 2 and 3, the chance of any eligible claim rearing its head is negligible, so there is no reason that individuals cannot continue to be removed before having their appeal heard via a Government-established video conferencing facility in Rwanda. I am aware of the established principle laid down in law, in the European convention on human rights, that people cannot be removed to Rwanda if there is an imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm. The Government rightly need to pay heed to that situation, as the UK is very much a signatory to the ECHR—a situation that should not even be considered for change.
As the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), mentioned, it would not be appropriate simply to ignore that rule. I thank the Minister for the time he took to address that concern in relation to my amendment and to explain why he did not feel that my proposals would be possible. I completely accept his explanation and am pleased to have had it confirmed by the right hon. Lady earlier, but I hope that a simple common-sense approach will be taken in the aftermath. For example, colleagues have expressed concern that women who are heavily pregnant might be able to appeal on the basis of being unfit to fly. I hope that the process will recognise that anyone determining themselves fit enough to take a 30-mile journey across a dangerous sea in a barely floating craft that could capsize at any moment cannot then claim to be unfit to take a flight in perfectly comfortable and safe conditions.
Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow a contribution that was slightly more rational than those we have heard from a number of Members on the Conservative Benches during today’s debate. This is my first Committee of the whole House, and it has been an interesting experience. We have had 17th-century constitutional and political lectures, analysis of the US constitution and, really interestingly, the suggestion from a number of Conservative Members—which slightly lets the cat out of the bag—that this policy is all about the upcoming general election and how quickly we can get flights off the ground before that happens. We have heard very little about whether the Bill actually contributes to an effective immigration strategy.
I rise to speak in support of new clause 6. I have spoken in various other debates on this legislation and outlined my objections. It is a fundamentally ridiculous proposition that is becoming increasingly ridiculous as we see the Tory psychodrama playing out in front of us—slightly less dramatic this time than it was in December, but I am sure that will change—and pulling the Bill in two completely opposing directions while the Government still claim that it is an entirely workable policy. It has the dubious distinction of being a policy that is both utterly immoral and completely ineffective, at the same time as costing an extraordinary amount of money. It is seemingly not even supported by the Prime Minister, yet here we are, debating amendments that will take the Bill even closer to breaching international law—if it does not already—and further diminish Britain’s standing in the world. The Bill should be voted down on Third Reading, and from the looks of the Tory chaos it might well be, but for now we have an opportunity to try to make it a little better with some safeguards.
In my view, new clause 6 should be completely uncontroversial. If the Government genuinely believe that Rwanda is a safe country—if they believe it is able to meet all the expectations placed on it in the Rwanda treaty—why should there be any hesitation at all about putting the monitoring committee on a statutory footing? That would ensure that Rwanda’s status as a safe country can be suspended if the facts change—if we uncover additional evidence that perhaps it is not a safe country, if the political situation changes, or if the Foreign Office changes its travel guidance. Surely those are basic things that would lead us to question the safety of Rwanda.
It is on that evidence base that I will focus my remarks. As has been discussed, clause 2 of the Bill is an attempt to replace facts with legally binding fiction. The Bill might be said to legislate for a lie—to make something that is not true on the evidence we have seen true in the eyes of the legal establishment. It was Orwell who wrote:
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it…the very existence of external reality…was tacitly denied by their philosophy.”
We are in that situation now: “Forget the evidence to the contrary. Just take our word for it: this is fact.” Through new clause 6, we have an opportunity to ensure that if evidence of human rights abuses or the mistreatment of migrants were to emerge, there is a mechanism to suspend the Government’s alternative truth and make legal decisions in our courts on the basis of reality.
It is risible that this is even debatable. Given the security situation near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, which the Foreign Office, in its own international travel guidance today, says makes Rwanda “unstable”, is it not a sensible precaution to introduce a protection saying that if the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office were to advise against travel to Rwanda, the statement that Rwanda is a safe country for migrants should be suspended? Otherwise, we have a Bill that the Government seek to make into law that simply says that in perpetuity, no matter what, Rwanda is a safe country.
The 137 pages of the Home Office’s information note on human rights, which it published this week, make for interesting reading. I spent some time reading all 137 pages, and I encourage Members to do so, although I wonder how many have. In some ways, when I was reading it, I was surprised that the Government had actually put it on their website, given the litany of evidence it presents on why Rwanda cannot in all seriousness be declared a safe country. It details examples of the state prosecuting political opponents, deaths in police custody, unofficial detention facilities, police torture, ill treatment and torture in custody, the recruitment of child soldiers as recently as last year, and countless other breaches of human rights law. It also covers the questionable strength of Rwandan Government institutions to challenge those breaches, so I do wonder whether the Government have read their own evidence pack.
To add to that, this week the UNHCR has provided further evidence, updated just yesterday, that the UK-Rwanda scheme does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers. It states that the scheme is therefore
“not compatible with the international refugee law.”
It cites numerous concerns about fair and efficient procedures in Rwanda for handling asylum applications and the continued risks of refoulement, and it concludes that this
“undermines the universality of human rights, has implications for the rule of law both domestically and internationally, and sets an acutely troubling precedent.”
The evidence is clear on the Government’s own website that Rwanda cannot be defined as a safe country, but even if we were to accept that it is a safe country, surely new clause 6 gives scope in the future should circumstances change—even if it is the Government who decide that—to suspend the idea that it is a safe country and allow the courts to make their own decisions.
Although voting down this entire Bill on Third Reading is the right course of action, we should at least try to do what we can to make it slightly more sensible—to oppose some of the amendments tabled by Conservative Members that would take us even further towards breaching our international obligations, and to support amendments that seek to make it slightly more sensible. New clause 6 is a sensible amendment that I would encourage Members to vote for.
This Bill must be defeated and the policy it seeks to enact must be abandoned. It is hugely costly and it is ineffective. With the news this week that, as Members have said, five more people have been tragically killed in the freezing cold waters of the channel trying to make their way to this country, it is time to move beyond these gimmicks and the appeasement of the extremes in the Conservative party and to deliver some workable policies.
Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I rise to speak in support of the amendments standing in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who I believe has shown considerable political and personal courage during the course of this legislation to date.
I want to open my remarks by saying how strongly I believe in the principles of the Rwanda scheme. It is imperative that we break the business model of the people smugglers in a way that means the trade is not merely dented but ceases. We have heard platitudes, I fear, from Opposition Members about how if only we worked a bit more closely with the European law enforcement agencies, everything would resolve itself. Of course, would that that was so.
I can testify not only from my own time in Government but from having spoken to Ministers in the Home Office both currently and previously that a litany of work is under way to make sure that we bear down on this evil trade, and it has had some success. Crossings are down by approximately a third on their peak in 2022, and there has been enforcement action ranging from the French coast right through to dinghy sales in Bulgaria, which testifies to the fact that the UK is working at pace with our partner agencies to try to end these crossings. However, unless we address the root causes, we will always be left dealing with the consequences of the problem. That, I am afraid, is not acceptable to me and, much more importantly, it is not acceptable to my constituents or to the people of this country.
Just this weekend we had, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks) said, a tragic reminder of the human cost of allowing this trade to persist. Clearly it also has serious consequences for the United Kingdom. It makes a mockery of our border security and damages social cohesion. The accommodation costs alone of our asylum seeker population are somewhere in the region of £8 million a day, and that is before the through-life costs of these people being in this country. It also compromises our security, as the awful murder in Hartlepool a few months ago made clear. We do not know—we cannot know—who is coming into this country, and that is a serious and substantial risk that it is incumbent on us to acknowledge.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark alluded to, the test that faces us as legislators is simple: will this legislation work? It is not, “Is this legislation the strongest ever?”, although for the record it is, but it is still likely to prove insufficient. Still less is the test, “Is this as far as the Prime Minister is willing to go?” There is a crisis of faith in our politics. That boils down, as it has done for a number of years, spanning the Brexit debate and the causes of that, to whether we as Members of Parliament mean what we say. Is our word worth anything? Are we capable as a country of asserting our national sovereignty? Are we as a country capable of policing our borders?
I welcome the fact that the Government have decided that we now need to derogate from parts of the Human Rights Act 1998, which is welcome, brave and commendable. We now need to follow that logic to its conclusion. As amendment 10, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, sets out, we should set out clearly and unambiguously that this Act will have effect notwithstanding the Human Rights Act. We must also close the loopholes that regrettably remain in the legislation. We have proposals to do so, with an accompanying legal opinion from John Larkin KC, the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark set out eloquently a few hours ago, we must in particular strengthen provisions against individual claims, as opposed to the general principle of the safety of Rwanda. It is welcome that we are asserting that, but it will be critically undermined unless we can stop the profusion of individual claims that will materialise, not least with the help, I am afraid, of the creative legal fraternity, if we do not close off that route.
Contrary to what the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Roberts) said a few minutes ago, we are not excluding appeal rights entirely. If, for example, someone is seriously ill, they will not be eligible for removal to Rwanda under the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone. However, we must make it clear that we will not tolerate the abuses—and they are abuses—that we witness day in, day out under the current system.
We must also make clear in the Bill that rule 39 interim injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will not have automatic binding effect. That is something that I think many of us regarded as a settled issue. Anyone who watched the Prime Minister’s appearance on the Kuenssberg show on the BBC just 10 days ago will have seen that he was unable to offer that guarantee. He was unable to offer it in good conscience, because here we enter the contested territory of what the Attorney General is prepared to sign off and what the ministerial code will allow. That goes to show precisely why the issue is so pressing. If we do not assert it as a sovereign Parliament in the Bill, it is highly likely that the issue will rear its head again in the months ahead.
Failure to close the loopholes will mean that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark said, we will face pressing operational problems that will significantly impair, and perhaps totally frustrate, our ability to pursue what this side of the Committee wishes to deliver. Our court system will be overwhelmed, our detained estate for asylum seekers will be overwhelmed, and the public’s patience will be exhausted. We have marched the British public up this hill not once, but twice already and failed both times. This is our third attempt. The Government’s own estimate, as we know, is that as we stand today, the Bill’s best chance of success can be rated at around 50:50. That is simply not adequate.
Mr Roberts
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I am curious, and it is possibly my procedural unawareness that leads me to ask this question, but if this Bill is voted down tomorrow evening on Third Reading, is it not the case that we will not be able to bring anything else back within this Parliament, on the basis that we cannot ask the same question twice if it has already been negatived? He said that it is not an ideal Bill, it is flawed and its success is 50:50 at best, but if he votes it down, there is surely a zero per cent. chance of anything happening.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I remind Members that when intervening they should please look forward, so that their voice, mellifluous as it may be, can be picked up and the Hansard reporters can get the words down accurately.
Sir Simon Clarke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is possible to bring back a Bill on this issue, providing there is a substantial difference in what is brought forward from what we are debating. I would argue that a Bill that was not focused, as this one is, on the general safety of Rwanda, but on the wider enforceability of our immigration law could be brought forward in this Session.
It was a regrettable farce—I use the word advisedly—in the previous Parliament of which I was a Member that the overt bias of the then Speaker, Mr Bercow, meant that we were frustrated when we attempted to deal with this issue in the context of Brexit. If the Government do not support amendments to the Bill—I hope they will—I do not anticipate that situation arising in what would be the happy event of their coming forward with a new Bill that goes further on these points so that they can command the support of the whole of the Conservative party.
Sir Simon Clarke
I will not give way further on this point. We are clearly keen as a Conservative party to deliver on this problem in a way that will satisfy the British public.
The Prime Minister has said that he will do “whatever it takes”. Unfortunately, I do not believe that, as of this moment, we are set to do whatever it takes to stop the problem. I can vote for this legislation only if I believe genuinely and sincerely that it will resolve the problem and I can look my constituents—the people who send me here—in the eye and say, “This is going to fix it”, because I have done so twice before and let them down. I urge my colleagues to reflect carefully on that.
The Prime Minister has confirmed that the general election is likely to be held in the latter half of this year. I am afraid that, by that time, there will have been contact between this Bill and the reality of our court system, and I do not think the outcome will be a pretty one. There will have been time for it to be tested and, I fear, for it to fail. At best, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark observed, we are likely to see a few token flights setting off—not the automatic deterrent that will be required to change the incentives. The expectation for a young male who is in essence an economic migrant in all but name seeking a better life in the UK needs to be that he will be detained and removed. That, and that alone, is what will change the incentives driving this trade. That is not what is set to be delivered by the Bill.
In the absence of amendments being brought forward and supported by the Government, I will not be able to support the Bill. More than that, I will vote against it on Third Reading. I say that with real sadness but with total determination that we as a Conservative party should show that we are honest with the British people about the nature of the crisis we face, and that we are determined to do everything in our power to resolve it. Short of that, this legislation cannot have my support.
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)
I rise to speak to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). Those of us in this place who are not learned Members have had interesting conversations in the past weeks and months with learned colleagues on both sides of the argument on the Bill. Some want it toughened and some want it slightly softened, but all of us are united in wanting a Bill that works and allows the Prime Minister to deliver on his promise.
I absolutely trust the Prime Minister’s commitment to ensuring that we can stop the boats. I believe that the Rwanda policy can be a deterrent to people. If their expectation is that they will not succeed and they do not have a right to remain in the United Kingdom, they will not pay their money to a person who promises they can succeed. I am grateful to my learned colleagues for putting forward their opinions. If that has shown me anything, it is that lawyers like to talk and argue, and it is in their interests to do so, so we cannot pass a Bill that enables lawyers to bat cases around indefinitely and allow appeals to be lodged—enough to make the policy ineffective.
My constituents find it ludicrous that they elect Members to come to this place and act in their interests, yet we do not seem to be able to do that. I think the small boats trade is raised with me on the doorstep more than any other issue. It is an evil practice on so many levels. These are people making money from others’ misery, and they are putting lives at risk. As I have said before, it is perverse, because a fair and just asylum system should not be reliant on a person’s ability to scramble thousands of miles—across a continent—and to pay people smugglers. It is absurd to any rational person.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Lady says that the asylum system has limitations, but does she accept that the only way legally to claim asylum in the United Kingdom is to put feet on these shores? There is no asylum visa, and the Government have not proposed any new safe and legal routes to allow people to come here.
Jane Stevenson
Another absurdity that my constituents raise with me is that Opposition parties seem to speak for the rights and interests of 8 billion in the world above the rights of the people who elect us to serve here. I invite the hon. Lady to intervene again, because I do not ever hear a sensible limit. I will come to international development later in my remarks, but undoubtedly, many more people would have the right under the current framework to claim asylum here than we could ever possibly hope to accept into the United Kingdom. Does she have a number that she thinks would be acceptable? At what point is this argument exhausted?
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Lady’s point is quite absurd. Nobody is saying, realistically, that 8 billion people are coming to the UK. The vast majority of people who flee their countries stay in a neighbouring country. They do not go any further because they want to return home. The UK takes a very small percentage of that number, and those who come often do so to reunite with family and for safety, because there are people already here who can look after them and support them.
Jane Stevenson
I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady. Scotland does not have the same issues as many English places, and I do not think that Scotland has taken its fair share of asylum seekers in recent months. Globally, we need to look at a bigger reality. Our responsibility in this place is to look forward. The Rwanda Bill will be a deterrent. If it succeeds, it will put people off making those perilous journeys and break the evil, perverse model of people smuggling.
We need to look at the wider framework as well. I had an interesting visit to Washington last year, when I met many people, including from the Word Bank. If anyone has not read its report last year on global migration trends that it anticipates over the coming decades, I invite them to read it. We also met the United States Agency for International Development. My profound belief is that the answer for the world is not to empty the less affluent bits into the stable, affluent bits. Mathematically, if nothing else, that cannot work.
Now is the moment for us to consider a much wider picture and to question the whole framework, much of it devised for a European issue 70 years ago. We live in a very different world. Twenty years ago, information was not available to people living in developing countries. The internet was not there. They had no idea how to get from point A to point B, who to pay, what to say and what to expect when they arrive. We are living in a totally different world. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to dealing with that. In December, he spoke to the Fratelli d’Italia conference in Rome, where he was quite clear, on breaking the business model of the criminal gangs, that
“if that requires us to update our laws and lead an international conversation to amend post-war frameworks around asylum, then we must do that. Because if we don’t fix this problem now, the boats will keep coming and more lives will be lost at sea.”
I wholeheartedly agree.
I am well known in Wolverhampton for telling my Labour council to get a move on, and on this issue I turn my fire, briefly and in a friendly way, on the Prime Minister. He should get a move on. He should be leading that global conversation. It is one that so many countries are ready to have. The United States is ready to have it, and most European countries are looking to our policy to see if it will work, They accept the mathematical and social reality, and that is what our constituents want.
I will conclude, as I do not wish to speak at great length. I thank all colleagues who are trying to strengthen the Bill. I want it to be as robust as possible, because we need it to be fit for the crisis we face. It is a crisis and my constituents certainly want to see results, so I will support the amendments. I also want to put on record my wholehearted thanks to the Prime Minister for his determination to sort this issue out.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
After Miriam Cates, Matt Warman will be the last Back-Bench speaker. The wind-ups will begin after he sits down.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson). She made a fantastic speech and got to grips with the heart of the issue.
I rise to speak in support of the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). In particular, I want to speak to amendments 19 to 22 to clause 4, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark. Taken together, they will prevent individual migrants blocking their removal to Rwanda by using the UK courts to make claims over months and even years. The Bill already blocks claims relating to the general safety of Rwanda in particular, but it does not stop individual challenges like those that stopped the flight in June 2022, which ended up with the case that went to the Supreme Court last year.
As drafted, the Bill states that for an individual to avoid deportation, there must be compelling evidence that they would come to serious and irreversible harm if deported to Rwanda. That sounds like a very high bar, but in reality all that would be required is a doctor’s certificate certifying mental health problems if they were taken to Rwanda. Indeed, that is what happened in June 2022 to a couple of dozen people sitting on the flight on the tarmac. Nothing in the Bill materially changes that fact in terms of individual claims.
Even if claims are eventually not accepted, they still clog up the courts. They can still end up on appeal and, as we have heard, that can be for a matter of years. The Government said last night that they will increase, I think by about 150, the number of judges on the tribunals. All that shows is that the Government expect a large number of individual claims. If the Bill, as drafted, blocks individual claims as the Government suggest, why would they need additional judges to move through the courts? The questions raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke), about where the judges would come from and what impact that would have on our wider courts system, are very valid.
If individual claims clog up the courts for months or even years, then even if they are not ultimately successful they will automatically weaken the deterrent effect of the Bill. The whole purpose of the Rwanda plan is to be a deterrent, and deterrents only work if the same action is always followed by a consistent response. It is the same with the criminal justice system and the same with parenting. Effective deterrents are by definition fair, because they treat everybody equally. Some of those opposing the amendments are normally highly in favour of equality. The amendments make it equal: everybody who arrives here illegally will be detained and deported. That is how we create an effective deterrent.
I readily admit that the Government have made progress and I warmly welcome all the progress that has been made: the deal with Albania, the upstream work with Bulgaria, and the attempts to help the French prevent more boats from launching in the first place. But to actually stop the boats, which is the Prime Minister’s pledge and the pledge we as a party have made to our constituents, migrants in Calais and the international criminal gangs must know beyond doubt that anyone arriving illegally in the UK will swiftly be detained and deported.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East is absolutely right; criminal gangs and migrants have smartphones. They can tell instantly which routes are available, where the boats are, how much they have to pay, what different countries’ asylum systems look like and what different countries’ benefit systems look like. They have an instant trade in information. A deterrent can only work if everyone knows beyond doubt that that is exactly what will happen to everyone who lands on our shores.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend for all the work that she has been doing in this regard. Does she agree that the reason we need to strengthen these clauses—this is why I will support the amendments—is that the whole purpose of the majority of people who come here illegally is to claim asylum in order to prevent the possibility of deportation? The Home Office’s own figures show that when that process has happened, 70% of those people abscond. We need to stop that now.
Miriam Cates
I entirely agree. The problem is that Britain has become known as a soft touch, partly because of the delays in our courts, partly because of the generosity that has led to the housing of migrants in hotels, and partly because our acceptance rate is very high compared with those in other countries. If the Bill is to serve as an effective deterrent, we must remove the limitations of the current scheme by ensuring that everyone who arrives here illegally is swiftly detained and then deported.
The amendments argue that individual migrants should not be able to make suspensive claims—they should not be able, in British courts, to claim against deportation—but should retain those rights when they arrive in Rwanda. We are not talking about removing those individual rights to claim asylum, or even to be sent back to the UK in some circumstances. However, it is essential for that process to happen offshore, in the third country of Rwanda, because it is the deportation that is the deterrent. That is why the amendments are so necessary for all individuals, except those who are unfit to fly or in respect of whom obvious mistakes have been made. Of course they should not be put on planes to Rwanda, but the amendments would make it consistent for all others to be sent there.
As I have said, the point of this is a deterrent, but there is strong opposition to the amendments—on the Opposition Benches, obviously, but also among many on these Benches. Let me draw their attention to a poll published last night in The Telegraph, which showed that in nearly every constituency swift detention and deportation is the most popular way of dealing with illegal immigration. It is the preferred option for a large proportion of the general public. While various interpretations of international law and its application may be strongly contested in Westminster, as we have heard today, the need for secure borders is not a contested idea in the country as a whole.
The British people are generous and compassionate. They support managed schemes to welcome refugees, as we have seen over the past few years. However, when they see tens of thousands of mostly able-bodied young men coming from France, which is a safe country, taking physical risks to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane in dinghies, and then being housed in hotels at great expense to taxpayers—and when they see some of those people absconding and some committing horrific crimes, and then hear Westminster commentators saying that because of international conventions we cannot deport them—they ask, “Are you serious?” Are we, indeed, serious in saying that we cannot do that?
Most ordinary people in this country do not lie awake at night worrying about our standing among elite international lawyers. They lie awake at night worrying about security, crime and the cost of housing, all the issues that are made significantly worse by the abuse of our asylum and immigration system—because, without doubt, our system is being abused, and will continue to be abused unless the Bill is strengthened to limit those suspensive claims so that all the people arriving on our shores illegally are treated in the same way, and are detained and deported.
The fact is that weaknesses are always exploited. That is a sad fact of history and human nature, and those who do not believe it are, I am afraid, naive. We must deal with the reality. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) put it very well: many of us would behave in exactly the same way in these circumstances, if we saw what was available in the UK and compared it to a life in another country, and if we knew that it was easy to come here, tie up the courts for a long time and, potentially, abscond. Many would do the same, because that is human nature. The reality is what we have to deal with.
This is a matter of responsibility. The responsibility of the British Government is the safety and welfare of the British people. It is not our responsibility to rehouse everybody in the world who would like to leave their own country and come to ours. We can absolutely sympathise with their plight as individuals, but it is simply unrealistic to say that the UK has a responsibility to any asylum seeker anywhere in the world who would like to come here. We have a responsibility for our constituents; other Governments have a responsibility for theirs. If they are not engaging with that responsibility correctly, that is not our fault.
Jane Stevenson
Would my hon. Friend agree that a focus on foreign aid and a united effort—[Interruption.] I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for shouting at me. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be a united focus on helping safe developing countries to benefit from giving these people asylum? They could make good lives there, with education and good prospects for their children. That is the way forward rather than this mass influx into the UK.
Miriam Cates
I agree with my hon. Friend, who of course is right. One of the many solutions to this problem is to improve conditions in some of the countries from which people are fleeing, but we also have to be realistic. We cannot solve all the problems in the world. We are speaking about illegal migration, but there are also ethical issues with legal migration. Taking large numbers of well-trained, well-educated young people from developing countries into our NHS and our workforce is not helping the countries that they are leaving. The ethics of the whole immigration debate need careful scrutiny in both directions.
I shall come back to my point. Yes, we should be compassionate and yes, we need well-managed schemes for taking refugees, but it is not the responsibility of the British Government to rehouse everybody in the world who would like to come here. That does not mean that we do not have sympathy for the plight of individuals, but the definition of responsibility and accountability matters, and our responsibility is first and foremost to our constituents and the welfare of those in the UK.
I support these amendments and I will be voting for them tonight because the Bill must work. It must work to provide an effective deterrent; it must work to secure our borders; it must work to prevent people smuggling; and it must work to show the British people that their elected representatives really do take their concerns seriously.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
After Matt Warman we will have the ministerial response, then Alison Thewliss will make references to her amendment, and then we are expecting multiple votes.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I want to begin by talking about the remarkable contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), to whose amendment I wish to speak. In a constituency such as mine, which voted overwhelmingly for Brexit, the work that he has done over many decades is appreciated, and it is something that has served the national interest, so I am somewhat nervous about criticising amendment 10. None the less, I know that he and I, more than anything else, can disagree courteously, which is perhaps more than I and many others have managed with some Brexiteers who have perhaps got too much credit for a project that has now run its course.
I could talk a little about why I worry that a Bill that is already judged to have a 50:50 chance of success could, in the pursuit of toughening it up, be driven to having a far lesser chance of success. The people who say that they want it to work, and to work quickly, in fact run the risk of driving it into the courts, seeing it fail and seeing us as a party take less of the action that is so clearly in the national interest.
Sir William Cash
Having looked at my amendment carefully, has my hon. Friend observed that the only way to guarantee that this Bill will be satisfactorily regarded by the courts is if the sovereignty of an Act of Parliament is combined with clear, unambiguous words that improve the Bill? That does not mean that it will not go through; it means that it will go through and the courts will accept it.
Matt Warman
I would agree with my hon. Friend that the Bill could go through, but that does not guarantee legal success, as he knows. He is right to say that there is a respectable legal argument to be made for it, but a respectable legal argument does not guarantee success. I want, not least because of the poll that he and others have cited, to see us taking clear and effective action on this. To be successful, that clear and effective action must be able to survive the potential legal challenges. I argue in favour of the tightrope on which the Government are walking not because I lack conviction but because I want to see action as quickly as possible on an issue that, I hear from my constituents day in, day out, has a clear and real impact on their lives.
Only yesterday, the Home Office announced that it is closing another two hotels in my constituency that are being used to house asylum seekers. The global migration crisis is on the doorstep of constituents in Boston and Skegness, which is why we must tackle it effectively. I will take no lectures from anyone in this Committee on my personal commitment to tackling this issue, and I want the Government to stay on the tightrope and to get on with addressing this vital matter.
Sir William Cash
I hope my hon. Friend noticed that I said that changes to the European Union’s charter of fundamental rights and the European Court of Human Rights will ultimately lead to constitutional referenda and amendments, which would not only take a long time but might be impossible.
Matt Warman
I fear that some of what my hon. Friend says is correct, but it is also true that we lessen our ability to make that case, on our own behalf and in the global interest, if we step back. I want to see Britain leading that conversation and taking its place at the table. If we can do that, we will be able to construct a global system today, just as we did 70 years ago. It worked then, and we need a system that works now.
The more we send a signal that says Britain is stepping back, the less we have the right to make the case, and making that case is surely in the interest of all our constituents. My hon. Friend is right that it will take a long time, but he surely has to acknowledge that we must have that long-term view, because this global migration crisis will be with us for decades. If we step back, we will have less right to influence that conversation.
Lia Nici
I thank my hon. Friend and near constituency neighbour for giving way. I am sure his constituents are in the same frame of mind as mine on how illegal migration is having a detrimental effect on our communities. Does he agree that that is why it is so important for us to be able to have these wider discussions, and for the Government to take our amendments seriously? It is only by having robust discussions on the options and amendments that we want the Government to consider that, internationally, we can get to the place he talks about.
Matt Warman
I agree up to a point, but the Government can go only so far before they lessen their chances of getting the Bill through successfully in terms of potential future legal challenges. This is about the practicality of delivering a Bill and about Britain’s place on the world stage, which should allow us to continue to play a leading role in reforming those vital conventions and international agreements.
Does the Bill work? Does it go as far as it can without fundamentally jeopardising its chance of legal success? Yes, it does. It walks a tightrope. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) says that there is legal advice supporting his position, and I would like to see it, as I am sure the Government would. However, that practical issue of whether the Bill can work is a tightrope that the Government have to judge. I accept that the Bill goes as far as it can—for me, in some ways, it goes too far. Some Conservative Members have said that it goes too far for them but that they are prepared to support it because of the importance of the issue.
Beyond that, we need to address Britain’s place in the world and our role: our ability to help shape a new set of conventions that work not just for us or for countries that share our values and share this problem, but for the countries that people are fleeing from. We have an opportunity to reform that global system and we lessen our ability to do so if we say that we are able to stand apart from its rules. That is a balance we can strike, and if we are optimistic about Britain’s future place in the world, we should be saying that we stay at that table, not that we resile from it. That is why I will support the Government in seeking to rebuff the amendments and to get on with addressing this vital issue, because it will establish Britain as a country that is committed to those commitments that we made some time ago and helped to draw up. It will also demonstrate that we are committed to going as far as possible in pursuit of challenging a vital issue that affects all our constituents. I look forward to the Government’s winning the vote this evening.
The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)
What a great pleasure it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman). I believe it is the second time I have done so on this Bill, and I will try to emulate his courteous exchanges with colleagues. I enjoyed his exchanges with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and with his near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), because it is with such courtesy that we can still have a robust discussion about this vital issue. We have had a wide-ranging debate and I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions.
As the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) had the lead amendment, I start by making some overarching remarks in response to her amendments. This House has a fundamental choice: we can legislate, as the Government propose, to end the perilous journeys being made across the channel, by enabling Parliament to confirm that, in the light of the treaty that the Home Secretary signed on 5 December and of the updated evidence, the Republic of Rwanda is a safe third country, or we can put into statute a scheme that is riven with holes by amendments tabled by right hon. and hon. Opposition Members that make the Bill simply unworkable.
The new legally binding treaty with the Government of the Republic of Rwanda does respond to the concerns set out by the Supreme Court. It also reflects the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments, both to this scheme and to the rule of law—I will return to that point later in my speech. Let there be no doubt that our Government are focused and determined to stop the boats. We have made progress, but we must be enabled to finish the job.
Clause 2 creates a conclusive presumption that the Secretary of State, immigration officers, and courts and tribunals must start from the basis that Rwanda is safe. It is right to say that it will not send someone to another country in breach of the refugee convention. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Rwanda policy recognised that changes could be delivered in the future that could address the conclusions they came to, and we have been working closely with Rwanda to address those issues. When considered together, the treaty and the evidence of the changes in Rwanda since the summer of 2022—I will come back to that evidence in relation to points picked up by right hon. and hon. Members during the debate—mean that we can confidently conclude that Rwanda is a safe country.
Patrick Grady
If Rwanda is a safe and secure place in which asylum seekers can live comfortable and productive lives, why should the prospect of being sent there be a deterrent?
Michael Tomlinson
The deterrent is because they are seeking to come to this country and not Rwanda. I hope the hon. Gentleman listens to the evidence that I am about to set out. He has sat through a fair amount of the debate and I always enjoy taking interventions from him, so I encourage him to consider the evidence as I progress with my remarks.
Sir William Cash
As he heard, I made reference to the Rwanda judgment and the case of ASM, whose claim was dismissed because of the sovereignty of Parliament in the context of immigration laws that were revoked under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. That is a perfect example of what the courts will do under paragraph 144 of the judgment. Does he accept that it is the sovereignty of Parliament that led the Court to make that decision, as it itself stated?
Michael Tomlinson
As my hon. Friend knows, he and I agree on a great deal and I have paragraph 144 engraved on my heart. We have had a number of exchanges about that paragraph, and it is clear that the Court will not disregard an unambiguous expression of Parliament’s intention, as set out in paragraph 144. I will come back to the comments made by my hon. Friend a little later in my speech.
Since the evidential position considered by the courts in summer 2022, there have been further specific information, evidence and assurances from the Government of Rwanda that explicitly address the challenges raised by the claimants and the UNHCR in the litigation, and the findings of the Supreme Court, following its judgment in November. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) mentioned the evidence and the importance of looking at it, so it is worth setting out some of that here, at least in outline.
First, let me set out the headlines from the world rankings. The World Economic Forum global gender gap report ranked Rwanda 12th in the world for gender parity. Interestingly, it ranked the UK 15th. Secondly, Rwanda’s overall score in the World Justice Project’s rule of law has increased consistently from 2019 and 2023, and Rwanda ranked first in its region and 41st out of 142 globally. I will come back to that important point and provide more detail. The World Bank scored Rwanda 16 out of a maximum score of 18. That is just some of the evidence.
The Government published a policy note on the date of Second Reading and it has been updated this month. There are country information notes on Rwanda’s human rights and asylum system, and on the evidence provided by the Government of Rwanda and the UNHCR. A lot of that evidence is substantial and helpful, but we have not cherry picked evidence, unlike some Members. Other material has also been published. It is worth considering that evidence because that is what has changed since summer 2022.
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend might have been a touch facetious in her intervention—she herself said it, otherwise I would not have dared to say it—but I understand what she says. Suffice to say, we are confident in the safety of Rwanda and the aim of the Bill is to prevent domestic courts and tribunals from considering claims that relate to the general safety of Rwanda, hence clause 2 and the points raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon about the evidence, the treaty and the fundamentally changed situation.
Let me turn to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central and her amendments. She is right that the amendments seek to undermine the core objectives of the Bill.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Lady has been straightforward about that; she is nodding. We are agreeing yet again during the course of these exchanges. It will do nothing for her street credibility in her constituency, but we are agreeing at least on that point. Her amendments would undermine the provisions aimed at narrowing the grounds on which people can challenge their removal to Rwanda in courts or tribunals.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
On India, Jagtar Singh Johal has now been detained for over six years. Is the Minister saying that India is a safe country for every UK national?
Michael Tomlinson
No, I am saying that this House passed legislation last night stating that India is generally a safe country for the purposes set out in the legislation. I point out—I am grateful to him and other hon. Members who are listening—that India happens to be 79th in the global rankings. Vietnam, where we regularly return citizens to, is 87th. Albania, which we have mentioned and I will come back to, is 91st, and Rwanda is 41st on that list. It is marginally lower down the rankings than Poland, comparable to Romania and higher than Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary and all these other countries that are safe, strong international partners of this country. That is the evidence that has been published and that is before the House, and that evidence shows compellingly that Rwanda is a safe country.
I turn to amendments 19, 20, 21 and 22 and amendment 10. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for his engagement and remarks—he is absolutely right. He set out the moral imperative that we need to act and limit individual claims, and I agree that we need to focus on what works.
As I said earlier, I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said. He is right about dualism and sovereignty. We may, indeed, debate sovereignty again tomorrow when we come to clause 1. There is a lovely accord between him and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon on the very point of sovereignty, and doubtless we will debate that again. Where I respectfully disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone is in his assessment of whether the Bill will work. As drafted, this legislation is clear and unambiguous. Parliament is setting out the law clearly and it will work.
Sir William Cash
I merely repeat the point that parliamentary sovereignty has to be combined with clear and unambiguous words. The word “notwithstanding” is hallowed; it is in the withdrawal agreement of 2020 and it makes the wording absolutely clear. Otherwise it is not clear and the courts could rule against us—as they did, conversely, on the Rwanda judgment, where they agreed that clear and unambiguous words are necessary and essential with regard to claims under matters relating to this Bill.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful for the intervention, and I agree with my hon. Friend: he is absolutely right about clear and unambiguous language. However, clause 2 as drafted is clear and unambiguous; if I may say so, it is simply a different way of saying the same thing. Either we have a deeming clause that deems Rwanda to be safe, or a notwithstanding clause. Clause 2 has the joy of both a deeming clause and a notwithstanding clause. It is clear, it is unambiguous and the courts will follow it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke) passionately believes that this is the right policy, and I agree with that. He mentioned that it is important to tackle the root causes and that we must not allow this evil trade to persist, and I agree with him entirely. He asked about the courts and the tribunals, as did the Chair of the Select Committee—the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson)—and my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). A written ministerial statement was laid earlier today, and I encourage my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland to consider the detail of it. He is right that more judges are being recruited.
It is important to say that deployment of the judiciary is of course a question for the independent judiciary—that is absolutely right—but more are being identified and trained, and I encourage my right hon. Friend and other right hon. and hon. Members who mentioned that to look out for the Lord Chancellor’s written ministerial statement, published today.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Will the Minister clarify whether, if the Government can, as reported in The Times and The Daily Telegraph, find as many as 150 extra judges, we could perhaps divert that judicial capacity to prosecute some alleged rapists and murderers here in the United Kingdom? Will he clarify and exemplify what he means and whether those reports are true?
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend is right and I sense, understand and share her passion for resolving the issues in relation not only to the tribunals but to the courts. I know her background and passion for ensuring that the backlog in the court system is dealt with, and she knows my position on that as well. I encourage her to look at the detail that the Lord Chancellor set out in the written ministerial statement. It is right to say that it is in response to the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) took through the House, and it is right to say that it is there to ensure capacity in our tribunal system. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines)—there was an exchange on this in the debate—that we must ensure that that capacity is there in our court system as well.
Mr Roberts
Before the Minister moves on from the contribution of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke), I intervened in his speech to say that my opinion was that if the Bill was voted down tomorrow on Third Reading, no similar Bill could be brought back because it would be an issue the House had already dealt with. The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland was of the opinion that a substantially different Bill could be brought back. The problem is that if the House declines all the amendments, as it is entirely likely to do, presumably any future Bill that was brought back would include all those amendments. Therefore, as the House will have substantially dealt with all those issues, if the Bill is voted down tomorrow, it will not be able to come back in any form.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate my determination to get the Bill through. I am the Minister for this Bill, and I am determined to get it through today, tomorrow and at its further stage.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) for her constructive speech and the constructive tone that she adopted during the debate. She is right: we are united in wanting to make the scheme work. I am very grateful to her for mentioning the Prime Minister’s words in Italy, which bear repetition. He said rightly:
“If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow…If that requires us to update our laws and lead an international conversation to amend the post-war frameworks around asylum, then we must do that. Because if we don’t fix this problem now, the boats will keep coming”.
My hon. Friend was right to echo those words, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to re-emphasise them now.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It has been explained that the grounds for individual appeals are exceptionally narrow, so why are 150 judges needed?
Michael Tomlinson
As I said in response to a previous intervention, they are being stood up in relation to the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which was taken through by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, in anticipation of the work that will need to be done—that is sensible governance, dare I say it. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) is right to take me back to individual claims, which I will now turn to in the few minutes I have left.
The legislation provides that a court may grant interim relief only where there is
“a real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm”.
There must be credible evidence of that; there cannot simply be a bare assertion. Clause 4(5) cites the Illegal Migration Act, which my right hon. Friends took through last summer. It is worth pointing out that section 39 of that Act sets out an extremely narrow range of circumstances in which an individual claim can be made. I encourage right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to look at section 39 of that Act and just how high the threshold for serious and irreversible harm is set.
Let me turn briefly to new clause 6, which was tabled by Opposition Members. I was intrigued to hear the shadow Minister state that the purpose of the new clause is to invite further legal challenge. That seems to be Labour’s plan—to invite further legal challenge. That is the purpose of new clause 6, and it is the exact opposite of the purpose of Conservative Members. We want this to work.
Stephen Kinnock
The Minister is simply misrepresenting the purpose of new clause 6. Its purpose is to put the monitoring committee on a statutory footing so that it can potentially be subject to our domestic courts. I do not know whether he thinks that our domestic courts should be lower down the pecking order than the courts of Rwanda.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his intervention. When he was setting the policy out in his opening remarks, he said that it would invite further legal challenges. Those of us on the Conservative Benches want to shut out legal challenges; those on the Opposition Benches want to encourage further legal challenges.
The Government have delivered a plan for immigration that will work. It builds upon the excellent work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel)—the champion of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022—and of my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham, who worked incredibly hard to deliver the long-awaited Illegal Migration Act, the toughest piece of immigration legislation until the Bill before us.
Just look at Albania. Our successful deal with Albania, which started with small numbers, has now removed nearly 6,000 people with no right to be here. We know that deterrence has worked because small boat arrivals from Albania are down by 94%. Legal challenges have not successfully stopped the flights to Albania. Those flights have not been stopped; in fact, not a single case of Albanian small boat arrivals has reached a substantive hearing at the upper tribunal in the past year.
We on the Conservative side of the Committee are united in our determination to ensure that the Bill works. As drafted, it creates an ever-tighter test than for illegal migrants facing removals to Albania. Our Rwanda Bill is tougher, tighter and goes further. We have a plan to stop the boats, and I invite hon. Members to back it.
Alison Thewliss
What a despondent, pathetic, ridiculous Bill this has been, and what a grim debate it has been to listen to. We have heard a wide range of speeches, most of which, I am afraid to say—I am putting it politely—were absolute guff. The UK is not looking to accommodate 8 billion people—of course it is not. Most people in small boats are not economic migrants; we know that, because the Home Office grants them asylum.
The only Member, I believe, who mentioned the people whom this Bill will affect was my friend the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), who talked about the impact it will have on real people, on their lives and their futures. As far as I can establish, not one of the Conservative Members has ever met or spoken to an asylum seeker, or has any conception of the struggles they have been through, because they were not able to cite a single one sitting opposite them in their surgeries. Asylum seekers have done them no personal harm, yet they seek to ruin their lives. To make it light for a second, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), who ended up being crocked at the refugee football tournament he played in, does not bear any ill will towards the asylum seekers who played in that game. I think he mostly bears ill will towards me for forcing him to play in it, not the asylum seekers and refugees whose silky skills outclassed us on the football pitch. I encourage Members who want to learn a little bit more to sign up for the refugee football tournament, which will be coming up before we know it.
The UNHCR does not buy the Government’s assurances. It has been very clear that nothing that has been said or done has changed the situation. The UNHCR says that the Rwanda partnership treaty is not compatible with international refugee law, and that we cannot declare Rwanda a safe country in perpetuity. I do not believe that we should be declaring any country a safe country in perpetuity, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) said in relation to India, where Jagtar Singh Johal is still being held in arbitrary detention with no effort from this Government to see justice done for him.
This scheme fails in many respects. It is an affront to human rights, to the dignity of individuals and human beings, and to the international obligations that this Government have claimed they hold dear—they ask other countries to abide by international conventions and rules, yet undermine those rules when it suits them. There is a practicality issue as well. The Independent has just published some figures that the Committee may find interesting. Over the past five years, Rwanda has assessed only 421 asylum cases in total, and has refused two thirds of those cases. Many of those people are from Afghanistan and Syria, and have an indisputable case for their asylum claim to be heard. We know that Rwanda has form in not upholding its obligations: when it had a deal with Israel, it did not uphold those obligations, and nobody has given any evidence that anything has changed since the Supreme Court’s ruling on this issue last year.
Turning to the issue of deterrence, which many Conservative Members have mentioned, 70,000 people have crossed the channel since the Rwanda deal was signed. If that deal were any kind of deterrent, it would have had some kind of effect, would it not? That has not happened, and in any event, this Government seek to remove to Rwanda only a couple of hundred people out of that 70,000. They are absolutely incompetent in bringing this Bill before us today. It is a toxic distraction from a failing Home Office and a failing Government. They should do the work, process the cases, and give refugees and asylum seekers the dignity and safety that they so richly deserve.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Wednesday 17th January 2024
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 17 January 2024 - (17 Jan 2024)
18:54 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 339 / Noes: 264 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:08 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 65 / Noes: 536 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:24 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 340 / Noes: 263 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:38 - divided: - Ayes: 263 / Noes: 339 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:50 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 340 / Noes: 264 - Question accordingly agreed to.
20:02 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 264 / Noes: 338 - Question accordingly negatived.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind Members that in Committee they should not address the Chair as Deputy Speaker. Please use our names when addressing the Chair. Madam Chair, Chair, Madam Chairman or Mr Chairman are also acceptable.
Clause 3
Disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 11, page 3, line 21, after “Act” insert
“, and of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 insofar as they relate to the removal of persons to Rwanda”.
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 12, page 3, line 22, after “disapplied” insert
“, in relation to both of those Acts in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda”.
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
Amendment 13, page 3, line 25, after “legislation),” insert—
“(ba) sections 4 (declaration of incompatibility) and 10 (power to take remedial action),”
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
Amendment 14, page 3, line 27, leave out from “apply” to end of line 29 and insert
“in relation into provision made by or by virtue of this Act, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Immigration Acts in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda”.
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
Amendment 15, page 3, line 30, at end insert
“, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 or the Immigration Acts”.
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
Amendment 16, page 3, line 30, at end insert—
“(4A) Sections 4 and 10 do not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, or the Immigration Acts.”.
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
Amendment 17, page 3, line 32, leave out paragraphs (a) to (c) and insert
“provision made in relation to the removal or proposed removal to Rwanda by or by virtue of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.”.
This amendment is intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA.
Amendment 18, page 4, line 6, at end insert—
“(5A) This section applies only in relation to the removal or proposed removal of a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.”.
This and other amendments to Clause 3 are intended to ensure that the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 are fully disapplied for both this Bill and for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to removals to Rwanda – including by ruling out the use of sections 4 and 10 of the HRA. The Immigration Acts are listed in section 61(4) of the UK Borders Act 2007, as amended.
Clause 3 stand part.
Amendment 7, in clause 5, page 5, line 12, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment would omit the provision that only a Minister of the Crown can decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with interim measures of the European Court of Human Rights.
Amendment 23, page 5, line 13, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2A) The interim measure is not binding on the United Kingdom, and will have no effect on any provision made by or by virtue of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and shall not prevent or delay the removal of a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.”.
This ensures that the default position is that Rule 39 indications are not treated as binding on the United Kingdom and will not prevent removals to Rwanda, but to provide an optional discretion to Ministers.
Amendment 8, page 5, line 15, leave out subsection (3).
This amendment would remove the requirement that a court or tribunal must not have regard to the interim measure when considering any application or appeal which relates to a decision to remove the person to the Republic of Rwanda.
Amendment 51, page 5, line 15, leave out “not”.
This amendment would require court or tribunal to have regard to an interim measure of the European Court of Human Rights.
Amendment 24, page 5, line 19, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
“(4A) A Minister of the Crown, acting in person, may (but need not) determine that the duty to remove in section 2(1) of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is not to apply in relation to a person to whom this section applies.”.
This amendment is linked to Amendment 23.
Amendment 52, page 5, line 22, leave out paragraph (b).
This amendment removes the definition in relation to Clause 5 of “Minister of the Crown” as a Minister of the Crown acting in person.
Amendment 38, page 5, line 23, after “person” insert
“in consultation with the Attorney General.”.
Explanatory note: This amendment ensures a Minister of the Crown making a decision on compliance with an interim injunction consults with the Attorney General.
Amendment 9, page 5, line 23, at end insert—
“(5) The Government must, within three months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay before Parliament a copy of a report setting out how this clause is compatible with Section 7A of the European Withdrawal Act and the UK’s obligations to citizens under the Good Friday Agreement.
(6) Within three sitting days of a report being laid under subsection (5) the Government must move in each House an amendable motion that that House has considered and approved the report which has been laid.
(7) Subsections (2) and (3) do not come into force until such as time as both Houses have passed motions under subsection (6) approving reports laid under subsection (5).”.
Amendment 25, page 5, line 23, at the end insert—
“(5) Section 55 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(6) In subsection (6) —
(a) omit “Where a Minister of the Crown does not make a determination under subsection (2)”, and
(b) after “applies” insert “in relation to the removal or proposed removal of a person to Rwanda”.
(7) For subsection (9) substitute —
“(9A) Where a Minister of the Crown has not made a determination under subsection (2) in relation to the removal or proposed removal of a person to Rwanda, section 4(2) of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 applies.”
(8) After subsection (10) insert—
“(11) Section 8(18) applies to any decisions made in connection with this section or section 5 of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024.””.
This amendment ensures that the default position is that Rule 39 indications are not treated as binding on the United Kingdom and will not prevent removals to Rwanda, but to provide an optional discretion to Ministers.
Clauses 5 and 6 stand part.
Amendment 58, in clause 7, page 6, leave out line 18 and insert—
““safe country”—
(a) means a country to which persons may be removed from the United Kingdom in compliance with all of the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law, and
(b) includes, in particular, a country—
(i) from which a person removed to that country will not be removed or sent to another country in contravention of any international law, and
(ii) in which any person who is seeking asylum or who has had an asylum determination will both have their claim determined and be treated in accordance with that country’s obligation under international law.”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of Clause 1 and restores to the Bill a different clarification of the meaning of “safe country” for the purposes of the Bill.
Clause 7 stand part.
Amendment 4, in clause 8, page 6, line 23, leave out “Scotland”.
The intention of this amendment is to prevent the Bill affecting the law in Scotland.
Amendment 5, page 6, line 25, after “within” insert “the rest of”.
The intention of this amendment is to ensure that any amendment made by any Act resulting from this Bill would affect only the rest of the UK, and not Scotland (see Amendment 4).
Amendment 32, page 6, line 25, leave out “the United Kingdom” and insert
“England and Wales and Northern Ireland.”.
This amendment is linked to Amendment 4 and is intended to remove the application of this Bill to Scotland.
Clause 8 stand part.
Amendment 53, in clause 9, page 6, line 38, leave out from “Act” to end of line 39 and insert
“shall only come into force only when each House of Parliament has come to Resolution on the following motion tabled by a Minister of the Crown: That the Agreement, done at Kigali on 5 December 2023, between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda for the Provision of an Asylum Partnership Agreement to Strengthen Shared International Commitments on the Protection of Refugees and Migrants (CP 994), a copy of which was laid before Parliament on 6 December 2023, should not be ratified.”.
This amendment aims to remove the treaty section from the bill and ensure there’s a separate debate on the matter.
Amendment 59, page 6, line 38, leave out from “force” to end of line 39 and insert
“on the day after the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a statement that the Monitoring Committee under Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty has been fully established (and see section (suspension of Act if Monitoring Committee not in operation))”.
This amendment makes commencement of the Act contingent on the establishment of the Monitoring Committee under Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty.
Amendment 33, page 6, line 39, after “force” insert
“in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland”.
This is a paving amendment for Amendment 34.
Amendment 36, page 6, line 39, after “force” insert
“, or the day on which a full economic impact assessment for the bill is published including any financial memorandum signed between Rwanda and the UK relating to the Rwanda Treaty, whichever is later”.
This amendment requires the publication of a full impact assessment on the costs involved in removals to Rwanda under the bill, including per-person removal costs and the confidential financial memorandum signed between the two countries, in advance of the Bill entering into force.
Amendment 34, page 6, line 39, at end insert—
“(1A) This Act comes into force in Scotland on the day after the Scottish parliament grants its legislative consent to this Act.”.
This amendment would prevent the Bill coming into effect in Scotland until after it had been agreed to by the Scottish Parliament.
Clauses 9 and 10 stand part.
New clause 2—Monitoring and enforcement of conditions (No. 2)—
“(1) If the conditions of subsection (2) are met, then no provision of this Act shall have effect until such as time as each House of Parliament has passed a motion agreeing that the Act remain in effect.
(2) The conditions of this subsection are that the Monitoring Committee has—
(a) published a report noting that any provision of the UK-Rwanda treaty is not being adhered to by either party,
(b) published a report noting that the conditions under which asylum seekers are being held in Rwanda are materially different to those in place at the point where the UK-Rwanda treaty was signed, or
(c) published a report in the last six months confirming that neither (2)(a) or (2)(b) have in their view been necessary.
(3) For the purposes of this section, the Monitoring Committee refers to the Committee established by Article 15 of the UK-Rwanda treaty: provision of an asylum partnership.”.
New clause 3—Effect in Northern Ireland—
“The provisions of this Act shall have effect in Northern Ireland, notwithstanding Section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.”
New clause 4—Court of Session—
“Notwithstanding anything in this Act the supervisory jurisdiction and the nobile officium of the Court of Session are preserved.”
New clause 5—Monitoring Committee—
“(1) A Monitoring Committee overseeing removals to Rwanda must be established and maintained in accordance with Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty.
(2) The Monitoring Committee must report to Parliament every 90 days from when it is first established to confirm that the obligations set out in the Rwanda Treaty are being complied with.
(3) If a report made under subsection (2) either (a) is not received within a 90-day period or (b) does not confirm that the relevant obligations are being complied with, the provisions of this Act relating to the removal of persons to Rwanda do not apply.
(4) Reports made under subsection (2) may be taken into consideration in proceedings of any court or tribunal.”
This new clause places the Monitoring Committee for the Rwanda Treaty on a statutory basis, requires regular reporting to Parliament, and ensures that their findings can be reviewed and can affect the operation of measures in the Act resulting from this Bill.
New clause 7—Reporting requirements—
“(1) Within 60 days of this Act receiving Royal Assent, and at every 90 days subsequently, the Secretary of State must provide a written report to Parliament setting out—
(a) the number of individuals relocated under the Rwanda Treaty,
(b) the current location and immigration status of any individuals relocated under the Rwanda Treaty, and
(c) the quarterly and total costs incurred to transfer individuals to Rwanda under the Rwanda Treaty, including processing costs.
(2) The Secretary of State must also notify Parliament within 10 days of any direct payments being made to the Republic of Rwanda under the terms of the Rwanda Treaty.”
This new clause requires the Secretary to report regularly to Parliament on the operation of the Rwanda Treaty, and to promptly notify Parliament of any payments made by the UK Government to the Republic of Rwanda under the terms of the Rwanda Treaty.
New clause 8—Return of individuals due to serious criminal offences—
“(1) A Minister of the Crown must lay a statement before Parliament within 40 days if both of the following conditions are met—
(a) the Secretary of State has approved a request from the Republic of Rwanda to return to the UK a person previously relocated under the terms of the Rwanda Treaty,
(b) the person specified in (a) had their permission to remain in the Republic of Rwanda revoked owing to the person’s participation in serious crime.
(2) If Parliament is notified of the conditions being met as set out in section (1),—
(a) a motion must be moved by a Minister of the Crown to be debated on the floor of the House of Commons, and
(b) the motion must require the House to—
(i) consider the statement laid before Parliament under section (1), and
(ii) consider whether or not as a result of the contents of the statement, there should be a suspension of the Rwanda Treaty.
(3) For the purposes of this section—
“the Rwanda Treaty” means the agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda for the provision of an asylum partnership to strengthen shared international commitments on the protection of refugees and migrants, signed at Kigali on 5 December 2023;
“Minister of the Crown” has the same meaning as in the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975.”.
New clause 9—Removals to Rwanda under the Illegal Migration Act 2023—
“Within 60 days of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement referring to all individuals whose asylum claims have been deemed inadmissible since the granting of Royal Assent to the Illegal Migration Act 2023, confirming—
(a) the number of such individuals due to be removed to Rwanda under the Rwanda Treaty,
(b) the timetable for these removals, and
(c) the arrangements in place for any such individuals not due to be removed to Rwanda during the time period set out in the Rwanda Treaty.”.
This new clause requires the publication of a timetable for the Government’s plans to remove the 33,000 asylum cases accrued under the provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 to Rwanda.
New clause 13—Suspension of Act if Monitoring Committee not in operation—
“(1) This Act ceases to have effect on the day after the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a statement that the Monitoring Committee under Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty has (for whatever reason) ceased to function.
(2) The suspension of this Act under subsection (1) is terminated (and this Act accordingly resumes effect) on the day after the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a statement that the Monitoring Committee under Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty has started to function normally after a period when it had ceased to function.”.
This new clause makes the operation of the Act resulting from this Bill dependent on the continued operation of the Monitoring Committee to be established under Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty.
Amendment 39, in clause 1, page 1, line 2, leave out from “to” to “the” in line 3 and insert
“uphold the intention of Parliament to respect and abide by the Human Rights Act 1988 and International law (see subsection (6)) in respect of”.
This amendment rewords part of the declaratory Clause 1.
Amendment 40, page 1, leave out line 6.
Amendment 41, page 1, line 7, leave out paragraph (a).
This amendment aims to remove the treaty section from the bill and ensure there’s a separate debate on the matter.
Amendment 42, page 1, line 11, leave out paragraph (b).
Amendment 31, page 2, line 4, leave out subsection (4).
The effect of this amendment is to remove the reference to the sovereignty of parliament and the assertion that an Act is unaffected by international law.
Amendment 43, page 2, line 6, leave out “the validity of an Act is unaffected by” and insert
“Parliament of the United Kingdom will normally legislate with the intention of abiding by, complying with, and implementing, international law”.
Amendment 44, page 2, line 7, leave out subsection (5).
This amendment leaves out the definition for the purposes of this Bill of a “safe country”.
Amendment 54, page 2, line 9, leave out from first “Kingdom” to “and” in line 11.
This amendment would remove from the Bill text which suggests that Parliament can determine whether the UK is in compliance with international law.
Amendment 55, page 2, line 14, leave out from “country” to end of line 19.
This amendment would remove from the Bill text which suggests that Parliament can determine whether the UK is in compliance with international law.
Clause 1 stand part.
Robert Jenrick
I know that the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), said that he did not watch box sets, but here we are once again for the next episode of this drama. It is also the most important one of all, because this is likely to be the final opportunity for this House to consider the Bill. Does it work? Will we be able to stop the boats? Can we secure our borders? As Members in all parts of the House know, I feel passionately that illegal migration is doing untold damage to our country, and we have to make sure that the Bill actually does the job.
I want to speak to two amendments, but one in particular, and that is the one with respect to rule 39. Let me say at the outset of this debate that I do not believe that our membership of the European convention on human rights is sustainable. I think that that will become clearer and clearer to the British public in the months and years ahead, but that is not the purpose of my amendment today and it is not the subject of this debate. That is a discussion for another day. What we are discussing here is whether we believe it is appropriate for a foreign judge in an international court to impose a late-night judgment, often without the United Kingdom being able to give its own arguments or to hear the reasons for that judgment; whether we think that that really accords with the rule of law, particularly in relation to this policy; and whether we are willing to see the same thing happen again that happened in the summer of 2022, when a judge did just that, grounding the flight and preventing the policy, leading to months, indeed years, of legal action and tens of thousands of illegal migrants breaking into our country, costing our taxpayers billions of pounds, imperilling lives in the channel and perpetuating this challenge for years to come.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I am happy to support my right hon. Friend tonight on this amendment, as I did last night. I am on the Council of Europe, so I take quite a lot of interest in this. There is an established legal principle that, in fact, the judge was acting ultra vires in 2022 and that it was not in his powers to do that. There is also an established legal opinion that our Government could actually have ignored it. How does this relate to my right hon. Friend’s amendment?
Robert Jenrick
I will come on to the exact points that my right hon. Friend is making; they are fair and important ones.
As night follows day, if we do not make changes in this respect, we will find ourselves in a few months’ time in exactly the same position that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) was in as Home Secretary in the summer of 2022, wherein the Strasbourg Court could issue one, or potentially many, rule 39 interim measures. The decision about what to do will fall to a Minister—perhaps my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration—and other colleagues within Government. The courts will be involved and we will find ourselves in a very difficult, indeed intractable, situation. As I have said before, setting this scheme in train without knowing what we would do when that happens is a bit like pulling the pin out of a grenade but not being prepared to throw it. This is entirely foreseeable. Let us find a way through this challenge.
To answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and to address the legitimate challenge that is made to those like me who make this argument, we have to go back to the foundation of the Court. Many of my colleagues say, “Well, it was great Conservative and British jurists who were the authors of the European convention on human rights. Why would you want to alter what they created?” With respect, that is a misunderstanding of what was done when the convention was founded and the treaty signed. No one signed up to the Court being able to make binding injunctions. In fact, quite the opposite: it was considered at the time and rejected. The UK, like all other signatories to the European convention, expressly declined to give the Court the power to make binding interim measures. This was created by activist judges in 2005, in response to the Mamatkulov and Askarov v. Turkey case, whereby the Court conferred upon itself a power that was not given in the treaty. It is a mistake that the United Kingdom has for many years, by convention, gone along with the approach the Court has taken to itself.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
At least the right hon. Gentleman has the strength to be vocal about what he actually believes, which is more than can be said for many other Conservative Members. He has made it clear that he could not care less about what the European convention on human rights says. Will he go further and openly say that this vile, dangerous and inhumane Bill has one purpose, which is to flout international law, and that his party could not care less about the human rights of the most vulnerable individuals?
Robert Jenrick
It is a pity, but I cannot say I am surprised, that the hon. Gentleman sinks to those depths and does not present a proper legal argument. Had he been listening to me, he would have heard that I did not say anything of the sort. The case that I am advancing is far from an undermining of the European convention on human rights, although there are many who might wish to leave it. We are defending the original intent of the European convention on human rights, and the rule of law, because it is not sustainable for activist judges in Strasbourg to bend and change the original intent of the signatories to that convention, in ways that they would never have accepted, by inventing new powers. I want us to defend the rule of law, and in this case it is best defended by saying that the Court’s interim measures are not binding on the UK, either on the domestic plane or on Ministers. It is better that we simply return to the position before 2005. In fact, I think most of this happened under a Labour Government.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Is this British exceptionalism? Is the right hon. Gentleman making the case that the ECHR should no longer apply only to the UK? Or is he saying that it is not fit for purpose across the board and should be scrapped entirely?
Robert Jenrick
It seems as if we are having a dialogue of the deaf, because that is not what I said at all. I said that the debate about the European convention is for another day, but the hon. Gentleman is saying that the decision of the Strasbourg Court in 2005 to confer upon itself, without seeking the consent of any of the signatories to the convention, the ability to impose binding interim injunctions on other countries is the right way forward and, indeed, that those injunctions should be able to be made at the eleventh hour, in the middle of the night, without giving reasons, without asking for our arguments and without even naming the judge behind the ruling. That poses very serious rule-of-law questions and is a reason why conventions such as the ECHR are increasingly out of step.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is, of course, right that it contradicts the long-established custom and practice that was the accepted basis for the rule of law in this country. He cites Lord Sumption and Lord Woolf, but he might also have cited the constitutionalist A. V. Dicey who, long ago, supported by Lord Denning and many others after, established that the relationship between the rule of law and this place is that a polity can make and change laws because it has the legitimacy to do so, conferred on it by the people. Frankly, that means this House is supreme. That in no way underestimates the significance of international agreements and treaties, but it affirms the significance and sovereignty of this House.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
As somebody who has served on the Council of Europe and was proud to do so because of the United Kingdom’s history of setting it up to protect citizens from overbearing Governments, I think it is worth looking at the data on interim measures. In 2019, 82 requests were made to the Strasbourg Court for interim measures against this Government and zero were granted; in 2020, 47 requests were made and two were granted; and in 2021, 51 requests were made against this Government and five were granted. That is just seven out of 180. Is the right hon. Gentleman really suggesting that this Government get things right all the time, so there should be no capacity to challenge them legally, even when irrevocable harm is on the agenda?
Robert Jenrick
That is not the point I am making. Once again, the hon. Lady is not listening. The point I am making is not about the virtues or otherwise of our membership of the European convention on human rights, which I have said is a matter for another day. The discussion on the amendment is simply about whether we believe it is right that the Strasbourg Court should confer upon itself, without our consent, the ability to impose binding injunctions. There is a separate question, not unrelated, as to how those injunctions are made. I would like to believe that most of us agree that doing them late at night with an unnamed judge, without giving reasons, raises serious rule-of-law questions. Perhaps the hon. Lady disagrees with that, but the purpose of the amendment is to enable us to return to a previous position. [Interruption.] She now has her clip for social media, so the rest of the debate is largely irrelevant.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I want to address the point of law in respect of the Strasbourg Court. The difficulty with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument is that, under the scheme of the convention, the Court is the body that determines the meaning of the convention. Not just in the 2005 case but consistently thereafter, the Court has held that failing to comply with interim measures amounts to a breach of article 34 of the convention. That is the legal difficulty with his argument, is it not?
Robert Jenrick
No. There may be a good-faith disagreement between the hon. and learned Lady and me, but I do not believe that international bodies and courts should be able to grow organically as a result of the decisions of activist judges. This is a matter of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. We in the United Kingdom chose to be a signatory to the European convention on human rights, and I do not think it is correct that the Court gave itself this power in 2005.
I return to how this matter relates to the policy. First, let us cast our minds back to the summer of 2022. A rule 39 interim measure was imposed by the Court to ground a flight and to prevent us from proceeding with the policy. Do we think that anything has changed in the months and years that have passed? My conjecture is no. We will be in exactly the same position in a few months’ time unless we take action.
We included a provision in the Illegal Migration Act that merely restated the orthodox constitutional and legal position that, in theory, it is at a Minister’s discretion whether to comply with a rule 39 interim measure. Underlying that was the Government’s legal advice—which I believe to be erroneous, for the reasons I have just described—that they would be in breach of international law not to do so. As far as I am aware, the Attorney General and the Government Legal Service therefore continue to advise Ministers and civil servants that a decision not to support a rule 39 interim measure would be illegal and in breach of the ministerial code.
My best recollection was that no Minister should give any indication that they would ignore a rule 39 interim measure. The Attorney General’s position, as I understand it, is that there is a very small number of cases in which it is conceivable that one could do so, but that is a vanishingly slim number of cases and situations. As night follows day, if that position were to continue, we would find ourselves in exactly the same situation as we were in during the summer of 2022. I do not want to be in that position. It would be a huge breach of trust with the British public if we knew that something was likely—if we watched this train not speeding down the tracks but moving slowly towards us—and had ample opportunity to resolve the issue, but chose to do absolutely nothing. We have kicked the can down the road and now there is no more road—at the end of the road there is a precipice. We are moving forward with a scheme, but we do not know how to implement it. We are pulling the pin out of the grenade, but we have not got the guts to throw it.
We need to resolve this and the way to do that is simple: the Government could accept the amendment that stands in my name and those of many others. To do so is not to say that we are leaving the European convention on human rights. There are respectable international law arguments behind the amendment, and I would wager that the Government would have no difficulty in finding senior King’s counsel and former judges in the other place who would support my position—and the Government’s position, should they choose to adopt it.
The Government could change some of the accompanying minor documentation, such as the civil service code and the ministerial code. I would not place too much emphasis on those. At the end of the day, this is not about civil servants; it is about Ministers and the law. A good captain does not blame his sailors. It is on us: we have the power to fix this and we have the responsibility. So let us use the opportunity we have today with the amendment to resolve this situation. If we do not, we will be here in two months’ time, the Strasbourg Court will impose a rule 39 measure and the Government will be scrambling around trying to resolve the situation, and they will have no one else to blame.
I am here to help the Government, to ensure that this policy works, because I, like everyone, at least on this side of the Committee, believe passionately that we have to make this policy work and to stop the boats. So I strongly encourage my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, and indeed the Prime Minister, to support the amendment, and I encourage everyone else on both sides of the Committee who shares my determination to fix this problem to do exactly the same.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Minister.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Dame Rosie.
Here we go again: it is day two in Committee for the third asylum Bill in less than two years, and day 643 of the Rwanda psychodrama that the Conservative party continues to inflict on our weary and baffled nation. Let us not forget that the Rwanda saga started off as Operation Save Big Dog, that desperate and, thankfully, doomed attempt to save the skin of Boris Johnson. But then, for some bizarre reason known only to Conservative Members, it did not fade away once Mr Johnson exited stage right—quite the opposite. It took on a life of its own, evolving into an article of faith for the Conservative party, a purity test that has come to define whether or not someone is a true believer, so vast quantities of political capital and untold amounts of Government time, resources and energy have been squandered on a policy that, at most, might one day enable the transfer of a few hundred asylum seekers to Rwanda. It truly is an absolutely extraordinary state of affairs.
Sir Edward Leigh
We have heard that before, but let us address the narrow legal point. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it was right for a Strasbourg judge to impose an injunction in the night, on his own, without giving the British Government the chance to make their case?
Stephen Kinnock
What we are seeing is complete shambolic incompetence in the asylum system, and if cases are not made clearly and are open to legal appeal, legal appeals will come and, in some cases, will succeed. On the broader point, the UK is party to a number of international agreements and conventions. That reality is extremely important to our national interest. In many cases, it strengthens our sovereignty, not weakens it. So Labour Members are clear that politics is about choices, and when we look at the bigger picture of our country’s place in the world, it is absolutely clear that our sovereignty and national interest are strengthened, not weakened, by being party to these international agreements and conventions.
It is deeply troubling that every day seems to bring a new example of the tail wagging the dog. We now hear that the Prime Minister is assembling 150 judges and 1,000 staff to fast-track Rwanda cases through our courts. Sorry—what? Does he not know that under his leadership and on his watch, the Crown court backlog in this country is at a record high of 65,000? Victims of serious crimes regularly wait more than two years for their day in court, so that they can seek justice against the perpetrator. The system is completely broken because of 14 years of Tory incompetence and indifference, yet the Prime Minster clicks his fingers and, glibly, is apparently able to magic up 150 judges and 1,000 staff. Where on earth have those 150 judges been hiding all this time? Are they going to be new recruits or are they currently working? If it is the latter, are they going to be told to drop everything and transfer to dealing with asylum cases? I trust the Minister will be able to answer those questions today, but I am not holding my breath.
Regardless of the operational issues, imagine the impact the Prime Minister’s glib announcement yesterday would have on you if you were a rape victim who has been languishing for years in our broken judicial system. Imagine the anger and disgust you would feel at the spectacle of a Conservative Prime Minister sacrificing your fight for justice on the altar of his desperate attempt to cling to power by appeasing his Back Benchers. What an utterly shameful and shabby way for the Prime Minister of our country to behave.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
On the point the shadow Minister made about political choices, he is valiantly opposing the Bill and he voted against it on Second Reading, just as I did, but does he recognise that given that this is the last Session of this Parliament, the Parliament Act cannot be engaged and plenty will take place in the other place, so the only way the Bill will become law is if Labour makes the political choice to say that fighting and frustrating it any longer is not in its interest?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but we have made it absolutely clear that the Bill is unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful. The Opposition will never support any piece of legislation that is guilty of those three sins—that is as clear as crystal to us. With pride we voted against the Bill on Second Reading, with pride we voted against the amendments that would only make it even worse, and with pride we will vote against it on Third Reading.
Imran Hussain
My hon. Friend is right about the purpose of the Bill, which is one of the most flagrant attempts to directly flout international human rights law that we have seen. Does he agree that that is the only purpose of the Bill before us today?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful intervention. It is difficult to determine the true purpose of the Bill these days, because it has become embroiled in various Tory internal wars, fights between factions and certain people’s leadership ambitions, but we know it will not stop the Tory small boats chaos. It is that chaos that has to be stopped. The people smuggler gangs are trading in human misery and must be stopped, but we need practical, sensible, pragmatic measures, rather than the headline-chasing gimmicks we have seen from this Government over the last years and months.
The irony of the announcement yesterday about the judges was that, by definition, it is an admission of failure, because it recognises that the Bill will fail to prevent the legal challenges and appeals that the judges will be working on. The Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday was further evidence of the profoundly troubling way in which the Government are prepared to disregard and disrespect our judiciary. I urge Members on all Benches to take careful note of what Sue Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, told the Justice Committee yesterday:
“I’m afraid that this headline draws matters of judicial responsibility into the political arena…matters of deployment of judges, the allocation of work for judges and the use of courtrooms is exclusively a matter for the judiciary and, more specifically, a matter for myself and the senior president of the tribunals. It’s really important that people understand that clear division.”
There speaks a true democrat.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The shadow Minister knows that our view on the Government Benches is that the problem cannot be comprehensively tackled without a deterrent; I cannot think of any examples around the world where it has been tackled without a deterrent. The shadow Minister has spoken before about safe and legal routes, and I have asked him questions about whether the numbers using those routes should be capped or uncapped, so has he thought about what the cap level would be? What would be the number?
Stephen Kinnock
It is clear that in order to stop the Tory small boats chaos, we have to smash the criminal smuggler gangs. That will be done through enhanced co-operation with European partners and allies. The shadow Home Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition visited Europol recently. It is hugely important that we get better data sharing and co-operation with European authorities, such as Europol and Frontex, in order to be able to smash the criminal gangs upstream. As I will go on to say in my remarks, the more we jeopardise co-operation with our European partners and allies by threatening to leave the European conventions, the more difficult we make it to have that European co-operation and the more we undermine our own ability to deter the criminal smuggler gangs. If someone were looking for a definition of counterproductive legislation and policies, this would be the one they would go for.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes
The shadow Minister makes a good point about co-operation. He is right that the only way to tackle the problem is through a suite of measures under an umbrella policy but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) just described, an important part of that is deterrence. The brand and the marketing message of the criminal gangs is that people will get to Britain and never leave. Sadly, that has too often been the case, has it not?
Stephen Kinnock
As I said yesterday, there are pragmatic, sensible things the Government have been doing that we support. For example, the Opposition fully support the Albania deal. The fact that removals to Albania are facilitated by that deal has acted as a deterrent and led to a clear decrease in the number of Albanians trying to come over. Why do the Government not do more of that? They should do the pragmatic, sensible stuff rather than being sucked into endless bun fights about the Rwanda deal, which is unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that it is a question of priorities: the Government have limited time, resources and energy, so they should focus it on the stuff that works rather than on the headline-chasing gimmicks.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The mantra has been clear for many months from the Opposition Benches, including from the shadow Minister himself, about the need for safe and legal routes. Can we have some indication of what level of immigration through safe and legal routes would be needed to address the problem? I put it to him that as soon as that cap is reached, the rest will come by boat unless there is a deterrent.
Stephen Kinnock
On safe and legal routes, as a priority I would look at things like the Afghan schemes, which are completely and utterly broken. The Afghan relocations and assistance policy has collapsed and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme never really worked. Which nationality is always in the top three or four nationalities crossing the channel? The Afghans. We need to get the schemes that are currently in place working properly, and then we need to look at international co-operation, working with our European partners and allies, to create a dynamic whereby the United Kingdom does its bit, as part of ensuring that those trying to cross the channel in small boats do not do so.
Robert Jenrick
To draw the shadow Minister back to the amendments and the interim measures of the Strasbourg court, and to build on the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), am I right in understanding that the Labour party’s position is that it does not want to see reform of rule 39 interim measures? I find that surprising, given that the UK is working in concert with many, perhaps all, signatories of the European convention on human rights to do just that. Most of our friends and allies in Europe consider there to be serious rule of law issues arising from the so-called pyjama injunctions and, like them, we want to see them reformed. Would the Labour party abandon that piece of work?
Stephen Kinnock
When we enter Government, as I hope we will, everything we do will be based on a test: is it affordable, is it workable and is it legal? The legal piece has to be based on compliance with our international legal obligations. However, if one cherishes something, one also has to be open to changing and improving it. It is clear that a global conversation and a European conversation are required about the immigration position in which we find ourselves. If we, in concert with our international partners and allies, can find ways to improve the system, of course Labour would look to do that. Unfortunately, we cannot negotiate that deal from Opposition, but we will certainly prioritise that as and when we come into Government.
Stephen Kinnock
If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will make a little more progress and then come back to him.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is the convention that any Member wishing to intervene should have been in the Chamber from the start of the speech. I know that the hon. Gentleman came into the Chamber a little after the start of Stephen Kinnock’s speech.
Stephen Kinnock
Thank you, Dame Rosie. It is against the backdrop of chaos, confusion and “party before country” that we consider the amendments before us today. I wish to start by commenting on the amendments in the name of the former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick).
This Bill is riddled with shamefully anti-democratic clauses that undermine the rule of law and seek to undermine the conventions and values that we on the Labour Benches hold dear. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the admission in the Bill that its provisions may not comply with the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law. Indeed, clause 3 explicitly disapplies international agreements, including the 1951 refugee convention and the 1984 convention against torture. The leader of the more moderate Conservative caucus, the one nation group, described this approach as “authoritarian” and “a betrayal” of who we are as a nation. He was absolutely right on both points. Our liberal democratic nation is founded on the rule of law and our respect for the judicial function; our international standing is founded on our commitment to human rights and international law; and our proud history is founded on the delivery of those principles, including, indeed, Winston Churchill himself helping to establish Britain as a founder of the 1951 convention.
I made the point yesterday—I will make it again now—that it is not for politicians to interfere with court judgments, and it is not for the Government to respond in a knee-jerk manner to court rulings that they dislike. That is the behaviour of an autocracy, not a democracy. How on earth can our country be the international standard bearer for the rule of law in the face of, for example, Putin’s barbarism or an increasingly belligerent China if we are breaking our own international obligations? Indeed, how can we even hold Rwanda to account on its commitment within this new treaty if we are not practising what we preach? Then there is the real and present danger that this Bill represents to the international agreements that Britain is party to, all of which are central to our national interest.
Stella Creasy
Those who are worried about social media may also find it useful to use their phones in the Chamber to double-check those international obligations, and indeed the original text of the European convention on human rights, which states explicitly:
“The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.”
From the start, it was intended that there was a check—[Interruption.] I listened to the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick); I hope that he will accord the same respect and courtesy to me. Does my hon. Friend agree that, from the start, it was envisaged that it was an important check and balance to involve the courts in decision making?
Stephen Kinnock
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As we have also seen in the letter that Nathalie Loiseau sent to her about the potential risks that there are to the trade and co-operation agreement, and to a range of other commitments, it is absolutely clear that it is in our national interest to pool our sovereignty with other nations through these conventions in order to strengthen our own national sovereignty. I agree absolutely with her on that point.
Let us look at some of these agreements. First, the European convention on human rights is woven integrally into many different parts of the Good Friday agreement. The political settlement in Northern Ireland should not be taken for granted, so disapplying the ECHR in British legislation would be playing with fire in that regard. The Prime Minister’s very own Windsor framework, which sought to resolve the issues around trade and Northern Ireland post-Brexit, was agreed on the basis of the UK’s full commitment to the Good Friday agreement. I am sure that the Prime Minister would not want to accidentally set fire to his own carefully crafted negotiations.
The EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement includes clauses on important mutual security co-operation, which are reliant on Britain’s commitment to the European convention on human rights. Under articles 1 and 692 of the TCA, UK withdrawal from the ECHR entitles the EU to immediately suspend or terminate the entirety of section 3 of the TCA. Therefore, introducing notwith-standing clauses into the Bill means that the Government would also be dicing with the risk of jeopardising security co-operation with our European partners and allies.
The irony here is that this very security co-operation and data sharing is of pivotal importance when it comes to smashing the criminal gangs that are behind the small boat crossings. This Bill, which is designed to deal with the issue of the small boat crossings and the criminal gangs, could undermine the very co-operation that is supposed to be smashing those gangs—you literally could not make it up. I do not believe that such legislative belligerence is in the interests or the traditions of the Conservative party, and I certainly do not believe that it is in the interests or traditions of our own proud nation. The amendments that have been tabled by the former Immigration Minister would, I am afraid, simply increase all the risks that I have described, so we on the Labour Benches will be opposing them.
Let me turn now to Labour’s amendments. Again, I stress that we reject the Bill in its entirety and that our amendments are designed to limit the damage of this unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful piece of legislation. A major concern of ours is the way the Government are handling the entire Rwanda saga from the point of view of transparency—everything from costs and the processing capacity of the Rwandan Government, to Ministers trying to hide the fact that criminals will be sent from Rwanda back to the UK, and the fact that the UK may have to take some refugees from Rwanda.
Our amendment 36 and new clauses 7 and 8 are all part of an attempt to force the Government to shed more light on the less clear aspects of the scheme, and to introduce more accountability. Amendment 36 would require the Government to publish a full impact assessment, setting out the costs per person for the removal scheme, and the confidential financial memorandum already agreed between the two countries. We believe that the cost per person is far higher than the £169,000 already acknowledged by the Government, and we want Ministers to come clean on that point.
New clause 7 would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on a regular basis—every 90 days, as with the monitoring committee—on the operation of the scheme, including data on the number of people relocated to Rwanda and the costs incurred by the UK Government. Similarly, new clause 9 would require regular reporting on the number of asylum seekers declared inadmissible under the Illegal Migration Act 2023 from the point of its entry into force—whenever that may be—and the number of such asylum seekers who were subsequently removed to Rwanda.
New clause 8 would impose further reporting requirements on the Government, including on the number of individuals involved in criminal activity who have been transferred from Rwanda to the UK. In the event of any such transfers, the Government would be required to table a debateable motion in Parliament, so that MPs could consider whether, in the light of the transfers, the operation of the treaty should be suspended. It is important that the British public understand just how many foreign criminals the Conservative Government will be importing back into our country as part of this Rwanda deal.
Further amendments relate to the monitoring committee—a central part of the new treaty, which both sides are required to set up in order to oversee the operation of the removal scheme, and to provide a mechanism for individual asylum seekers to lodge confidential complaints directly with the committee. The Supreme Court raised initial concerns about the capacity of the committee to review complaints in its judgment. Our amendment 59 would make the establishment of this committee a necessary precondition for the commencement of this Act. New clause 5 would place the committee on a statutory footing. The monitoring committee would be required to report to Parliament every 90 days, confirming that all the relevant obligations set out in the treaty are being fully complied with.
In the event that the monitoring committee either fails to meet the 90-day requirement or reports to Parliament that Rwanda is not in full compliance with any provision of the treaty, this Act would effectively be suspended from being in force until any issues with timing or compliance have been resolved. Linked to this, new clause 13 stipulates that the operation of this Act should be suspended at any time when the monitoring committee “is not in operation”.
Finally, new clause 5 states that it is for a Minister of the Crown, and that Minister only, to decide whether to comply with any “interim measures” issued by the ECHR for the purposes of blocking a person’s removal to Rwanda. Amendment 38 stipulates that, in making such a decision, the Minister in question must consult the Attorney General.
The Conservative psychodrama of the past 24 hours only goes to serve the old political adage: if a Prime Minister is incapable of managing his own party, he must be utterly incapable of running the country. The resignation of not one but two deputy chairs last night, followed by a 60-strong rebellion, illustrated the level of utter incompetence at the heart of his Administration. We know what they say: to lose one deputy Chair could be down to misfortune; to lose two in one night looks like sheer carelessness. At least we might see a bit more of them on their GB News show, discussing days of yore while spoon-feeding each other cold baked beans, which was my personal television highlight of 2023. It also explains quite a lot about the amount of hot air emanating from the Government Benches. I certainly hope to see and hear more from them in this election year.
In all seriousness, what on earth is going on? The country is looking on, baffled that the Prime Minister could pay the Rwandan Government £400 million for nothing, yet place such little focus on strengthening our security co-operation with Europe to stop the boats in the first place, and he has spent little time improving our broken public services or helping our struggling households during the cost of living crisis. They are perplexed that the Conservatives are spending so many hours on a piece of legislation that is not really meant to stop the boats; it is about the Prime Minister getting a single plane in the air, with a handful of asylum seekers on it, so that he can say, “Look, I did it! I delivered the Rwanda plan and removed a few refugees.” He thinks the British people will deliver something to him on that basis.
We are perplexed because this is not the behaviour and politics we can afford to expect from a British Prime Minister. These are not the serious policies that will fix our asylum system and make our country a better place—all the headline-chasing gimmicks over hard graft and getting a grip. That is not what the British public voted for. Indeed, nobody—not even his own party—voted for him at all.
This plan is a con. This Bill is a sham. I urge all hon. Members to get behind Labour’s amendments to limit the damage and to vote against the Bill on Third Reading. It is unworkable, unaffordable and unlawful. If we are to stop the Tories’ small boats chaos and end expensive asylum hotel use, which costs £8 million a day, this Conservative psychodrama needs to end. We need Labour’s five-point plan to end this chaos, starting with going after the criminal gangs upstream in a new security partnership with Europol. We need a Government that put country before party, and we need a general election this spring.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
It may be helpful if I clarify a few things. First, if colleagues wish to intervene, it is important that they are present from the start of the relevant speech. It is also important that they remain to the end of the speech.
Secondly, I intend to give priority to those who have amendments down on the selection list—I will then come to others. In addition to the fact that we are discussing amendments, I should explain that, because we are also discussing clause stand part, the debate can range slightly more widely than would be normal, but it is not a Third Reading debate. There will be a Third Reading debate—an hour has been put aside for that—just in case colleagues prefer to speak at that stage. I know that Sir Jeremy Wright has an amendment, so I call him to speak.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
Thank you, Dame Rosie. In fact I have two amendments—amendments 54 and 55—on which I wish to focus my remarks. We all understand that the purpose of the Bill is to allow this Parliament to designate Rwanda as a safe country so that people can be removed to it lawfully. In order to achieve that, of course, we require a definition of what a safe country is. The Bill does that in clause 1(5)(a), which describes a safe country as
“a country to which persons may be removed from the United Kingdom”.
So far, so good. It seems to me that that is an essential part of the Bill’s inherent purpose.
The part of that subsection (a) that concerns me, and on which my amendment is focused, is where it says that that is
“in compliance with all of the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law that are relevant to the treatment in that country of persons who are removed there”.
In other words, the Bill seems to say that the United Kingdom, by saying that Rwanda is a safe country, can also deem itself to be in compliance with a set of its international law responsibilities. I do not think that can be correct.
Sir John Hayes
I work closely with my right hon. and learned Friend in a number of ways, as he knows, and I am well aware that he is a former Attorney General. If he were right that it is not for the Government or this House to determine whether measures are compliant, why on earth would they seek and get the Attorney General’s advice on just that?
Sir Jeremy Wright
My right hon. Friend knows that the Attorney General is consulted on a variety of different legal questions, both domestic and international. He would not expect me to disclose any of the advice I have previously given, but I can tell him that the Attorney General does give advice on whether the Government’s actions may or may not be in compliance with international law, but neither the Attorney General, nor, I think the Government, expects to be the ultimate arbiter of that question. The advice is given as to whether it is likely that that action would be in compliance with the law. I will come in a moment to what I think the Bill and the Government can properly do in relation to international law responsibilities, but it seems to me that what they cannot properly do is set themselves up as judge in their own cause on questions of international law. This House would be wrong to pass a Bill that suggested that they could. That is really where my amendments are focused.
As I say, there is a good practical reason why we should be nervous about this: because we do sometimes rely on international law to discharge our own policy intents and purposes. Not more than 48 hours ago in this place, we were doing exactly that. We were saying that it is important to criticise the actions of the Houthis in the Red sea because they contravene principles of international law. We were saying too that we justify our own response to that because it is in accordance with the principles of international law, and quite right, too. We would not have accepted the Houthis’ unilateral declaration that they were in compliance with international law when they did what they did, nor should we have, and we would not of course accept a Russian legislative Act to say that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia was in compliance with Russia’s international law responsibilities.
Let me make it clear that I am not, of course, suggesting that what the Government have in mind here is in any way comparable to those two examples, but it seems that the point here is that to arrogate to oneself the right to declare one’s own compliance with international law runs the risk of, first, other states finding comfort in our example and, secondly, undermining our own messages in other situations. That makes this not just bad law, but bad foreign policy.
Stella Creasy
I am pleased to hear what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has to say on the question of international law. Does he share my concern—and I fully accept that I am not as legally qualified as him—that the Government’s own legal advice says that by stating that the Bill is incompatible, it makes it compatible? Is that not worthy of the mad March Hare when it comes to consistency in standing up for the rule of law?
Sir Jeremy Wright
I suspect that what the hon. Lady is referring to is the statement of incompatibility with the convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 at the beginning of the Bill. Of course, that provision is there for a reason: to allow the Government, if they so choose, to act in defiance of those responsibilities. That is perfectly proper, and I will come on to explain why I think that is something the Government can properly do.
I am concerned about something a little different. Instead of saying, “We don’t think this is in compliance with international law, but we’re going to do it anyway.”, the Bill is saying, “We think this is in compliance with international law; it is down to us to decide that, and we have so decided.” That feels to me like something that we could not and should not do. It would be concerning enough, in my judgment, if this Bill only tried to deem the UK’s compliance with international law, but it also seems to say that we can deem Rwanda’s compliance with international law.
That is set out in clause 1(5)(b), which goes on to say that, for the purposes of this Act, a safe country includes, in particular, a country
“from which a person removed to that country will not be removed or sent to another country”.
So far so good; that is essential, to me, to doing what the Bill seeks to achieve. However, it goes on to say,
“in contravention of any international law”.
Again, it cannot lie in the hands of this Parliament to decide whether or not a person may be removed to another country in contravention of any international law. It goes on in sub-paragraph (b)(ii) to say that a country would be a safe country
“in which any person who is seeking asylum or who has had an asylum determination will both have their claim determined and be treated in accordance with that country’s obligations under international law.”
It seems to me that the Bill is seeking to say that, if we deem it so, not only is the UK in compliance with its international law responsibilities, but Rwanda is going to be as well. That feels to me not valid and somewhat over-ambitious.
Sir William Cash
Does my right hon. and learned Friend, who has great experience as a former Attorney General, agree that the deeming provisions under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 create a rather similar situation, because we deemed EU law to be UK law? Therefore, on the analogy he has just given, I imagine he would argue—though I think he might even have been Attorney General at that time—that that did exactly the same sort of thing, although I am listening with great interest to the more precise point he is making about the relationship with international obligations, on which I will speak later.
Sir Jeremy Wright
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know, Dame Rosie, you would not want me to abuse the privilege you have given us to range slightly more widely in this debate to range quite that widely, so I will not. He is right that I am making a fairly precise point about what this language appears to me to say. I stress that I do not think it is necessary to include this language in order to achieve the objective that the Government have set in this legislation—with which I have some sympathy, although their methods make me nervous, and I make no bones about that. Worse than unnecessary, it presents some dangers that I do not think we need to present in order to achieve the Government’s objectives.
I suspect my hon. and learned Friend the Minister will tell me in a few moments’ or hours’ time that I do not need to worry about any of this. He may give two reasons for that. First, he may say that the Bill does not mean what I think it means. You will forgive me for saying this, Dame Rosie, but I am increasingly troubled that in this place we answer points such as mine by saying, “Yes, well, it doesn’t really mean that, and we don’t really mean that by it.” We should be concerned as legislators with what the language we are passing into law actually says, not what we meant to say. I am concerned that what this language says is not in accordance with what I am sure the Minister wants to do or what the Government want to do, but it might none the less have that effect, or be taken by others to mean the things that I am concerned about.
When the Bill says what a safe country is, it is potentially confusing two different things. One is deeming our own compliance with international law, which I do not think any country should be able to do, and the other is saying that Parliament resolves to do something even if it contravenes the UK’s international law obligations, which, going back to the previous intervention by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), I do think the British Parliament can do. We as a legislature can resolve to do that if we so choose.
We have to decide whether that is a wise and sensible thing to do, with all the ramifications it might bring, but as a matter of law it seems to me that the UK Parliament can, if it wishes, pass a law to say, “Despite or irrespective of our international responsibilities, this is none the less what we want to do.” That is not the same as deeming our own compliance with international law, which I worry this language almost certainly seems to do.
The point I make about the UK Parliament being able to do things even when they contravene its international responsibilities is already in the Bill and reflected in the language of clause 1(4)(b), which points out that
“the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law.”
Quite right. We can, if we so choose, deem a country a safe country for the purposes of domestic decision making if we want to. What I do not think we can or should do is legislate to say that we comply with our international law responsibilities when we do not—and when, crucially, to achieve the objective of this Bill we do not need to.
The second reason the Minister may give for why I do not need to worry myself about all this is that he may say that domestic and international law exist on different planes, and that this legislation is only targeted in any event at domestic authorities, so the Bill could not, even if it chose to try, deem our compliance with international law in actual fact. I would agree with that. It is perfectly true that domestic law and international law operate on different planes, and it is not likely that this Bill could determine any question of international law before any international tribunal.
If that is so, though, why include the language? If it does not have any meaning or legal effect, it does not serve any purpose, but I fear it may send a damaging political signal to other states. The language I am concerned about, which amendments 54 and 55 would remove, is either offensive or otiose, and in either respect the Bill would be better without it.
Joanna Cherry
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). I find myself in agreement with much of what he said, and he made his points very forcefully.
I rise to speak to amendments 32, 33 and 34 and new clause 4 in my name and amendments 4 and 5 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and to support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). I also want to comment on clause 3 and clause 5 stand part and the amendments that have been put forward, particularly by the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), in my capacity as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
I turn first to my amendments, which relate to the impact of this Bill in Scotland, and in which respect I am speaking in a personal capacity. My amendments and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North deal with the extent of the Bill, its extension to Scotland and the date of its commencement in Scotland. We both seek to prevent this Bill’s extending to Scotland and, in the event that we are not successful in doing that, my amendments seek to ensure that the Bill will not extend to Scotland without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament and that nothing in it will interfere with the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session or its nobile officium. I will explain what that means later.
We must not forget that the regime this Bill seeks to impose, together with the Illegal Migration Act 2023, is imposed on asylum seekers across the United Kingdom, not just those who arrive in small boats on the Kent coast. The UK Government have not forgotten that, and that is why they want this Bill, with its far-reaching and unprecedented ouster clauses, to extend to Scotland. Accordingly, asylum seekers in Scotland looking to our courts for protection will find that the courts in Scotland have been emasculated in the same way as this Bill emasculates the courts of England and Wales.
As well as having their jurisdiction ousted on certain matters of fact, as was debated yesterday, the Scottish courts will find themselves unable to apply the Human Rights Act or to respect the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European convention on human rights and other international treaties. I believe that that constitutes a serious and unprecedented intrusion on the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts, and a serious interference with the separation of powers between legislature, Executive and judiciary. I do not think that this Parliament should be rubber-stamping the Bill at all, but particularly not in relation to Scotland.
Sir William Cash
Without prejudice to the content of what the hon. and learned Lady is saying otherwise, may I simply say in relation to her notwithstanding clause that I am extremely glad that the Scottish eagle has landed?
Joanna Cherry
I certainly will not be supporting the other notwithstanding clauses in the Bill, but I felt that it was perhaps time that we had one that benefited Scotland for a change.
My amendments are designed to protect Scotland’s courts and constitutional tradition. They are there to ensure that asylum seekers in Scotland might still enjoy the protection of the courts from the infringement of their fundamental rights. That is what people in Scotland want, and it has been expressed repeatedly through the Scottish Parliament. I am, of course, a Scottish MP and a member of the Scottish Bar, and I am here to do what I can to protect Scotland and its legal system from the extraordinary attack on human rights and the rule of law that this Bill constitutes.
However, I am not a Scottish exceptionalist. I recognise that—as reflected in the House of Commons Library’s excellent legal briefing on the Bill, and indeed in the speech that preceded mine, by the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam—concerns about the impact of the Bill on the rule of law and the constitution are shared by many in England, including many lawyers. For every lawyer cited by Conservative Members in favour of the Bill and the draconian amendments to it, they will find two lawyers who disagree.
The Library briefing, which is an excellent summary of the different legal views on the Bill, concludes:
“Tension between the sovereignty of Parliament to legislate, and the role of the courts in enforcing the rule of law principle that executive bodies must exercise their powers within their statutory limits, may be tempered by restraint on both sides. If either the courts or Parliament ceased to exercise such restraint, significant constitutional uncertainty could result.”
I believe that if we pass the Bill, this Parliament will have ceased to exercise the restraint referred to there—it would be a major departure from such restraint. I predict that, if the Bill passes, we will see what might be an unprecedented constitutional challenge to an Act of the British Parliament.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. and learned Lady is making a good point about the checks and balances that prevent arbitrary power, and she is right that that is central to our constitutional settlement, but this is not the exercise of arbitrary power, because the Bill, and the amendments to it, are quite specific about their provisions. For example, in the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), our separation from the international obligations that I know she holds so dear is very specific to this particular legislation. That is not arbitrary—it is anything but.
Joanna Cherry
The Bill seeks to carve out a group of people coming to our country, or who are in our country, from the protections that the rest of us enjoy. History shows us that that sort of legislation can put a state on a pretty slippery slope. That brings me to my arguments in relation to clauses 3 and 5 stand part.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has not yet had the chance to complete legislative scrutiny of the Bill given the speed with which it has passed through the House, so we have not as a Committee reached a concluded view on the Bill. However, before Christmas and before Second Reading, a Chair’s briefing paper referring to the legal advice that the Committee had received was published, and it is extensively referred to in the excellent legal commentary published by the House of Commons Library.
The briefing says, inter alia, that the disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998 in clause 3 is very significant. As I indicated a moment ago in my answer to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), human rights are meant to offer a fundamental level of protection for every person on the basis of their humanity alone. As our Committee has noted in a previous report, if those protections are disapplied when they cause problems for a policy goal, they lose their fundamental and universal character. Arguably, that is especially the case when they are disapplied in respect of a particular group. In this case, fundamental human rights are being disapplied in respect of migrants who come to the United Kingdom without prior permission.
Bills that disapply parts of the Human Rights Act are not unprecedented under this Government, I am sad to say. Both the Illegal Migration Act and the Victims and Prisoners Bill have sought to disapply section 3 of the Human Rights Act in respect of certain legislation. However, this Bill seeks to disapply section 6 of that Act—the obligation on public authorities to act compatibly with human rights—which has never before been attempted, even by this Government, and represents a significant inroad into human rights protections. If we pass the Bill with clause 3 in it, it will effectively mean that this Parliament is authorising public authorities to breach human rights. That is an awful long way from what this Parliament intended when it passed the Human Rights Act, and what the United Kingdom intended when it signed up to the convention.
As we heard at some length yesterday, as a result of parliamentary sovereignty, if we pass the Bill, breaching human rights would be in accordance with our domestic law. However, it would still violate the UK’s obligations under the convention, because we cannot unilaterally change what the convention says. Also, as the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has noted in its briefing on the Bill, if we disapply the Human Rights Act in the manner proposed, we are also breaching article 13 of the convention, which entitles people to an effective remedy.
I am afraid to say that the amendments to clause 3 tabled by the right hon. Member for Newark, who is no longer in his place, would make the situation even worse. His amendments 11 and 12 appear to extend the disapplication of the Human Rights Act to anything done under the Illegal Migration Act that relates to the removal of a person to Rwanda. That could potentially mean that the detention of people awaiting removal to Rwanda and their treatment prior to their removal would not be protected under the Human Rights Act. Is that what this Parliament really wants to legislate for?
Additionally, the right hon. Member for Newark wants to extend clause 3 to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act. As it stands, that clause does not disapply section 4; if the clause remains as it is when the Bill becomes law, it would be open to a court in future to declare that it is not compatible with the convention. That would be through a declaration only: it would not affect the ongoing function of the Bill, or allow removals to Rwanda to be prevented or delayed, but this Parliament and the Government would have to decide whether any changes to the law should be made. If we amend the Bill to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act, again, that would be something that has never been done before, and would further restrict the jurisdiction of our courts in saying to the Government and the public what their view is on the law’s compatibility with human rights.
Finally, I also believe that clause 5 should not stand part of the Bill. We have heard a lot today about Conservative Members’ concern about interim measures issued by the European Court of Human Rights. The reality is that, no matter what this legislation ends up saying, it can only affect domestic law. In respect of the ECHR in particular, the UK will remain bound by the convention as a matter of international law. Indeed, even if this Government—God forbid—were to exercise the nuclear option of withdrawing us from the convention, thereby putting us in bed with Russia and Belarus, we would remain bound for a further six months after withdrawal takes place. I hope they will bear that in mind.
At the moment, clause 5 says that only a Minister can decide whether to comply with interim measures, and that the domestic courts should ignore them. It remains to be seen what a Minister would do, but we all know that the Prime Minister has said repeatedly that he would not let a foreign court—to use his words—prevent flights taking off, which indicates that interim measures may be ignored. As I said earlier, in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Newark, interim measures are made under rule 39 of the Court’s rules of procedure. They do not form part of the text of the convention ratified by the UK, but when we ratified that convention, we signed up to the idea that the European Court of Human Rights is the body that determines its meaning, and since the 2005 case that the right hon. Member mentioned, it has held consistently that failing to comply with interim measures amounts to a breach of article 34.
Interim measures are fundamental to any court—they are issued to protect the position of an individual while their legal rights are determined. All this fuss about people in their pyjamas in the middle of the night is very silly. Judges in the United Kingdom, both in the English jurisdiction and in the Scottish jurisdiction, are regularly got out of their bed in the middle of the night to issue interim injunctions in England and interim interdicts in Scotland. It is a standard part of any legal system, and many of the concerns that Conservative Members have expressed about those interim measures have now been addressed by the Court in the reforms it is proposing.
Any decision of a Minister not to comply with an interim measure would be inconsistent with our obligations under the ECHR. That means that if we let clause 5 stand part of the Bill, we will expressly authorise British Government Ministers to act in breach of international law. That is the reality, and I note that according to The Times, that is the advice that has reportedly been given to the Government by the Attorney General and by the Minister, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), when he was Solicitor General. That does not surprise me at all; it should not surprise anyone, because any legal undergraduate would be able to tell them that. As such, in so far as amendments 23 to 25 state that interim measures are not binding, that is inaccurate as a matter of law, and we must understand that they would put the UK directly in conflict with our international legal obligations.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). Although I will not be supporting the hon. and learned Lady’s amendments, I have great respect for the intellectual rigour that she brought on Scots law and its application in this case. I say the same about the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend in relation to his amendments 54 and 55. I hope the Minister will think seriously about how we deal with that issue—I am sure he will, because serious points have been raised. In a nutshell, I agree with the proposition that while Parliament can, of course, legislate to do whatever it likes in domestic law, the simple fact is that one cannot legislate away international law obligations or treaty obligations, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise.
I now turn to the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). I am sorry that he is not in his place, because I have to say that, with every respect, I profoundly differ from his characterisation of pyjama injunctions by a foreign court. Respectfully, I would argue that that characterisation is both inaccurate and rather unworthy. As was observed by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, it is perfectly normal for interim injunctions to be issued at difficult hours when the test for them is met, so we should not say that that is unusual. Arguments can be legitimately made about the way in which the rule 39 procedure in the Strasbourg Court works, but let us make them on the basis of an accurate construction of what the Court is about, rather than otherwise.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I have great respect for the argument that my hon. Friend is making, and I defer to his experience and knowledge on this issue. I am genuinely interested in his view: he has described a judge in the UK issuing an injunction late at night in the event of what, in normal circumstances, would be an individual situation. Does he really think it is comparable to describe in the same terms the act of a Court that is genuinely in another country and a judge who is anonymous and does not publish the rationale for their opinion, which calls a halt—with the support of the Government, it must be said—to the policy of the British Government, enacting a law passed in Parliament? Surely there is a difference, both of degree and of nature, between the two cases.
Sir Robert Neill
I think my hon. Friend needs to bear in mind that the application that was made to Strasbourg was also about the circumstances of an individual case, so that is no different.
There is a legitimate criticism—one that I have voiced in the past—about the procedure adopted in Strasbourg for these applications in two areas: first, the anonymity of the judge, and secondly, the failure to state reasons. From our point of view, that would not be acceptable, but the answer is not to throw out the whole of the judicial and treaty baby with the bathwater. Thanks to the Brighton declaration that was signed by my noble and learned Friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, it is possible to make reforms following dialogue between member states, the Council of Ministers and the judiciary of the Court. I am pleased to say that after pressure from the United Kingdom—perfectly properly—the Court itself has indicated that it will to consult on reforms to its procedure, which can only be a good thing. That is what I think the balanced position is on that issue.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
In fact, further than that, there are already proposed reforms to the interim procedure, which will come into place this year and crucially will remove the anonymity provisions and allow contracting parties such as the UK to make the argument, as I believe applies in this case, that there is not an imminent risk of irreparable damage. We can fly people back from Rwanda, and that is the argument we need to keep making.
Sir Robert Neill
My right hon. and learned Friend is entirely correct, and he and I would probably have very happily argued the UK’s case in Strasbourg on those grounds, so let us be realistic about what we are fighting against. With respect, a bit of an Aunt Sally has been set up because steps are already being taken to deal with the objectionable matters relating to rule 39s, but the principle of them is not itself objectionable.
Secondly, with respect, the characterisation of a “foreign court” is not helpful in these circumstances, because it implies something alien, which it is not the case for international law as a concept or for the Court itself. The fact that it happens to meet in a different place from the UK is inevitable because it has to meet somewhere. We should bear in mind that not only was the UK one of the driving powers behind the creation of the convention in the first place, behind the Court itself and behind much of the jurisprudence of the Court, but the UK does actually have shared ownership of the Court, along with all the other member states.
That is demonstrated not just in the treaty, but in practical ways. For example, the British members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—Members of this House and the other place—have a role in the appointment of the judges of the Court. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I served at one time on the sub-committee of the Assembly that dealt with that process, and I like to think that we did so diligently, so there is involvement in that process. A British judge always sits on the Court and is a member of the Court. Judge Tim Eicke, the current judge, is a very distinguished international lawyer, and we are very lucky to have him. Two of the recent registrars of the Court, who run its administration, have been British lawyers, and British lawyers appear regularly in cases before the Court.
This is not an alien body; it is a Court of which we have joint ownership. It is our Court, along with that of all the other member states of the convention, and it is wrong to mischaracterise it as something alien. Certainly, in all international matters, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam said, it operates on a different plane, but the tone of comments about its alienness is, with respect, both inaccurate and somewhat offensive. It is also unnecessary for the purposes of this Bill anyway, and that is the point I want to come on to in relation to rule 39.
The amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark are otiose. They are unnecessary and, frankly, would make a difficult situation worse. As a matter of law, an interim measure under rule 39 is an indication made to the Government of the member state. It is not made to the courts of the member state; it is conveyed to the Government of the member state concerned. Therefore, it is for the members of the Government of the member state—the Ministers—to decide what to do about it.
I personally take the view that we should be very loth indeed to ignore the findings of the Court on an interim matter. As the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West rightly said, it runs the risk of putting us in breach of our international law obligation in that regard. However, the truth is that it is a political decision that the Ministers can take. So what the Bill in its current formulation states is actually no more than a statement of the law as it stands, and we probably do not need clause 5 in the Bill. I am not going to die in a ditch over that, because it is simply stating what the law is already, but, equally, there is absolutely no need for the amendments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark to put bells and whistles on otioseness, if I can put it that way.
Sir John Hayes
I am loth to interrupt my hon. Friend as he is describing not so much the separation of powers as the desiccation of power. However, on the specific point he made about his reticence or reluctance not to abide by the advice of the Court—he said Ministers could do that, but he would not—would he on that basis not have done what the noble Lord Cameron did as Prime Minister when he resisted the overtures from the Court to give prisoners votes?
Sir Robert Neill
I would make two points about that. In fact, I supported the noble Lord Cameron in that regard because it was a political decision. It is also worth looking at the practical politics. Although we were for a period of time at variance with the Court, no harm was done to the polity of the United Kingdom in that regard. No harm was done to the interests of the United Kingdom and no terrible international consequence for us flowed from it. I think the Court got it wrong on that occasion, and one of the problems is that there is no appeal system in the Strasbourg Court, so we have to wait until some future decision goes a different way. I think many of us take the view that, in reality, the Court as currently constituted in Strasbourg—it is perhaps less activist, if I may say so, than its predecessors—might well have found differently in the prisoner voting case. However, the fact was that UK Ministers took the decision, and they did what was right in the UK, which was supported by those in all parts of the House, and no harm was done. So the idea that some terrible consequence will flow for the UK because of the ability to seek rule 39 interim measures is just misplaced.
Sir William Cash
Would my hon. Friend reflect on this fact about prisoner voting? I discussed the matter with the noble Lord Cameron when he was Prime Minister at the time, but it was regarded by the noble Lord Clarke of Nottingham as a “particular political policy”—I think those were the words he used. How would my hon. Friend describe the issue of illegal migration? Would he not regard that as a particular but very important political policy?
Sir Robert Neill
That is why, as it happens, I will not vote against this Bill, because although I have some misgivings, there is a legitimate concern that needs to be dealt with in relation to illegal boats. However, the simple fact is that that is not a reason for the blanket derogation, or the blanket removal of ECHR protections, that is proposed in a series of amendments. That is the difference. My hon. Friend and I are at one, but sometimes a mixture of politics and law arises in these matters. The point I am making is that, frankly, if any Government want to take the political risk of ignoring an interim measure, they can do so under our law as it stands. It happens that they effectively did so on prisoner voting, so they could do that now if they wanted to. I am not going to advise on that, because one has to be very wary not to come to views that may very often not be fact-specific when individual decisions are made.
Sir Jeremy Wright
I do not want to prolong the discussion about prisoner voting, but like my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I remember having conversations about it inside Government. I think it would be fairer to describe the situation as one in which the UK did not at any point refuse to comply with the judgment, would it not? We have perhaps adopted a more Augustinian approach to compliance: we just have not quite got around to it yet.
Sir Robert Neill
I think that is right. As I recall, the UK Government put a motion before this House, which the House rejected. So we had a perfectly legitimate legal argument that we had taken steps to comply, and Parliament, as it was entitled to, decided otherwise. That is why the whole of my argument with the amendments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark is that they are an Aunt Sally—a complete red herring compared with the real issues we are concerned with—and I urge hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to reject them.
Finally, I had misgivings about this Bill, and I spoke about that on Second Reading. I said that it stayed acceptable—just—and I maintain that position. My right hon. Friend quoted the noble Lord Sandhurst, a very distinguished lawyer in the other place. I should say that he is a personal friend of mine. The noble Lord Sandhurst is chair of the research committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, and I happen to chair the executive committee of the society. Lord Sandhurst and Harry Gillow, a fellow member of the society, published a very useful pamphlet about the impact of this Bill, and they have updated it in the light of these amendments. Their conclusion, with respect, is that
“the Bill goes as far as reasonably possible without risking collapse of the Rwanda scheme as a whole”.
They go on to say in their pamphlet that the Bill as drafted represents the best chance of success for the migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda. So they are on the same side of the argument as me and say that the amendments proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark take it over the line in terms of being able to deliver the partnership scheme and risk collapsing the whole scheme. It was ironic that my right hon. Friend talked about blowing up the Bill because the truth is that his amendments will blow up the deal with Rwanda, because the Rwandans have made it abundantly clear that anything that breaches international law will be unacceptable to them and they would withdraw from the agreement.
Gavin Robinson
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), Chair of the Justice Committee. He said that at times we will see a collision between, or an interface with, politics and the law, and I hope that what arises from my contribution is that there is a third element, which is principle.
Throughout the passage of this Bill, and indeed some of the precursors to it, we have advanced a number of principled positions, one of which challenges the basis of the legal aspiration contained in the Bill, while another rightly makes the challenge that it does not matter how hard some might suggest that this is the most robust piece of legislation if it does not do what it is intended to do and is not going to work, and that it is an unprincipled place to be with the British electorate to suggest that all these steps are in earnest and have some virtue while knowing that they are inconsistent and will not work. I made those points during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and Ministers on the Front Bench at the time told me that I was entirely wrong, that there was no need to strengthen the provisions and that that Bill would do what they said it would. Yet now I hear, throughout discussions on this Bill and in this Committee, the very same people who then occupied the Front Bench adopting the same arguments that we deployed for the Nationality and Borders Bill.
I still find it thoroughly inconsistent in the context of this Bill that our Government have reached the position where they have an agreement with Rwanda that also involves our country accepting refugees from Rwanda, which is therefore a country deemed capable of producing refugees. It is incongruous to me that a country deemed safe by this Parliament should be capable of producing refugees from that very same country. I have not heard a robust argument as to how that is not an inconsistent position.
The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and giving me a chance to put him right. I offer the example of the transit mechanism that is in place, whereby Rwanda is already hosting refugees from Libya—Rwanda, in its generosity and safety, is hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees. That is how.
Gavin Robinson
If the Minister is prepared to say that the only refugees who can come to the United Kingdom from Rwanda are those who have been produced as refugees from other countries, that is an absolutely fair point, but I do not think that is the point he is making. I am very happy to let him intervene again but I genuinely do not think that is the point he is making.
The point I am making is that it is entirely inconsistent to say on the one hand that we will accept refugees from a country and on the other hand to deem that country as safe. I accept our right to do it, however, and I do not quibble with the Government’s aspiration that Rwanda is a safe country. I do not quibble with that; I just say that there is a complete juxtaposition between on the one hand saying it is safe and on the other accepting refugees from that very same country.
I recognise the nature of Committee stage, but I make the point again to the shadow Minister that this is not about his valiant opposition in Committee or on Third Reading, or what passed on Second Reading; it is about the Labour party’s opposition on this Bill, which I have no doubt will fold in the other place. The political choice will be the Labour party’s to make; there is no second Session or additional Session of this Parliament. There will be no Parliament Act available to pass the Bill and it is going to be tortured in the other place. The Bill will be tortured in the other place and the only way it will emerge or emanate from this Parliament is if a political calculation is made by the Labour party that there is too much political cost in opposition to the Bill and they draw stumps and allow it to pass. I reiterate that point; I am saying it very clearly now and I suspect that in a number of months’ time the point that is being ignored today will become quite acute in our political discourse.
Stephen Kinnock
I apologise if I did not fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point in his question to me when I was making my remarks. It was specifically about the other place. What I would say to him is that Labour Members of the other place will give this Bill the scrutiny that it deserves and will hold the Government to account. The Illegal Migration Act 2023 ended up going through and getting Royal Assent in spite of very severe and serious reservations, but of course we recognise not only that in the other place we have the duty to scrutinise but that we are responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of Parliament across the board. I say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not think this Bill will be treated in any way differently from any other piece of legislation that would go to the other place, at least from the point of view of my colleagues there.
Gavin Robinson
I am glad to accept that intervention, and the shadow Minister has made his point and I have made my point. I suspect we will find as much safety in the point that has just been made as in that of those who stand bullishly and say that this is the strongest, most robust piece of legislation ever, irrespective of whether it works. I just put that on the record.
As Members will be aware from Second Reading, we have concerns about the operability of the Bill in the light of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union and the legislative framework that surrounds that relationship. That is why our new clause 3 is a notwithstanding clause. I know that we have had some humour around notwithstanding clauses from the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), but that notwithstanding clause is there because we have concerns, in contradiction to the Government’s position, that the claims that have been made in this House and the position that the Government have deployed are not sustainable legally.
Our amendment states:
“The provisions of this Act shall have effect in Northern Ireland, notwithstanding Section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018”,
amended in 2020. That is important from a principled perspective as a Unionist and from a practical perspective as a Member of this Parliament who believes that our immigration policy applies equally across the United Kingdom—it always has applied equally across the United Kingdom. The worry is that the Government are blindly ignoring our concerns and allowing a situation to develop that will cause a fracture in the immigration policy, which until this point has applied equally across the United Kingdom.
I have engaged with the Minister on this issue and I am grateful to him for both making the time available and the courtesy with which he always approaches these issues. Colleagues will recall that we raised this issue on Second Reading and the Minister gave a commitment, which fundamentally comes in two parts: that the Government have never accepted that the rights chapter of the Belfast agreement engages immigration policy, and furthermore that the Government have in the past robustly defended the position that the rights chapter of the Belfast agreement does not engage immigration policy and have won. They have advanced that argument in court and have won. The argument that the Government are putting forward is predicated on article 2 of the withdrawal agreement—that there be “no diminution of rights” for the people of Northern Ireland whenever the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. As a consequence, and given that they say the rights chapter does not apply to immigration, they say there is no diminution of rights, so this situation is not captured by article 2. We engaged with the Government—
Gavin Robinson
I will not take an intervention at this stage, because there are a few elements that I want to get out clearly and cleanly. I will then be happy to give way.
The Minister put forward his point, and we exchanged positions on Second Reading about the potential of an updated legal note. I have to say in all candour that the Minister and the Government have been forthcoming in more formally addressing this point in terms of article 2 of the European Union withdrawal agreement alone, and not article 7.
Let us be clear: we as a national Parliament are considering on a national basis our national immigration policy, and our amendment is intended to elicit a response from the Government. Eyes wide open, they could choose to ignore us at this point, to dismiss the concerns that have been raised and ultimately leave it to the courts to decide and the judiciary to determine whether there is cause for concern. Or they could take the simple step on immigration grounds alone to disapply section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. That is the choice.
Yesterday I shared with the Minister—I share it with the Committee today—the details of a High Court case in Belfast. It was an application for judicial review by Aman Angesom, and it was interesting reading. Paragraph 94 of that judgment states clearly:
“The combined effect of section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018…and Article 4 of the Protocol limits the effects of section 5(4) and (5) of the EUWA 2018 and Schedule 1, para 3 of the same Act which restrict the use to which the Charter of Fundamental Rights and EU General Principles may be relied on after the UK’s exit. Thus, the Charter of Fundamental Rights remains enforceable in Northern Ireland and falls within the ambit of Article 2(1) of the Protocol.”
Contained within the charter of fundamental rights is article 18, the right to asylum. Everything we have seen from the Government has engaged the discussion around the rights chapter of the Belfast agreement. It has not engaged the consideration that was resolved and shared in paragraph 94 of that Belfast High Court judgment, which has a completely separate legal construction for the Government’s ambition for how this Rwanda Bill will not apply to Northern Ireland.
The Minister has said clearly on the Floor of the House that the Bill will apply in full in Northern Ireland in the same way as it does in the rest of the United Kingdom. New clause 3 is our attempt, first, to get the Government to rule out the concerns that have been raised by agreeing it. Then, if they should not do so, they should at least articulate their intention, their position, what they believe to be the case, why they believe that interpretation and why the judgment from Belfast is wrong. I raise those issues on a number of levels: as a parliamentary spokesperson on home affairs and somebody who has engaged on immigration issues for a while, as someone who has voted against previous attempts because I do not believe they are the right approach, and as someone who voted against the Bill on Second Reading because I still do not believe it is the right approach.
I also raise those things as a representative for Belfast. Believe it or not—I say this with no alarm and no theatrics but as a matter of record—House of Commons Library figures from September point out that, across the entire United Kingdom, Belfast has the second-highest number of asylum seekers, housed within our city. We have 78 asylum seekers for every 10,000 of the city’s population. I am not being alarmist about that and I will not over-egg it; I am just making the point that these are important issues, and the unity of our immigration system is important. The protection of our borders is an important issue in immigration terms.
Heaven knows, we have had enough difficulty around the creation of a trade border in the Irish sea that we are having to deal with. We cannot casually, or mistakenly, or through misplaced hope, walk ourselves into the creation of an immigration sea border in the Irish sea because the Government fail to accept the strength of feeling on this issue, the cause for concern surrounding it and the legal and judicial opinion that has been given that leans into it. This is our opportunity to put it right, and we should take it.
I am about to finish, but in fairness I did indicate to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) that I would give way, and I mean no discourtesy, so I will.
Stella Creasy
I appreciate the case the hon. Gentleman is making. My concern is that the Angesom judgment—I looked it up after he and I talked about it—states:
“The applicant and respondent both agree that the rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity enshrined in Strand Three of the GFA do not exclude asylum seekers.”
The Home Office, which brought the case, accepts that the Good Friday agreement extends to refugees in Northern Ireland, yet with this piece of legislation the Government are seeking to exempt them from those rights and therefore undermine the Good Friday agreement. I just wanted to clarify my reading of the ruling he mentioned.
Gavin Robinson
The hon. Lady is entirely right in the quote that she shares. It is fair to say that the Government won that case. We therefore did not see the Government—indeed, they did not have any rationale to do so—taking forward an appeal to defend some of the points that they may well have chosen to defend, but she highlights a frailty in the position, if the Home Office is not accepting a position that it has defended in other cases by saying that the rights chapter is not engaged. That is a frailty of the Government’s position, and that is why, in fairness, the hon. Lady has tabled her own amendment. It is not as fatal as our new clause 3, in terms of the notwithstanding provisions, but it is at least asking the Government not to proceed with the Bill until they are in the firm position to publish a position. This House has agreed that that is the basis upon which we should proceed.
I have been in this place for almost nine years. There are many occasions when this House has agreed to proceed in the face of what I believe to be well-grounded, politically supported and principled decisions. It is not an amendment I take comfort from, but I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, given the day that this is and the potential for Third Reading this evening.
Sir Robert Buckland
I spoke yesterday to the amendments that stand in my name and are potentially subject to Division later, so I will not trouble the Committee on that. My amendment 58 would amend clause 7 to preserve a small element of clause 1—namely, the definition of a safe country. I listened carefully to the reasoned arguments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), whose position is similar to mine, except that he takes exception to parts of clause 1 that I want to retain. I would rather get rid of the rest of clause 1, because it is bad lawmaking, but I will come back to that in a moment.
I might have an answer to my right hon. and learned Friend’s sensible question of why the definition of a safe country in clause 1(5)(b)(ii) contains reference to the other country’s “obligations under international law.” It is simple: that has to flow, because unlike many people’s understanding of this scheme, it is not about the offshoring of UK processing, but the wholesale handing to another country of the determination of applications. That is why the measure is in the Bill. I hope that gives him some satisfaction. It is why, in considering my amendments, I decided to retain the entirety of subparagraph (ii) by moving it to the interpretive clauses towards the back end of the Bill. It was the only part of clause 1 that I could see had any function whatsoever.
Sir Jeremy Wright
I understand the argument that my right hon. and learned Friend is making, and I will not be dogmatic about the approach that I set out earlier. Is there not a danger, if we retain the language that he is referring to, that we open up another channel of legal challenge, which is exactly what the Government are seeking to avoid? If the question becomes, “Is Rwanda in compliance with its international law responsibilities?”, that is something else that someone may choose to argue if they wish to resist their transfer to Rwanda.
Sir Robert Buckland
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. I think I have said outside the Chamber that, when it comes to the passage of statute, the principle of “less is more” is not only fundamentally Conservative, but fundamental to good lawmaking. Although the Bill does not weigh in at a heavy number of clauses—it has a mere 10—we as parliamentarians have a continuing duty to demonstrate economy. Any clause—in this case, clause 1—that is titled “Introduction” should give us all pause for thought, if not breaking out into a cold sweat.
It seems to me that the language in clauses 1 to 6 would belong better in a White Paper or an accompanying policy document. We know what the purpose of the Bill is. We have read the treaty, and most of us will have read the policy document that accompanied the Bill’s publication—that is where such language belongs, not in a Bill. That is not just because I have a tidy and ordered mind—well, I try—but because of the very point made by my right hon. and learned Friend: the more words we put into legislation, the more opportunity we give for their litigation and justiciability, and the arguments that will then go before the court about fundamental issues at a high level that, in my view, really should not be the province of litigation.
It is for the contracting parties to a treaty to agree its terms and sign the document, and then either directly, as in the case of Rwanda or, in our dualist system, via the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010—the CRaG procedure that is ongoing—the treaty will come into force. So, to use one of my favourite wartime adages, I must ask my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, for whom I have great esteem: why is our journey really necessary?
In my view, clause 1 needs to go, save for the retention of clause 5. Although we will have a stand-part vote anyway, I tabled amendment 27 just to emphasise my extreme distaste for clause 1. It is a distaste based on the fear that this somehow becomes the norm and we start to see legislation of this nature proliferate. Let us start with clause 2, because that is what the Bill is all about: the safety of the Republic of Rwanda. That is where it should begin. What clause 2 says is clear, and I spoke to it yesterday.
I turn now to clause 3, which throws up a series of interesting questions. I am not a particular fan of section 3 of the Human Rights Act, because I never liked the read-down provisions, which draw the justices—the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in particular—into a province where they are acting almost as a constitutional court. We have seen it happen: the read-down provisions where judges in effect pass and reinterpret the will of Parliament. It is a sticky and dangerous place for the Court to go, and I do not like it. If I had had the opportunity and we had done what we said we would do in the manifesto, which I helped to write, we would have updated the Human Rights Act by now. We could have got rid of section 3, so we would not have needed to refer to it in this ad hoc way in the Bill. It was a horrible echo of that Bill of Rights, which happily never saw the light of day—it did not even have a Second Reading, thank goodness—and perhaps some of what I am saying in the context of these amendments and the stand part debates is an echo of my deep distaste for aspects of that failed legislation.
Why have we got clause 3 in the Bill? I can see what the Government want to do—they want to avoid arguments relating to the Human Rights Act—but I am afraid that they cannot get out of jail. As people have an individual right to petition to Strasbourg anyway—I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) that we helped to set up that Court and have direct ownership of it—we are in effect sending the arguments to that so-called foreign Court. Of course, the danger in allowing petitions to go to Strasbourg without any airing of the arguments in domestic courts is that we do not really get that margin of appreciation evidence that is so crucial for the Strasbourg Court.
I do get frustrated by inelegant, inaccurate comparisons between the Luxembourg Court—the Court of Justice of the European Union—and the Strasbourg Court, which is a very different place. We have a much wider margin of appreciation, much bigger discretion and much more room in which to make arguments of interpretation and context—indeed, political context as well—about the way in which we do things in this country. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the number of times the United Kingdom is found to be in breach of the convention is vanishingly small.
We have heard about prisoner rights—more cases, anybody? We might remember the Abu Qatada case, which is on all fours with what we are dealing with here. We solved the problem by making sure that Jordan had a fair trial system. If I am right, I think Abu Qatada was tried and acquitted in Jordan, but the point was made. That is the point on all fours with this Bill: if we are to rely on the processes of another country, getting them right in order to be compliant seems to be the best way forward. That is why the Government’s treaty approach is to be commended. So, no, I do not see the need for clause 3—get rid of it. We will end up with these arguments whether we like it or not.
I turn to clause 5, which is another clause that, in the words of my hon. Friends, is just unnecessary. I do not see how interim measures equate in any way to the binding nature of final judgments, which article 46 of the convention draws us to, or indeed anything different from the approach that we take to interim injunctions in domestic cases that High Court judges, county court judges—judges of all shapes and sizes—will be enjoined to create or refuse on ex parte or inter partes applications.
In the context of the debate about interim measures, it is important to pray in aid the work done in the plenary sessions of the European Court of Human Rights last year. The rules will be changed, with that coming into effect in 2024. May I ask my hon. and learned Friend the Minister to work with colleagues in the Attorney General’s Office—his former Department—and indeed the Lord Chancellor, to ensure that the Council of Europe and the plenary sessions of the Court get on with implementing these changes? The changes to interim measures are really important.
First, the limiting of the granting of interim measures to “exceptional circumstances”—those words do not currently exist in the definition of rule 39—will change the ball game at a stroke. Secondly, there is the end to anonymity for judges, which is a proposal that will be enacted. Finally, and importantly, there is the opportunity for parties to the proceedings to request the court to reconsider its decision. So the United Kingdom will have an opportunity to say, “No, there is no imminent risk of irreparable damage here. We can fly people back from Rwanda if there is a problem.” In any event, because of the measures that we are taking in the Bill, we will not be sending people who are vulnerable or at risk—those who might be terminally ill, pregnant or have some serious condition, whatever it might be—to Rwanda in the first place. We have got the arguments to deal with rule 39 and we should have the self-confidence and the ability to make our case. I think that the reforms to rule 39 will be significant.
I am delighted to have followed the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who made a thoughtful contribution. He and I have had some differences of opinion about things in recent days, but he always couches his arguments in a respectful way, and for that I thank him.
Sir William Cash
First, does my right hon. and learned Friend understand that there are those who argue that the rule 39 indications are being used by the Strasbourg Court in a way that is not binding? Has he heard that argument, and does he agree with it? Secondly, with regard to how people react to the manner in which the proposed reforms are being done, can he speak with authority—not that he does not have his own authority—by quoting to us any specific document that demonstrates that the whole thing is now more or less sewn up?
Sir Robert Buckland
I have sources that I was looking at to research this speech. I will send my hon. Friend the links that I have to the European Court web pages that deal with several meetings held in the summer and November last year where the proposals were agreed. Now, the question is implementation in 2024. The Court has not been specific about precisely when these reforms will be brought in. Therefore, now is our opportunity not just as a Parliament but as a Government, together with other member states, to say, “Look, these are welcome. Can you please bring them in?” Hopefully, it will bring them in a way that dovetails with the eventual coming into force of these provisions. My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will send that information to him.
Gavin Robinson
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for his contribution. He would accept that the arguments around the particularities of Northern Ireland, should an application come from Northern Ireland, were not considered by the Supreme Court in detail. I am not saying that I am right, but for as long as we have an undetermined position of the Government on one hand juxtaposed with some advocates in Northern Ireland on the other, we need to get it settled. We need to be sure about the position. That is my point.
Sir Robert Buckland
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. I hope that is taken up in the other place as well. As Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I want to discuss that further with him and with Ministers in the Home Office or the Northern Ireland Office—directly with the Home Office would probably be the best way forward.
That opens up the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) about the interaction of Scots law with all this. She is not wrong to remind us that Scots law looks at parliamentary sovereignty differently from the law of England and Wales. We cannot get around that. However, I would qualify her remarks by saying that that is overcome by having a United Kingdom Supreme Court, which has at the moment two very distinguished Scots lawyers, in the form of the president and vice-president, who understand these principles deeply. At any time, the composition of that Court will include senior Scots lawyers, and it also has a senior judge from Northern Ireland, Lord Stephens.
The whole function of the Supreme Court is to bring together the slightly differing concepts of constitutional law that undoubtedly exist in our jurisdictions and strike the right balance, based on restraint—we come back to that word again. I will not labour the point I made yesterday, but my hon. and learned Friend the Minister knows that he is walking a tightrope to get this legislation right. Anything that smacks of a lack of restraint, such as the amendments tabled by hon. Friends—I said obliging things yesterday and I will repeat them today—does not follow that sense of restraint and balance.
It is about the risk of an imbalance not just between the courts of England and Wales and this Parliament, but between the differing jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. That should give us all pause for thought, particularly those of us deeply committed to our Union and who believe in this United Kingdom. I am not saying that my hon. Friends are deliberately trying to undermine that, but I am sounding a word of warning about treading too heavily down this path of exceptionalism and going too far in normalising what were the exceptional circumstances of withdrawal from the EU. I should know about that because I sat on that Front Bench making the case for many of the provisions in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act that are cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and others. Those were exceptional times.
I know that this is an exceptional global challenge, but before I conclude my remarks, I will simply say that we need to tread carefully. If we do not do so, in trying to deal with an external problem we will create internal, constitutional and legal problems of our own. I do not think that any self-respecting Conservative Government would want to do that, and no self-respecting Parliament would want to follow that. For those reasons, I urge right hon. and hon. Members to reject many of the amendments that complicate the Bill, and to follow the maxim that less is more.
Stella Creasy
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and many of the colleagues sat next to him who have brought an immense level of legal expertise to their concerns about the Bill. Let me try to offer something different, as somebody who is not legally qualified: a lay person’s view or perspective on what the Bill is doing, in particular why I tabled and will speak to amendment 9, and why I support the amendments in the name of my Front Bench colleagues.
This is not about the R of refugees or even the R of Rwanda; it is about the R of rights—the rights we enjoy that protect those freedoms and liberties that so many of us fight for, are passionate about, and believe are intrinsic to a good life. The Government state that the Bill is:
“a clear statement of Parliament’s view that Rwanda is safe, ‘notwithstanding’ all specified domestic legislation and the common law, and any alternative interpretation of international law including customary international law”.
For those of us who are not qualified, the word “notwithstanding” is doing an awful lot of work to justify the diminution of rights for people in our country and the concept that somehow international law does not protect us.
So much of the anger we have heard about the idea of a foreign court has come from it being about the European Court of Human Rights: that it is an affront to our democracy that that organisation is part of protecting those rights, liberties and freedoms on which we depend. How dare Winston Churchill sign us up to such a thing? How dare he believe that working with other countries was the way to protect those rights? As he said:
“In the centre of our movement stands the idea of a Charter of Human Rights, guarded by freedom and sustained by law.”
The scoundrel. What sort of rights was he trying to protect? What sort of abuses by the state did he dare to think we might need a court to uphold for us? The right to family life? A travesty, surely. The right to privacy? I mean, goodness me, what a terrible thing to be concerned about. The right to freedom from torture or the right to liberty, or even the right to freedom of thought? Well, no wonder we need to look at all this again. How terrible those things must sound to those of us who are not legally qualified and who cannot see the rub there.
Let me to try think through a real world example of why those rights might be upheld by a third party. One could think of somebody, perhaps a Member of this House who did not have the respect and courtesy for other people speaking in this debate to even stay and listen to them shortly after he had spoken; somebody who thought that the rules did not apply to him, that the treatment of others was not something that mattered and who perhaps was far too busy worrying about his social media account. The Chair would want to hold him to account, and rightly so. Goodness, many of us would think he might need legal representation for what could happen next. He would want his day in court. He might not want to be in the Chamber when we were talking about those very issues. He might be concerned about the idea of a judge and jury existing in the same person. The very principles that led to setting up the European Court of Human Rights are ones that we all feel every single day, because it does not just defend those basic things like a right to family life or the right to privacy, it also defends a process by which those rights are upheld. Even if the Chair wanted to take somebody to task for not following the rules in this place, they might at least be entitled to a fair hearing or a fair trial for what they had done.
Yet what the Bill does is remove that concept of a fair hearing from those people in our country who are often some of the most vulnerable: people fleeing torture and persecution. They want to uphold Government Ministers as judge and jury, and it does not even align with their own data on how many people they were granting asylum to when their cases were heard. Nevertheless the point about the ECHR is the point that was understood by Churchill and, I believe, by many of us in the Chamber: we withdraw at our peril the opportunity for that freedom to be heard, that freedom for a fair trial and for somebody else to hear your case against an overbearing state.
Danny Kruger
The hon. Lady is constantly and sarcastically evoking Winston Churchill. Obviously he did sign up to the ECHR and he sent lawyers to deal with the drafting process, but will the hon. Lady acknowledge that he did not initially think that the United Kingdom would join it; and when he did sign us up to it, there was no right of individual claims to the European Court? It was properly on the plane of international law—between states, which is the appropriate place for this sort of law.
Nor would Churchill accept, surely—and nor should any of us—what the ECHR has become under the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court and, I am afraid, our own lawyers. All the articles that the hon. Lady has mentioned, including the right to human life, have been so extended and expanded by the courts ever since that it has become entirely inappropriate for us to belong to the Court in this way. I really do not think that Winston Churchill would have supported what Strasbourg has become, and neither, surely, does the hon. Lady.
Stella Creasy
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not here earlier to be part of the conversation. I am sure that he would want his own right of remedy to explain why he could not be bothered to be here at the start. He would have heard the debate that we had about the original intention of the Court. Let me quote back to him the original document, which states:
“The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.”
From the start, Churchill himself advocated for the Court as a backstop against overbearing Governments that could speak for people and prosecute people in ways that were being talked about after the second world war without any challenge. I do not quote Churchill sarcastically. I recognise what he saw at the time: the danger of authoritarianism. The hon. Gentleman would do well to reflect on that and perhaps reread some of those arguments—as well as the rules about taking part in a parliamentary debate.
When Churchill talked about welcoming any country in which the people owned the Government, he was talking about democracy, and our courts are an integral part of our democracy because they keep Governments honest, even if they are straining with this current Administration. Just two countries have left the European Court of Human Rights. I was there when we expelled Russia because of its aggression and when we tried to prevent it from coming back. Greece left in 1967 when it was under a military regime and rejoined once democracy was restored. We should be proud and confident in our capacity to speak up for human rights and to recognise that a right to an effective remedy is an integral part of that. There is no point having a right if we cannot exercise it, and that means having a separate body to oversee the process and ensure that it is fair to all parties.
Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of amendment 11, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), which commands the support of 60 of my colleagues. I note the comments made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), and I would like to respond to some of them in the course of my speech.
We are here to fix a problem. It is the problem that we are all seized by, which is stopping the boats. This is our third attempt to fix this problem. We passed the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, we passed the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and we are here again in 2024, the third time round, with the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. The British people are fed up. They have run out of patience and they have run out of time, and this is our last chance to get it right.
Amendment 11 seeks to remedy a fatal flaw in the Bill, which is that, as currently drafted, it will lead us directly to a rerun of the scenario that we saw on 14 June 2022, when the Home Office and the then Administration had identified a cohort of illegal migrants and filled a plane ready to take off to Rwanda, but at the 11th hour, pursuant to an opaque process, a decision was made by a still unidentified judge in a foreign court that had the effect of blocking the flight—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) have something to say?
Patrick Grady
I am not sure why we have to be frightened of foreign courts. What exactly is wrong with a foreign court?
Suella Braverman
I will tell the hon. Gentleman where we have a problem with a foreign court. In that scenario, when English courts had refused injunctions by the migrants to get off the flight, the foreign court overrode English judges, overrode the will of the Government and overrode the will of the British people to control our borders and stop the boats. That is the problem with a foreign court, and that is the problem that we are trying to fix.
When that flight was grounded in June 2022, it was because of rule 39 interim injunctions. Those orders are not contained in the European convention on human rights, and they are not a product or a content of the original convention. They are a creation of the Strasbourg court and the Strasbourg judges, and they have evolved over time pursuant to the living instrument doctrine that is espoused by the Strasbourg court and that has inflated and expanded its remit over decades, beyond anything conceived by the original drafters or any intention set out in the original versions of the European convention.
I believe that no one here disagrees with the aspirations and the content of the European convention on human rights. I do not disagree with anything set out in that document, which contains noble, vital and fundamental human rights that we are all proud to defend fervently and fiercely: against oppressive regimes; against authoritarianism; against genocide; against mass killings; and against some of the worst atrocities history has seen. That is the context of the European convention’s genesis.
To respond to the hon. Member for Walthamstow, the problem we are dealing with is the Court. It is the Court that has become politicised. It is the Court that has become interventionist. It is the Court that does not follow the traditional common-law rules of precedent to which the English courts subscribe. The Strasbourg Court and its judges have distorted the original European convention on human rights into something that bears no reflection to its original intention.
That has been exacerbated by Labour’s Human Rights Act. In recent decades we have seen a rights culture and litigiousness around immigration, asylum and many other areas. Public sector decision making has been stymied, thwarted and undermined by a heavily resourced, activist legal industry that is undermining Government decision making, stymying policy making and undermining law enforcement and public safety.
I have a few examples. Take the case of OO, a Nigerian national who was sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for offences including possession of crack cocaine and heroin with intent to supply. He pleaded guilty to battery and assault in 2017. Those are serious offences. In 2020, the first-tier tribunal allowed his appeal against deportation on the grounds that he had very significant obstacles to integration in Nigeria that outweighed the public interest in his deportation. Despite the seriousness of his offending, and despite the risk he posed to the public, his article 8 rights, interpreted in a vastly elastic way—a distorted, illogical way—operated to stop him being deported.
Article 3 was invoked in the case of D v. UK. We can all agree with article 3, which prohibits torture and inhumane or degrading treatment but, in this case of a non-UK national who was convicted of dealing drugs, the Strasbourg court held that the effect of discontinuing his medical treatment, available in the UK but not in his destination country, amounted to inhumane or degrading treatment under article 3. Why should a convicted drug dealer be entitled to public services here and not be deported?
Sir John Hayes
Surely on that basis almost any deportation could be blocked, for few countries in the world can match the standard of our NHS, and once that precedent has been set every person will claim that they require treatment for the most minor of ailments.
Suella Braverman
I am afraid that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that point. Article 3, and a stretched interpretation of it originating in the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court, by politicised judges pursuing a political agenda, has led to a perception that here in the UK we have an international health service, not a national health service.
Lastly, let us consider the case of AM (Zimbabwe) in 2022, thanks to which it has now become law that states that want to remove someone have to prove that medical facilities available to the deportee in their home country would remove any real risk that their lifespan would be shortened by their removal from NHS facilities. That is exactly the point that my right hon. Friend has made: the UK Government now have a duty to establish that foreign health services are sufficient before we deport people who may well pose a risk to public safety and, in some cases, national security in this country.
Those are the overall problems with the Court—not the convention, but the Court. Rule 39 is another symptom of the problem that we have with the Court and the judges, which is why the amendment is vital. It will make it clear that rule 39 orders are not binding and that it will be for the UK Government to make the decision on deportation, not a foreign court—an unidentified judge somewhere far away who does not have the same ambition or aspiration as this UK Government to stop the boats. That is why I will support the amendment enthusiastically today.
Let me conclude by saying that this is our last chance to fix this problem. We have stretched the patience of the British people. This comes down to a simple but profound question: who governs Britain? Is it us, the democratically elected representatives who have been directly sent here on behalf of the British people, on a clear mandate and with a clear instruction of what to do, and whose laws are passed by a clear and transparent majority, to which we can all be held to account at the ballot box? Or is it an opaque forum many miles away, in a different country, that is distant, outsourced, foreign and does not share our values—
Suella Braverman
I will not give way.
Is it a forum that does not share our values, that has made decisions time and time again that are odds with what the British people have indicated they want and that has operated to undermine our public safety, national security and good governance?
It is the operation of the Strasbourg Court—we can call it the Strasbourg Court or a foreign court, and we can argue about semantics—the European Court of Human Rights, that we are concerned with here. That Court is currently controlling this country’s ability to stop the boats. That Court and its jurisprudence are preventing this Government from delivering for the British people. We made a vow to the British people that we would stop the boats. That was a solemn vow that I took incredibly seriously. It was what people voted for in 2016 in the Brexit referendum by a majority. I know that most Opposition Members do not want to believe in the majority, still live in denial and do not want to accept the facts. It is what people voted for by a huge majority in 2019: to control our borders and to stop the boats. We made a promise.
Stella Creasy
I know the right hon. and learned Lady feels this passionately, but will she clarify her concern about a “foreign court”? What does she think NATO is?
Suella Braverman
NATO is not a court. I am slightly embarrassed that I have to make that clear to the hon. Lady, as that is really elementary politics. We are being governed by a foreign court and judges who do not have our interests at heart. The decisions coming from that court are stopping us controlling our borders. The amendment will prevent that foreign court from stopping us, so we need to support the amendment because it will fix the Bill. The Bill needs to work. It is our last chance. If we get it wrong, the British people will not forgive us, and they will be right not to do so.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I now have to announce the results of today’s deferred Divisions.
On the draft Immigration Act 2014 (Residential Accommodation) (Maximum Penalty) Order 2023, the Ayes were 331 and the Noes were 51, so the Ayes have it.
On the draft Immigration (Employment of Adults Subject to Immigration Control) (Maximum Penalty) (Amendment) Order 2023, the Ayes were 331 and the Noes were 51, so the Ayes have it.
[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]
Patrick Grady
What a privilege it is to follow the former Home Secretary. The debate has really lit up. There were comparisons earlier between the debate and the next episode in a box set, but I think we have just seen the first act of the next Conservative leadership contest—no doubt the sketch writers and everyone else paying attention have suddenly woken up. She made some incredibly interesting comments. She spoke about vows that were made to British people after referendums and elections; I remember a vow being made in 2014 about how the Scottish Parliament was going to become the greatest, most powerful leader of all Parliaments in the entire world, and look how that turned out.
The former Home Secretary is right that the Government will be held to account and that Parliament will exercise its opportunity to have a say on these issues; that is why the amendments proposed by her and her hon. Friends were voted down last night and, I am confident, will be voted down again this evening. Come the election, a majority of Members of Parliament, including a majority of MPs in Scotland who represent the Scottish National party, will be returned to the House and will vote to repeal the Bill, assuming the Bill ever makes it on to the statute book in the first place.
What is playing out is a debate not specifically about this legislation but about the future of the Conservative party, and some of its past as well. In some ways, it has been a real privilege to debate against the Maastricht rebels of old and to have the opportunity to debate people who were on the television when I was studying for my modern studies standard grade 30 years ago. They still cannot get that determination to rebel against the Government out of their systems. It does not really matter what the Government are proposing—the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the right hon. Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for Wokingham (John Redwood) and the rest will be against it because they love that sweet taste of rebellion. But the rest of us have better things to do with our time, and we need to get on and demonstrate what our constituents think about the Bill.
We heard at great length yesterday from the hon. Member for Stone about the wonderful concept of parliamentary sovereignty, even though we are debating the clause that explicitly recognises parliamentary sovereignty today. My amendment 31 would remove a subsection in that clause because the assertion of parliamentary sovereignty in such a Bill is an innovation. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that point, because the idea of including in a Bill that language about Parliament being sovereign is an innovation. With the help of the House of Commons Library, the only other instance I have been able to find is in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
There are other examples of legislation that imply parliamentary sovereignty and that imply the ability of this House to override courts and make its own decisions. Some of that is in the founding legislation that took us into the European Union in the first place, and also in the Acts that established the devolution settlement. But the line asserting that Parliament is sovereign is something of a legislative innovation.
Given how lyrical the hon. Member for Stone waxed yesterday about the wonder of an unwritten constitution, it strikes me that this is a form of codifying the concept of parliamentary sovereignty—writing down aspects of the UK constitution. This seems to be a random piece of migration legislation, which may or may not ever actually make it on to the statute book. None the less, it seems a very interesting way to go about codifying the UK constitution.
The other reason for my amendment is the one cited by both the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) yesterday, when he introduced his ten-minute rule Bill, and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) earlier, when she raised the constitutional tradition expressed by Lord Cooper in the case of MacCormick v. the Lord Advocate in 1953:
“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle, which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law”.
My hon. and learned Friend spoke with far greater experience than I can about the significance of that ruling and, indeed, about the wider significance of Scotland’s historically independent legal system to this debate and to this legislation.
That perhaps explains my amendments 4 and 5, which would remove Scotland from the Extent clause because, despite what the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) seems to think about the opinions of the British public, voters in Glasgow North want no part of this. I know that because I speak to them on a very regular basis. A significant number of them are asylum seekers, who regularly come to my surgeries. I hear the horror stories not just of what they have experienced in their countries of origin, but of their experience of trying to deal with the Home Office. Frankly, if more asylum seekers knew that that was what they would be on the receiving end of, perhaps it would have the kind of deterrent effect that the Home Office is so desperately trying to achieve.
In reality, Scotland has always been a country that welcomes refugees, asylum seekers and those who want to make their home there and contribute something to our society—just as so many countries around the world did for the Scots when they were cleared off the land to make way for sheep, or when their crops fell victim to blight or, in the modern world, when people want to study around the world or practise their professions overseas. That is why I also support the amendments from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West that say the Scottish Parliament should be asked to give its consent to the Bill before it takes effect north of the border. In reality, the Scottish Parliament will not give its consent, because it is not what the people in Scotland want to see, or how they think a humane system of asylum should work.
The Bill talks about the safety of Rwanda. I asked the Prime Minister about that today. I also put the same question to the Minister who responded to yesterday’s debate. I said that if Rwanda is a safe country and a comfortable place in which people can live out their lives having been granted asylum, why would the potential of being deported there be a deterrent? It does not seem to make an awful lot of sense to me. Both the Prime Minister and the Minister said, “Well, because Rwanda is not the UK,” so not being the UK is itself a deterrent. By the same logic, if the Government came to an agreement with Disneyland and threatened to deport asylum seekers to Disneyland if they arrived here by irregular means, that too would be a deterrent, because it is not the United Kingdom. Sadly, there is not yet a Disneyland in the United Kingdom, although I suspect that, sometimes, people look at this place and wonder exactly where the fantasy in all this is.
By the Government’s own logic, then, the Bill fails under the weight of its contradictions. That is the point of the definition of the safety of Rwanda in clause 1. The Bill fails under the weight of its own contradictions, and we see that in the contradictory amendments proposed by the two, five or however many opposing factions there are in the Conservative party. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham, was right that the public will have their say on the Bill. After the next election, I am confident that Members from the Scottish National party will be prepared to support any legislation that the Government who are returned introduce to repeal the Bill—assuming, as I say, that it makes it on to the statute book in the first place.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I will now announce the results of the Ballot held today for the election of the Chair of the Defence Committee. There were 476 votes cast, four of which were invalid. Sir Jeremy Quin was elected Chair with 371 votes. He will take up his post immediately, and I congratulate him on his election. The results of the counts under the alternative vote system will be made available as soon as possible in the Vote Office and published on the internet.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I will be slightly unfashionable and talk to the amendment, rather than regurgitating some of the Second Reading speeches we have had. I do so with some trepidation because sitting to my right is a trio—a former Lord Chancellor, a former Attorney General and the Justice Committee Chair—who speak with much greater legal gravitas, and much more expensively. Perhaps the only upside is that my advice and my talking to the amendment comes for free.
In contributing to the debate, I am largely speaking to the Government side of the Committee. In all the speeches we had yesterday, when the Opposition could not fill the full allotted time for the debate, having complained about the lack of scrutiny—and I guess they may not be able to fill the full time given to them today—we heard speech after speech emulating their Front-Bench team that told us what they do not like, what they are not supporting and what they are not voting for. At absolutely no point did they come up with a practical solution for the very real everyday problems we aim to deal with here. Although we have disagreements on our side as to the methods, what we want to achieve is in common. That goal is something that needs to be tackled, and we are having an honest debate about it. The official Opposition are playing absolutely no part in that debate.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who has left his place, started the debate by talking to amendment 23 in particular. He described the problem as like pulling the pin out of a grenade but then not throwing it. I do not think that was helpful language, and he then quit the Chamber having thrown the grenade behind his own lines. We need cool, calm consensus to come up with practical, workable, acceptable and legal solutions.
The Rwanda scheme is not perfect—all of us will agree with that—but frankly it is the only real show in town at the moment to answer this essential question that I raised last week in the Opposition debate, which, again, they struggled to fill with their own speakers. That question is: how do we deal with the people who have come to this country, mostly by small boats, having paid criminal gangs, with no credible prospect of being able to lodge an acceptable asylum claim, but who come from countries to which it is virtually, if not completely, impossible to return them, so they know that once they have made it across the midway of the channel and are in British territorial waters, they are effectively in the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future? That is absolutely the question at the heart of this Bill and the debate today and yesterday.
Alison Thewliss
I have heard the hon. Gentleman make that point before about people who come and cannot be sent back to whatever country because of the situation there. That has occurred within my own casework, and at the moment it appears that the Home Office grants people temporary leave for perhaps a year at a time, which gives no certainty to the person affected but does I suppose give the Home Office discretion to reconsider, rather than giving them permanent status. That already happens, so I would say it is not something he should really be so concerned about.
Tim Loughton
I know it happens already. That is what I have been saying, and the hon. Lady at least credits me with being consistent. We have three problems with the immigration system in this country. The first problem is how we can prevent people from leaving those, mostly French, beaches in the first place to make that most inappropriate and most dangerous journey—we can have a different argument about the safe and legal routes, which she knows I support, and whether that would reduce the numbers trying to do it, or whether we could come to some accord with the French so that they would intercept those boats and return the passengers to French waters.
The second problem is that we need to speed up the whole processing—as the Government have, to give them credit—of those people who are in limbo, those who came before the Illegal Migration Act 2023 who are still able to have their asylum applications in this country. We need to get through that backlog as swiftly as possible. We then have a problem with those in limbo post the Illegal Migration Act, who have effectively committed a crime under the terms of that Act.
The third problem in solving the migration process is then removing those people who have not been able to make a credible claim to stay in the United Kingdom. That is why the alternative, of their facing a lottery on whether they will end up in a hotel in Kent or a plane to Rwanda and have their claim instead assessed there, is an important part of the deterrent factor. It is one part, not an overriding part, as some people have tried to caricature it, but an important part of dealing specifically with that group of people whom it is really difficult to remove.
In time, we need more returns agreements, and we have successfully done that with a number of countries—Albania has been cited many times. However, there are countries, of which Iran will be one, with which a returns agreement is frankly impossible and we should not delude ourselves otherwise. It is wrong to suggest that we can solve this problem just by having a further agreement with the French and paying them more money. We have paid the French gendarmerie and police force £480 million already, yet the proportion of successful intercepts has fallen in the past 12 months. We already have joint operations with them. We already have a unit within the National Crime Agency dealing with this issue. The Opposition claim that this problem can be solved by getting better at cracking down on the people smugglers and co-operating with the French, but all that is happening already.
We need to speed up the applications, as I have just said, but that still does not deal with the problem of what we do with people who we cannot then return. That is why I agree with the spirit of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark and other hon. Friends are trying to do with amendment 23, but I do not agree with the method, and that is why I will oppose the amendment. Let us just remind ourselves that the reason this Bill has become necessary is in response to the Supreme Court judgment that found the Rwanda scheme to have various specific shortcomings: the refoulement threat and the fact it was a one-way street, which has now been resolved. That is why a number of measures have been brought in with the Rwanda treaty and within this Bill.
This Bill is about allaying fears about not fulfilling our obligations under international law and the implications that may have for the Northern Ireland agreement, as has already been mentioned, and for negotiating trade treaties and other international agreements in the future. However, the Rwanda agreement as it currently stands, before the reforms to it, fell foul of our own courts. It was not just the ECHR or the refugee convention; it was our own courts that ruled against the Government.
The Rwanda scheme needs to be seen to be lawful, not just by Rwanda, but potentially both by other countries who have signified an interest in operating a Rwanda-type scheme as hosts, and by other European countries who are interested in getting part of the action if we are able to get the Rwanda scheme into operation. Ultimately, my aim is to see a co-operation of European and other nations in a joint Rwanda-type scheme—although not one limited just to Rwanda. That could act as an effective deterrent so that far fewer people come across the channel and we can clamp down on those who still use that route, because they have little credible claim to have asylum in this country. For that, we need safe and legal routes operating properly as well, as I have said many times before.
There is a problem specifically with rule 39 indications, or “pyjama injunctions.” I am not a lawyer, but on the basis of the thresholds for which other things can go to court, that is a very opaque process. We have heard about the anonymous judges. They do not issue a full judgment, and the Government cannot make a case at all. Where else is there a legal system whereby the person who is effectively being prosecuted cannot make their own case in front of a judge? Nor is there any appeal facility in this whole operation.
Those rule 39 indications were never part of the European convention. That was never included in the constitution. There were attempts to include it in the constitution, but they were never supported. Those powers, as my hon. Friends have said, just seem to have been absorbed into the Strasbourg Court by its own fiat. To whom is that Court accountable? Why is the European Council not doing more governance of how those powers have been surreptitiously extended?
Last year, the Strasbourg Court itself admitted that it needs to change its ways and that the operation of rule 39 indications is not satisfactory. It said that, in future, they would be used only in extremis—although we do not know how it defines that—they would be operated by named judges; the Government, in this case, would have an opportunity to present their evidence and be listened to; and judgments would be more transparent. So, the Court itself knows that there is a problem with the rule 39 indications.
We are not the only country that is concerned about the way that the indications have been operated. Too often it seems, we are pilloried as if the United Kingdom Government are serial offenders against ECHR judgments and European convention diktats, but other countries seem routinely to get around rule 39 indications, and we have one of the best records in complying with ECHR judgments. Over the past 10 years or so, no fewer than 400 ECHR rulings have not been enforced or complied with, including 61% of those against Spain, 58% of those against Italy and 37% of those against Germany.
The United Kingdom is one of the best compliers with ECHR judgments. The sort of thing that we have not complied with includes votes for prisoners, about which we have heard. We had a vote about that in this House—largely to indulge the Liberal Democrats as part of the coalition Government, I seem to recall—and forcefully and robustly voted against it, deciding not to go forward with it. I think that that was absolutely the right judgment, and it stays in limbo. We need to reform the ECHR. In the past year, there have been only four judgments against the UK on convention matters.
Yet again, the UK has fallen foul of abiding by rules that too many others ignore, so I support the case for not being bound by rule 39 rulings. As I say, we need urgently to work with our partners, through the Council of Europe and others, to reform those rulings. It is a very opaque governance system. I do not believe, though, that not being bound by these confected rule 39 directions undermines our overall compliance with international law, or with international responsibilities and undertakings.
However, the Bill already says that in a reasonable and balanced way, the Minister has discretion to make the decision not to comply with those rule 39 indications, so we have given the Minister and the Government the power to say, “Actually, we do not think that is right, and therefore for good reason, we are not going to allow that rule 39 indication to apply to this case.” That is a sensible way of proceeding. It is not a mainstream, routine, blanket disregard, which could fall foul of our own courts and have international implications for the integrity of British legislation and governance. As such, I support the spirit of what hon. Members are trying to achieve with amendment 23, but I do not support the method.
We all know that getting this Rwanda legislation through Parliament is a very difficult, complex and sensitive issue. We have to strike a very fine balance between not trampling on international law and enabling our Government to get on with the measures that they were elected to implement, and I think the Government have got the balance right in this Bill, which was not an easy task. That is why I want the Bill to go through unamended—we all have something to gain from that happening.
I will certainly be voting for the full Bill on Third Reading, if that happens this evening, but my hon. Friends need to stop and consider before they pull the pin out of another grenade. If this Bill does not go through, there is no plan B for dealing with those people who we cannot transport back to the country from which they came. There will be no Rwanda Bill, no Rwanda scheme, no deterrent policy, and no obvious end to the small boats. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark—who made a very strong case, but, I think, with the wrong ultimate conclusion on the method—will consider the implications of pursuing that conclusion all the way to voting in the wrong Lobby on Third Reading. I hope he will withdraw his amendment and let the Government get on with the job of seeing whether we can get this Rwanda scheme to work, get the planes off the ground, offer a real deterrent, and get this problem sorted out once and for all.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Sir Roger, and to take part in a debate that has been broadly thoughtful, despite very clear differences of opinion. It is also a pleasure to have sat through and enjoyed the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), who is the very definition of an activist lawyer, so we are grateful to have her with us. I speak in solidarity with the minority of other Members in the Chamber today who are not legally trained—who are not lawyers. It is right that our voices are heard as well.
I rise in particular to speak in favour of amendments 6 and 7, which stand in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael)—who is indeed a lawyer. First, I want to say something that ought not to be even remotely controversial: the evil trade of shipping people across the English channel in rickety boats needs to be stopped, and those people who are carried across the channel via those means are taking huge risks. We have seen significant loss of life over the years, including in recent times. However, the two amendments I am speaking to seek to challenge the fundamentals of the Bill. I believe this Bill will not do what it says: it will not stop the boats. It will not tackle the issues of deterrence and so on, and even if it did, the Rwanda provisions would tackle only roughly 1% of the number of people who seek asylum in this country.
As well as leading to poor policy, there are a number of errors at the heart of the Bill, because it is based on a series of false premises. There are three basic false premises. The first is the belief that, while this is a global problem and a European problem, the UK’s position is especially awful. I have heard incendiary language in this place and outside it relating to our being overrun or swamped, with people swarming across the channel, and that kind of thing. The reality is that 85% of those who declare themselves to be refugees remain in the region to which they have fled, normally the next country, so a very small minority end up in this continent. Germany takes four times more asylum seekers than the UK, France two and a half times more and Spain two times more. Perish the thought, but if we were to place Britain back into the European Union just for a second for a league table snapshot, we would see that the UK is 20th in the league table of countries among the other 27 in the number of asylum seekers we take per capita. The idea that the UK is overwhelmed by this particular problem is not true, and it does not take account of the realities across the continent and across the world.
Sir William Cash
I mentioned this question of global leadership in my speech yesterday for a very good reason. It is to do with reputation, but it is also to do with change. All over the European Union, faced with compulsory quotas and compulsory fines, countries are in a real mess. There is the charter of fundamental rights, and the EU cannot make changes without changes in constitutional law and in countries’ constitutions, and they may well have to have referenda. In this country, we are in a different position and can make changes because, in our dualist system, we are entitled to require our courts to obey the decisions of Parliament about sovereignty where clear and unambiguous wording is used. There is the difference, and that is why we can lead the world. Such negotiations are bound to be happening because my hon. Friends at the other end of the Chamber have been saying they believe there will be changes in the European convention on human rights and, for that matter, the refugee convention.
Tim Farron
Of course it is a given that the law changes, and laws change via a variety of different means, including how this place votes. Nevertheless, the UK would be seen to be choosing—in order to tackle a problem in an ineffective way—to disapply the Human Rights Act 1998 and at least to an extent not to comply with international law.
I heard all the disparaging remarks about lefty lawyers, activists, judges, foreign judges and so on, all of which demeans this place and is not what people who are supposed to uphold the constitution ought to be saying, particularly given that the majority of lawyers I have heard speaking in this debate are on the Conservative Benches; if Conservative Members want to describe themselves as lefty lawyers, that is their business, but it is not helpful. But when we have the Law Society saying that the Bill might be incompatible with our international obligations and
“sets a dangerous legal and constitutional precedent by legislating to overturn an evidence-based finding of fact by the UK’s highest court”,
we should take it seriously.
There is no doubt whatever that for us to decide to pass a law to say that Rwanda is a safe country is an overreach of Parliament, because if we have evidence to say that Rwanda is safe, present it to the court—do it in the proper way. It is dangerously authoritarian to decide on a matter of fact of law rather than presenting it before the courts. It is not only an overreach, however; it is also ridiculous. If we are going to declare Rwanda safe just because we want it to be, I declare Blackburn Rovers back in the Premier League and Alan Shearer to be 30 years younger and back in a No. 9 shirt playing up front for us—there we are, make it so—but that is clearly not the case, sadly. If there is evidence, we should present it to the court. It is ridiculous for this place to say that somehow it can declare a place safe just because it is convenient for it to do so.
We do not control migration by this kind of sophistry, but deterrence is still appropriate. People have asked what deterrence we are going to have: the deterrent is if we had a functioning asylum system where we actually returned people whose applications failed.
Tim Loughton
On the point about declaring a country safe, France, Germany and other EU countries have decided they will not entertain any asylum applications from Albania because it is a safe country that abides by the same conventions. They have done it; why can’t we?
Tim Farron
I think on balance we would say that Albania probably is safe, and the bulk of returns we have had have indeed been to Albania. But I think it is wrong for us to get out of a hole on this individual case in this way where there is evidence that Rwanda is not a safe place; the issue is that we should present evidence to the court in order to achieve that.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman has just made a discretionary judgment on the safeness of Albania, having said that nobody can determine whether a country should be deemed safe or not. There are many dangerous things going on in Albania, which is why some people are leaving, involving trafficking, drugs and various other things. All I am saying is that European countries will not entertain asylum applications from Albania because they have deemed it not to be suitable and applicable, so why cannot we apply the same criteria to Rwanda?
Tim Farron
I have never been an apologist for other European countries: they make their own decisions, but the clear issue is that this House has been asked to decide on a matter of law when that is a matter for the courts. If there is evidence that Rwanda is safe, we present that evidence to the court. That is the proper way to go about it, and the hon. Gentleman knows that. My opinion on whether a place is or is not safe is neither here nor there; the issue is whether the courts have considered the evidence in front of them. The evidence in front of the courts was that Rwanda was not safe; we do not deal with that by just declaring it to be safe, which is unconstitutional and also ridiculous. We present the evidence, and if the Government have evidence they should present it to the court.
I want to go back to the issue of deterrence, which I was leading into before the intervention. If we want to deter people who do not have a legitimate claim from coming to the United Kingdom, we should be some use at removing those people who do not have a legitimate claim. The fact is that only a quarter of those people who are denied asylum once they have gone through the process are removed, and that is the problem. We have a Government who are incompetent at doing the basics, inefficient, and weak at tackling those people who eventually do get assessed and are shown not to be refugees. The problem is not activist judges, but weak and incompetent Government.
I am not accusing everyone on the Government Benches as being populists, but one of the hallmarks of a populist is that they look at a huge and difficult problem and they come up with a simplistic solution. The reality is that we need to be honest that this is a difficult problem that is not easy to solve. It is a global problem, and we have to work with other countries to try to address it. For example, some of the issues around Yemen will no doubt have been exacerbated by this country choosing to reduce its aid to Yemen.
If we want to influence and stop the flow of people away from troubled parts of the world, we should get alongside those places and try to deal with these things at source. I would not make any pretence that that will solve the problem, but let us not pretend that trying to attack one part of the symptom is an answer. It is dishonest to claim that this Bill is an overall answer to the problem.
The third false premise is that the provisions of this Bill will even remotely work. At best, on the Government’s own figures, a maximum of 1% of the asylum seekers coming to this country will end up being removed to Rwanda, at the cost of £240 million and counting. We could just say, “Why not put that money into a better Border Force? Why not put that money into clearing the backlog? Why not put that money into doing things that actually would deter people from coming?” The Bill will not work, though, and it will not deter people, and let us just think why it will not deter people.
Many refugees who end up in this country, including by coming over the channel, come from Eritrea in the first place. Many would refer to it as the North Korea of Africa. Isaias Afwerki is an awful, appalling dictator. Among the things he does that is a cause of people seeking refuge from that country is conscripting all young men at 18. Many of them, particularly from Christian communities, are then sent to murder their own people. People ask, “Why are so many of the people coming young men?” That is one of the reasons. They seek asylum. Where do they go next? Many will stay in the region.
It is important to understand deterrence. Let us say that some young men—maybe a couple of brothers—have escaped. It was hard to escape in the first place from Afwerki and his evil henchmen, so they leave the country. They end up at some point going through the lawless horror that is Libya. It is utterly appalling, and a country without rules. The experience of what happened post-Gaddafi is a reminder that there is nothing so awful in this world that you cannot make it worse, and Libya is even worse than it was then. They pass through that country with its human trafficking, a massive murder rate and the appalling human rights experiences, and they eventually make it to the Med.
They cross the Mediterranean on to mainland Europe, and then at some point they are asked to make a decision about whether they will cross the 20 or 30 miles of the English channel. That is a piece of cake compared with the horrors they have endured so far. Do we genuinely think that the 1% chance they might get sent to Rwanda is a deterrent at all? It is a reminder, is it not, that Rwanda is a huge distraction from the issues we face.
This Bill assumes a state of affairs that is not true. It assumes that the only way to deal with the situation is to act unconstitutionally, and in a very anti-Conservative and un-Conservative way, I might add. It assumes that the scheme will work when it blindingly obviously will not. Amendments 6 and 7 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) are there to challenge the assumption that to control migration we need to exempt vulnerable people from domestic laws that protect their human rights. We do not need to try to duck out of our obligations under the ECHR by ignoring interim injunctions. These provisions are morally wrong. They are constitutional vandalism and constitute a failure. This Bill is about seeking to distract the electorate from the reality of people’s daily lives.
We have a Government failing to govern or to tackle the cost of living and the NHS crisis. One in nine people in my constituency are currently on an NHS waiting list, and the Government are wasting their time on something that is morally outrageous, unconstitutional and will not even do the thing it is set up to do.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. Before I call Sir John Hayes, may I remind the House that this is not Second Reading debate? It is certainly a debate about the clauses standing part and the amendments, but it is not a Second Reading debate—there is a distinction.
Sir John Hayes
The debate on the Government side of the Chamber, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, is not on a difference in aims or ends; it is about the means to those ends. Government Members want to travel to the same destination; what we are debating is the journey to get there. So let us not exaggerate the differences between us. I know that the Minister shares that view. We have engaged with him and hope to continue to do so, even at this late stage, to improve the Bill and realise the delivery of those intentions—the journey to that end.
We have to do so, because mass migration is perhaps the biggest existential crisis facing this country. I do not say that blithely—unfortunately, people say things in this Chamber as though they were definitive and use all kinds of superlatives; indeed, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has made a brand out of that, as we heard earlier. That view would be shared by a large number of my constituents and, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham also said, it is now widely shared in other countries. The Bill and the amendments to it therefore affect our constituents directly and personally, contrary to the contribution of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who claimed that it is a distraction. Far from it; we cannot absorb into this country the number of people who are coming as a consequence of both legal and illegal migration in a short period of time without a devastating effect on public services, a displacement effect on investment in the skills of our own people, a displacement effect on the need to reform welfare and, beyond all that, the ability to integrate those incoming people into cohesive societies in which we all share a common sense of belonging.
In dealing with the amendments, we need to be realistic about the scale of the problem and the British public’s view of that problem. They know that the vast majority of people arriving here on small boats—about 75%—are men under 40. By the way, about nine out of 10 arriving are male, which is far from the picture painted by some of the critics of the Government and our policy. They know, too, that large numbers of those people are not genuine asylum seekers but economic migrants. That truth is so evident to the electors of this country that they look with bemusement at this place where it is not widely recognised. We hear speech after speech—from Opposition Members in particular, I must say—that seems to be either ignorant of those facts or unwilling to face them.
Sir John Hayes
I do not know whether the hon. Lady is the first or the second, but I happily give way to her.
Alison Thewliss
Perhaps the right hon. Member would like to correct the record. Most people who come on small boats are in fact refugees, because the Home Office grants them that status. They are not economic migrants as they do not get economic migrant status; they get refugee status.
Sir John Hayes
What we certainly know about them all is that before they got here they have travelled through safe countries—more than one in many cases—and failed to claim asylum. The hon. Lady is right that we are probably too lax in how we process claims. Certainly, we offer asylum to more applicants than France. On average, we grant a higher proportion of asylum claims than most European countries.
We know, too, that the failure to remove those people costs the British taxpayer an immense amount of money. When I looked at the figures, I was staggered. The cost of asylum is now £3.97 billion. It is extraordinary that a single matter should cost so much. The need for the Bill is justified alone on the basis that we can no longer afford to deal with the current scale of illegal migration. We simply cannot afford for it to continue, as the British sense of fair play has been tested to its limits. The public see that, and they are increasingly disillusioned by the apparent inability and unwillingness of the political elite in this country—we are the political elite, like it or not—to accept the facts.
Progress has been made in clearing the backlog, largely as a result of the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman). During their stewardship of the Home Office, they focused resources on processing claims more quickly and had considerable success in doing so. But the problem is that as fast as we process people, more arrive.
Until we deal with the root of the problem, we can never really tackle the cost I described nor the disillusion felt by our constituents. That is why the Prime Minister pledged to stop the boats. In order to do so, we need an Act that is as effective as possible. The amendments in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, which I strongly support, would ensure just that. Amendments 11 to 18 deal in particular with the Human Rights Act 1998. Taken together, they would fully disapply the Act from the Bill and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, particularly in relation to removals to Rwanda.
A lot of nonsense was spoken earlier about rights; indeed, a lot of nonsense prevails in this House about rights. Rights are fundamentally important. We believe in the essential rights that characterise our country: the right to a fair trial; the right to go about one’s business freely and unimpaired; the right not to be arrested without cause; the right to vote in free and fair elections. Those are important parts of what it is to be British, but they do not spring from the ether. They are not a given—it is a liberal myth that rights are natural. Rights are the product of decent Governments in decent places doing the right thing. They are special because we have chosen them, not because they were given to us by some ethereal source. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), whom I like and respect, will know, because he knows scripture even better than me, that rights do not get a mention in the ten commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps he can find a part in either of those to contradict me.
Tim Farron
I did not mean to intervene, but the right hon. Gentleman has tempted me. This is not a liberal thing, as many Conservatives ought to support it. I do not believe there is any case for human rights having any standing whatsoever without some form of metaphysical. He is quite right to say that the Bible does not talk about rights; it talks about individual duties. If I have duties to him, he therefore has rights. I do not believe that rights are made up by human beings; they are literally God-given.
Sir John Hayes
My opinion of the hon. Gentleman has soared to an even greater height. I knew he was the best of liberals—that is not a great thing to be, by the way, but it is better than nothing—and he has confirmed it in that pithy intervention.
The crucial point about amendments 11 to 18 is that they rule out using sections 4 and 7 of the Human Rights Act. We know from experience that the good intentions of Governments, backed up by legislation passed in this place, have been routinely frustrated by what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham rightly described as activist lawyers abroad, and, I would add, dodgy lawyers in this country and deluded pressure groups; it is not just malevolent foreigners, but malevolent people here, too. I say to the Minister that the only way we will effect the policy is if we do not allow that kind of gaming of our system by those who come here. I entirely accept that there are among them people whom we should of course welcome. Of course there are people fearing persecution, and of course we should be proud of the fact that we provide a safe haven for people in desperate need—we always have and we always will—but people who are legitimate applicants for asylum are being effectively compromised by a system that does not adequately distinguish them from the very people I have described as gaming our far too lax system.
The Bill is an opportunity to put that right, but only if it is fit for purpose. The amendments are not designed to frustrate the Minister’s intentions or to allow the Prime Minister’s pledge to fail. On the contrary, they are designed to make his pledge real: to allow it to be effected. For if the amendments are not accepted by the Government, I fear the Bill will do just that: fail and disappoint the very people to whom we made that pledge to stop the boats.
Section 4 of the Human Rights Act deals with declarations of incompatibility and section 10, as I described it, deals with remedial measures. As it stands, they are not excluded by the Bill. That means that unamended, the Bill will allow a court to issue a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR, which would effectively kill the Rwanda scheme. The Minister must know that that is a possibility at least—we would argue a probability —but even if it is a possibility, why would he not want to exclude that possibility?
Robert Jenrick
Perhaps I could just elaborate on the point my right hon. Friend is making. What is most likely to happen were the amendment not to be accepted by this place is that on Royal Assent someone will bring a case seeking a declaration of incompatibility for the Bill. That will then go through the courts. If the Supreme Court were then to rule, ultimately, that the Bill was incompatible with the Human Rights Act, it would then be up to this House and Parliament to determine what to do. But if the Prime Minister is correct that the Government of Rwanda would not wish to be a party to any scheme that was in breach of international law, the scheme would be dead.
Sir John Hayes
My right hon. Friend explains exactly the point I was making. The intentions of the Bill are put at risk by the failure to close the loophole. It is just that: an opportunity for people to exploit, in exactly the way he says, the absence of provisions that would strengthen, or in the Prime Minister’s word tighten, the Bill sufficiently to avoid such an eventuality.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
All the British people expect is real fairness and hearings with real judges. We have been speaking about the European Court of Human Rights. Is it not the case that many who are appointed to that Strasbourg Court have never even been lawyers—they are not qualified—let alone judges? Often, they are academics, civil servants or even politicians. More recently, as time has gone on, they have been human rights activists. These non-lawyers are often guided by non-governmental organisations, who even help to draft their judgments. They are what Lord Sumption has described as “ideologically committed staff lawyers”. Why should we in this place and in this wonderful country be subservient to that notion of international justice? Make laws here—that is what our people want.
Sir John Hayes
In that pithy intervention, my hon. Friend has described much of the fundamental problem of allowing what my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) described as a foreign court with foreign judges to determine outcomes that directly affect the interests of this country.
Sir John Hayes
My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines) advanced so many compelling arguments in her intervention that I want to deal with all of them before I give way to my right hon. Friend.
Sir Edward Leigh
People talk about the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg as if it were rather like our own Supreme Court or that of the United States but, as I said earlier, I am a member of the Council of Europe, so I know exactly how these judges are appointed. We in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe appoint them: it is the one power that we have. We are given three names, and we have very little information about who those people are, but it is undoubtedly true—there is evidence of this—that more and more of them are not, like our judges, distinguished lawyers and judges; they are, for instance, human rights lawyers and academics. What is worse about the process is that, unlike our judges, they are not appointed through an independent process. The political groups in the Parliamentary Assembly, dominated by the socialists and the federalist Christian Democrats, join together to appoint the most federalist pro-European judge.
Sir John Hayes
It is that to which I was alluding. The separation that exists in this country between the judiciary and the legislature in the political process and the process of justice simply does not apply in many of the other countries in Europe, and it certainly does not apply further afield. There is a problem of the politicisation of the courts and also, as I said earlier, there is a problem of quality, both of which were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales and my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough.
Secondly, there is an issue of accountability. The point about law in this country is that it is made in this place. The reason why that is so significant is that this place derives its legitimacy from elections—democratic and fair elections. We were empowered to make laws in this Parliament because we were accountable and answerable to the people. As soon as we subsume that accountability into some pan-national arrangement, especially the kind outlined in my hon. Friend’s intervention, we weaken this House, and by weakening this House we weaken the people who send us here. That is partly why their view of the world is so at odds with what I described earlier as the political elite, although what I really mean is the bourgeois liberal elite who dominate far too much of the establishment in all its elements.
Sir John Hayes
I exclude the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale. He is liberal but he is not bourgeois—at least, as far as I am aware.
Sir John Hayes
He definitely is not.
The amendments that disapply the Human Rights Act are fundamental to the Bill’s success. May I just say as an aside—it is, of course, entirely relevant to the Bill, Sir Roger—that we should, in government, from 2010 onwards, have got rid of the Human Rights Act anyway? It is a Blair construction, through the prism of which all legislation now seems to be seen. It is a very damaging statute that has stymied much of the work of subsequent Governments.
Amendments 23 to 25, taken together, would prevent the notorious rule 39 injunctions—the so-called last-minute pyjama injunctions—which emanate from Strasbourg. These amendments would ensure that the default position was that rule 39 indications were not binding and this was explicitly a matter for Ministers. The Government’s own legal advice has made it clear that without amendment to the Bill, flights may be grounded yet again. Ministers will indeed have the opportunity to introduce exceptions, but will not be bound to do so. The Bill must be amended so that Ministers can disregard rule 39 orders. We really cannot allow Strasbourg judges to overrule this Parliament and halt flights. Decisions must be taken by those elected in Westminster, not by courts in Europe. This is what the people expect of us; it is what the people demand of us.
The Bill may block claims about the general state of Rwanda, but it will still permit individual claims, which will block removal unless such individual claims are explicitly excluded. We know that spurious cases are used to frustrate removal, and thus the legislation will have no teeth. The Minister knows that these things go on for days and weeks and months. These cases are never resolved quickly, and time is short. Consequently, the Government must surely acknowledge that, at the very least, the flights that they, and we, regard as a necessary part of dealing with the scourge of illegal immigration will be delayed.
The amendment will block individual claims and suspensive claims, limiting such claims to exceptional circumstances. There are circumstances, perhaps when a seriously ill person cannot travel, that should be accepted—I hope we would all agree with that—but those will be rare cases. The Home Office has already correctly excluded families, children and pregnant women, but those circumstances are incredibly unlikely, given what I have said about the profile of those people arriving in small boats being overwhelmingly fit men under the age of 40.
This is the third migration Bill in recent times. It is our third and final chance, as others have said, to deliver on our promise to the British people to stop the boats and control our borders. If we fail to strengthen the Bill in the way that these amendments do, it will simply not work, and if we fail to make the Bill work, we will fail the British people. We will have broken our promise to them. Thousands more people will make risky journeys in perilous conditions and our hotels will remain full of those awaiting judgments at enormous cost. The British people will regard this as a failure that is rooted here in this House and in this Government.
The Minister is a good man and a diligent Minister and I am sure he understands the thrust of the arguments that have been made in the Committee today. He will know that, in the end, this is about a fundamental crisis of democratic efficacy: the ability of a nation state to deliver for its people. The greatest Conservative Prime Minister of all time, Benjamin Disraeli, said that
“justice is truth in action.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1851; Vol. 114, c. 412.]
This issue is a matter of justice—legal justice and social justice. It is for that reason that the British people want to see the boats stopped. They simply regard it as unjust that our borders are being breached with impunity.
If the elected Government of the United Kingdom cannot remove people who arrive here without permission, a more troubling and profound question must be asked. Who governs our country? My constituents want the Government they elect and the Parliament they vote for to determine who governs Britain. Only by improving this Bill and by delivering the Prime Minister’s mission of stopping the boats can we answer that question.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
This has been a very interesting Committee, ranging from the metaphysical to MPs feeding each other baked beans, and from a constitutional tour of the history of Scotland to the case of John Hirst, who lived in Hull. He put an axe through his landlady’s head, went to prison and fought a campaign for prisoners to have the right to vote—we have discussed prisoners’ right to vote in the past.
We have also heard a lot of criticism of lawyers, but I have to say that some of the best speeches we have heard this afternoon have been from lawyers. I do not know whether they count as leftie lawyers, as they were sitting on the Conservative Benches in the majority of cases.
I am conscious that this is not Second Reading, but I refer the Committee to the report on small boat crossings produced by the Home Affairs Committee 18 months ago:
“There is no magical single solution to dealing with irregular migration. Detailed, evidence-driven, fully costed and fully tested policy initiatives are by far most likely to achieve sustainable incremental change that deters journeys such as dangerous Channel crossings.”
We also said that the No. 1 issue the Government needed to address was the backlog, on which I am pleased there has been some progress. The backlog is still about 90,000, but that is an improvement on where we were last year.
I am concerned about amendments 11 to 18 and 23 to 25, tabled by the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), because if they were accepted, they would put the United Kingdom on a collision course with international law. I also want to speak to amendment 36 and new clause 7 in relation to the cost of the Rwanda policy.
Clause 3 disapplies the Human Rights Act, and amendments 11 to 18 would extend this disapplication, thereby extending the permission this Bill grants for public authorities to act in ways that are incompatible with human rights. Specifically, amendments 11 and 12 appear to extend the disapplication of the Human Rights Act to anything done under the Illegal Migration Act relating to the removal of a person to Rwanda. This could potentially include a person’s detention and treatment prior to removal, meaning that not only would no legal challenge be possible under amendment 22, which we discussed yesterday, but there would be no specific legal obligation on public authorities to act in compatibility with human rights. Extending the disapplication of sections 2 and 3 of the Human Rights Act to all immigration legislation, as it relates to a person’s removal to Rwanda under this Bill or the Illegal Migration Act, would raise serious concerns about unforeseen consequences and unintended human rights violations.
It should also be noted that amending the Bill to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act, which has never been done before, does not have any clear legal purpose. It would simply prevent the courts from telling the Government and the public their view on the law. As the Secretary of State has already said on the face of the Bill that he is unable to say that it is compatible with convention rights, no one could reasonably presume that a statement of the same from the courts would have any impact at all, which is why I am querying these amendments.
The former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark, opened the debate with amendments 23 and 25, and he talked about taking the pin out of a grenade. Clause 5 concerns interim measures of the European Court of Human Rights, stating that it will be for a Minister, and only a Minister, to decide whether the UK will comply.
At this point, let me again pay tribute to the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), for their clear explanation of the current situation on these interim injunctions; for setting out clearly what the UK’s involvement with that Court is and our long-standing commitment to it; and for setting out that a review is taking place on those interim injunctions, which is very helpful.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
May I start by drawing the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?
The Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner constituency is a part of north-west London that has been shaped by generations of refugees, starting in the period around the second world war with large members of European Jews fleeing persecution. Successive waves of people have come from across the world, finding refuge and becoming part of our community. Understandably, I have a lot of views to share not just about this Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, but about previous legislation that we have had on the issue of migration.
Although I will focus my contribution on the amendments around the role of the European convention and the European Court of Human Rights, it seems to me that, in a debate which at times has become quite philosophical, there is a wide recognition among our constituents that shared sovereignty is often in practice greater sovereignty. I am a big fan of those fine British philosophers, Hobbes and Locke, who talk about the social contract. It is clear that, when we work closely with our neighbours, we achieve the most effective measures against widespread, illegal and irregular migration flows. We have already seen effective work with the French authorities to tackle the activities of some of the gangs in northern France, which has contributed to bringing down the numbers crossing the channel.
In my contribution, I will attempt to add some further evidence to our deliberations in a way that I hope will help encourage Ministers and to emphasise my support for taking forward the Bill in its unamended form, as I know the Government seek to achieve. When we look at the role of sheer sovereignty, many examples well beyond that of the European Court and the European convention on human rights have a significant bearing on the issue. We look at, for example, the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, which sets out the responsibilities that the United Kingdom and others have in the English channel in respect of refugee boats. That has frustrated the views of past Home Secretaries about how we might specifically tackle that issue, but we have yet to see a great deal of debate in this Chamber about why we should repudiate that convention, despite the fact that the International Maritime Organisation is based just across the river.
Dame Diana Johnson
I am so pleased that we are hearing this very clear explanation of the court and the judges; after what has been said in this debate, it is very refreshing to hear. I thank the hon. Gentleman, who I also think is a lawyer—I do not know if he is a lefty lawyer, but I think he is a lawyer.
David Simmonds
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I am not a lawyer, but I served as a magistrate in this country. It is always my pleasure to say that I belong to that even more despised race of human beings, the Tory MPs, and that I was formerly a banker.
I think we are right to have some degree of concern in respect of what is said in the Bill and the amendments about the Human Rights Act. This House needs to strike the correct balance. It is a fundamental principle of British justice, which dates back at least as far as the Saxons, that people may not be subject to a penalty unless they have had the opportunity to be brought before a court, a properly composed judicial authority. Therefore, we should be concerned at the idea that in the United Kingdom we would exempt a group of people from access to our law on the basis of the method of their arrival here.
However, we need to balance that against the fact that people are dying in the English channel, drowning in cold water, and gangs are profiting hugely from that, which is fuelling all kinds of other types of crime. To an extent, we are a victim of our previous success in that the improved security in northern France has created and massively exacerbated the problem we face. That, for me, balances up the risk to a loss of human rights: we need to ensure that we have a really effective deterrent in place to address the problem that has arisen from that earlier success.
It is and remains my view, which I expressed in the debates on the then Illegal Migration Bill, that the point at which we will establish full control of our borders is the point at which we add an asylum visa to all the other types of visas we have, so that there is a single safe and legal route, controlled by the British Government and the rules set by this House, and if people arrive on our shores to claim asylum without having gained that permission first, they are automatically ineligible regardless of their method of arrival. That would mirror the process we already have in place for people who want to come here to work, to study, to marry or to invest in the United Kingdom. We still have not yet put in place an effective process and system that would enable us to do that.
It is clearly crucial, as the weather will soon begin to improve, the smugglers will soon be looking to invest in their stock boats and more people’s lives will soon be put at risk, that we keep our eyes on the objective of returning to something more like the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which was described by the UNHCR as a “gold standard” of international refugee resettlement. That is the model on which we based our Afghan resettlement scheme, whatever logistical problems that experienced, and this House has recognised it as the way in which the UK wishes to play a part in refugee resettlement around the world. However, we need to ensure that we deal with the specific problem that arises: small boats in the channel. For all the debates and well-intentioned arguments that we have heard, the Bill, in its unamended form, strikes the best balance available to address that particular problem and ensure that no one else dies en route to seeking asylum here in the United Kingdom. For that reason, I will support the Bill, unamended.
Alison Thewliss
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). It was refreshing to hear somebody on the Conservative Benches talking up the merits of an asylum visa. That would break the model of the people-smuggling gangs because it would give people a safe and legal route and safety and certainty. Nobody need be exploited by paying over everything that they own to get into a leaky dinghy in the channel if they could come here for safety and sanctuary by travelling as any of us would travel.
I understand from others in the Committee that Conservative Members are quite keen to wind up the debate early tonight because they are going to a Burns supper. I am not sure whether that is true, but it is certainly a rumour that I heard earlier. It made me think of some of the things that Robert Burns—I am a big fan of our national bard—might have to say to the Conservative party about the way in which it conducts its business. Let me start with:
“Man’s inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn.”
I commend to the Committee the amendments tabled in my name, as well as those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I will first address clause 3 on the disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998. That Act was landmark legislation. It is woven into the fabric of our devolved institutions, and it underpins the Good Friday agreement. It should concern us all that a Government without any kind of mandate to do so start picking away the stitching. The Law Society said that the exclusion of the Human Rights Act to this extent is unprecedented.
Speaking of defending the rights of people to migrate, Robert Burns, who has a verse on just about everything, has one on the rights of highlanders against their lairds, who were not allowing them to migrate to Canada. He said:
“They! an’ be damned! what right hae they
To meat or sleep or light o’ day,
Far less to riches, pow’r or freedom,
But what your lordships please to gie them?”
We should give asylum seekers far more than this Government think they have a right to gie them.
Disapplying section 6 removes the obligation for courts and immigration officials to take into account human rights when assessing the safety of Rwanda. Disapplying section 3 limits the protections that courts can provide. Disapplying section 2 forces courts to ignore any European Court of Human Rights rulings of Rwanda as unsafe. Those are important protections: not only do they ensure people’s safety from Government, but they act as a check specifically on the Home Office—a Home Office that we know has long and consistent form in making serious mistakes with long-lasting and life-changing consequences. One need only reflect on the legacy of Windrush, TOEIC—the test of English for international communication—and the highly skilled migrant scandal to know the scale of Home Office incompetence. We need the courts to offer protection against the Home Office’s instinct to deport first and ask questions later.
Amendments 11 to 18 in the name of the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) make an already unjustifiable situation much, much worse. Liberty has stated that they effectively remove the possibility of securing any remedy—much less an effective one—for the breach or threatened breach of rights arising from removals to Rwanda on the basis that it is an unsafe country. Robert Burns said in his “Slave’s Lament”:
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;
And alas! I am weary, weary O.”
I think we all feel that weariness about the circularity of the Government’s ridiculous arguments. It is unsafe for the refugees who get to come here from Rwanda, but somehow, it is safe enough for us to send people to Rwanda. It makes absolutely no sense.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
It has been a very long debate. I have listened with intent to everybody who has spoken, and I admit to learning quite a lot today. Unfortunately, not everybody who has spoken is still here to listen to me, although I have listened to them, but that tends to happen quite a lot in this House. People speak for a very long time at the beginning and, unfortunately, they never get to listen to others.
It is mainly lawyers who have spoken. I often thought, before I became a Member of Parliament, that this place would be best if full of lawyers. That is what it should be about—we are making law—so maybe that is right. I was corrected by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), though. I did not know I was going to speak with him today, but he told me, “It is wonderful that people like yourself, Nick, are here.” After listening to what I have heard today, and having listened to what I have heard with regards to the recent Post Office case, it seems to me that lawyers are just able to talk at this level continually, back and forth and back and forth. In the Post Office case, £60 million was apparently given to looking after the postmasters, and £40 million of it was spent on lawyers.
What I am trying to get at is that, for all of the talking that has happened, the people who put us here are still struggling like mad to understand why, when we put people on a plane, somebody from Strasbourg can say, “No, they don’t have to go,” and we all watch aghast that this is happening. They struggle to understand why, as was mentioned in The Telegraph last week, someone who had been caught and convicted for producing £500,000 of cannabis could not be deported because he could no longer speak his mother tongue. They cannot understand why we cannot deport an immigrant who has taken £8 million from organised crime and tried to smuggle it out of this country because of his human rights. Human rights are obviously extremely important, and anyone who mentions coming out of the ECHR automatically gets lambasted by many people on the Opposition Benches, but unfortunately, the people who put us here cannot understand why these things are happening.
Whatever happens, these judges that we are talking about, who we have supposedly elected, need to come to Doncaster and see what is happening there, as I said in my speech before Christmas. We should be able to have conversations like this without being heckled, and without being called out on Twitter every time we say this. That is because of the nastiness that comes from the left, which stops these conversations happening; it stops us being able to have decent conversations and debates.
I listened to my colleagues who were sitting on the back row and they speak a lot of sense—they really do—and I take it on board, but I have hon. Friends who sit with me who want to use these amendments to tighten up the Bill. When I hear about what we are trying to do I have to agree with them that it needs tightening up, because we cannot keep on putting people on a plane and then taking them back off again. We cannot keep on letting people come to this country and abuse the system, using taxpayers’ money to defend them while we are giving them board and lodgings in hotels next door to schools. We have got to stop this happening.
I support the amendments because I want to help the Government with their promise to stop the boats. If we stop the boats, we stop the tragedies that are happening out at sea. Five people died last week; we need to make sure that that does not happen again.
We need to stop the boats because we are put here by the taxpayers of this country—by my and our constituents —and we need to make sure that they are getting value for money for every pound that is taken in their tax. When we speak about human rights, we have to remember the rights of the British people who put us here. I will support these amendments because I have to do whatever I can to make sure that the people who put me here are treated fairly and their rights are considered above anybody else’s.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this incredibly important debate. I was very happy to sign the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—amendments 11 to 18 and 23 to 25. I was also happy to support his amendments and the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) yesterday. I have concerns about the Bill as it stands. I want exactly the same thing as the Minister, which is for the boats to stop, and they will only stop if we have a deterrent. I have not seen an example across the world of this situation being properly dealt with without a deterrent, and it is critically important that we have one.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Tom Hunt
I will not be giving way.
I will be supporting amendment 11 in relation to the Human Rights Act. I will also support the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark on the ECHR. I remember vividly the situation in June 2022. I also remember the referendum we had in 2016, where the majority of people in this country voted to leave the European Union. They did so because they wanted the Parliament of this country to be fully sovereign; they did not want it to be frustrated by foreign organisations, whether the EU or the ECHR. The way in which that happened in June 2022, to a policy that has majority support from most of the people in this country, was devastating.
More generally, it is important that we respect the discussions on Second Reading, when the Prime Minister said that he wanted sound international legal arguments for amendments. That bar has been met, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark has explained how that is the case. Fundamentally, I have regretfully come to the conclusion as a Member of Parliament that we should leave the ECHR. My prediction is that, in time, we will. Many of the debates associated with the ECHR are similar to the debates around Brexit. Those who originally wanted to leave the EU were branded extremists and a minority. The same arguments were made, such as, “Let’s reform it from the inside.” We will try that again with the ECHR, and I think we will be unsuccessful.
It is the supranational nature of the ECHR that I am deeply uncomfortable with. We have already seen how that operates. Some Members have made the point that it is not a foreign court because we have ownership of it. People made the same argument about the European Union, and the MEPs going to Brussels. Ultimately, when it came to that decisive referendum, most people who voted on that question disagreed with that view and we rightly left the EU. It is not right and the issue of the ECHR opens up a serious democratic deficit, given that we left the EU. The principles for why we did are live in this debate today, and we must listen.
On the issue of illegal migration, like on the issue of net legal migration, we are playing with fire. The level of frustration felt by millions of people in the country is extreme, and the warnings are there from across of the world about what happens if mainstream parties do not deal with people’s legitimate concerns about mass migration. If the Conservative party does not responsibly and robustly deal with it and finally stop the boats, the warning signs are there for what might happen.
Sir William Cash
Just to take my hon. Friend’s point, with which I completely agree, even further, does he agree that the fact that often is not mentioned is that we are a small island with a huge population and an entire infrastructure created in the 19th century? For all these reasons we have that much more pressure on our social services, our infrastructure, our planning and so forth.
Tom Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are intolerable pressures being placed on this country through mass legal migration and illegal migration. It is right that more and more of my constituents are seeing the link between that issue and pressure on public services, strains on social cohesion and other things. Immigration at sustainable levels with integration is a force for good. Immigration at unsustainable levels without integration causes intolerable troubles for the people of this country. That is something they want to guard against.
Sir John Hayes
That view is held not just by my hon. Friend, by many in the House and by many in the country, but by many countries in Europe. Mass migration is now seen as an issue of salience by countries right across Europe and the wider world. He is far from alone: he is speaking for the people.
Tom Hunt
We have heard lots of arguments about the ECHR and about Winston Churchill forming it. That has been defeated time and again but continues to be wheeled out by Opposition Members. I do not agree. I do not think for a moment that if Winston Churchill was alive today, he would be comfortable with the way in which today’s ECHR operates and its supranational nature.
Ultimately, I applaud the Prime Minister’s desire to stop the boats, but it is not enough just to try, and it is not enough to be just 80% or 90% of the way there. We need to be 100% of the way there. We have seen previously that any chinks in the armour of any Bill designed to tackle this issue will be ruthlessly exploited. We share the Prime Minister’s desire and we want to work with him to get a Bill that we can all unite behind to stop the boats.
Immigration is not just an important issue. I honestly believe that it has become an existential issue. Ultimately, it is important that we unite behind the Bill, but it needs to work. The question is: do we think that the Bill will work or not? Do we think it can be strengthened? For all those reasons, I will vote for the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark with a certain degree of pride. I believe in the sovereignty of this country, I believe in listening to the people of this country, and I believe in narrowing the unhealthy disconnect there is between the views of the majority of people on immigration and where we are at the moment.
Bob Seely
I am sorry to have got to the debate a bit late. I will talk in general about some of the amendments; I am sympathetic to a lot of them. I always listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who is always eloquent on this subject and probably right in what he says, but I will explain why, despite my concerns about the ECHR, I will not support his amendments and the other amendments. That is because we are dealing with the art of the possible as well as the art of what is right and wrong.
I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) talk in apocalyptic terms, but he was right to say that there is a great deal of angst and concern. According to the recent poll, in my patch, like in his, more than 50% want people sent back without a right of appeal. I am therefore sympathetic towards that argument. I am also sympathetic to the concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark that the system will not work. But we are dealing with the art of the possible, and when my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich says that we need 100% certainty and not 80% or 90%, I get a bit concerned.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend recognise that we should be focusing on the practicalities of what is achievable and recognise the tensions, in a broad debate, between what we can legislate for and what in reality will work within the limitations and the context, be that in respect of the courts or colleagues in this place, as well as what will work for Rwanda?
Bob Seely
Absolutely. If the Rwandans turn round and say, “We’ve changed our minds,” we will be in a world of pain. I trust the Government. I think they have been naive in the past, but for Government Members to work on the basis that we will not trust our own Government and give them zero credit is going way too far in the other direction.
David Simmonds
My hon. Friend is making a series of important points. Does he agree that one of the reasons why our constituents are concerned to see the Bill pass is the enormous impact that very high levels of migration have had on local government finance? Given that he represents an island—one of the 31 local authorities in the south-east of England that volunteered to be asylum dispersal areas—does he agree that other parts of the country might do well to step up to the plate, too?
Bob Seely
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Other parts of the country would do well to step up to the plate—I thank him for that comment.
Returning to what my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich said about an 80% or 90% solution versus a 100% solution, as far as I can see there are four outcomes for today, which I want to discuss in brief detail. First, the Bill works in a wonderful way and everything is perfect. Do I think that is likely? I hope it is; I live in hope, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Turn around and face the Committee!
Bob Seely
I am so sorry, I thank the hon. Lady.
Option 2 is that some of the legal appeals work and some do not, but we begin to get the planes moving, sort of, this summer. That is a reasonable success, and we are heading in the right direction with other measures. Option 3 is that it does not work. We get some brownie points for trying, but it is a bad outcome. Option 4 is that we vote down the Bill today, there are no flights at all, the left is in clover and the liberal elites are smiling all the way to the next election. A hundred colleagues on the Government Benches will return, and there will be no one to challenge woke or large-scale illegal immigration whatsoever.
Tom Hunt
What will make the liberal elite the happiest will be to see the Bill strangled in the courts because of its weaknesses. What does my hon. Friend think about the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who perhaps knows this issue better than anyone else?
Bob Seely
My hon. Friend makes a point about the happiness of the liberal elites, but he is giving a subjective opinion about what he thinks they would love. Actually, what they would love most of all is for the Bill to die tonight. We must get the Bill through to give us any form of chance. As I said, there are four options. Option 1: it works perfectly—it may not. Option 2: it is likely to work in part—we can live with that. Option 3: it fails—that is bad, but we are trying. Option 4: we kill the Bill tonight—we can all go and look for new jobs. That is what we are facing.
I want to see my hon. Friend and many others return, but we need to give people the best chance of delivering on the Bill. The best chance of that is to try to push the Government in a conservative direction—I give my hon. Friend that—but only as far as they can go. I am on the same side of the argument as my hon. Friend on this, but my difference is that I will give the Government the benefit of the doubt to get the Bill through Third Reading. We have to get the Bill through. Even if my hon. Friend does not vote against it but is willing to abstain, that will be an improvement.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Is it not important to note that if the Bill is killed off on Third Reading, there is no opportunity to introduce another Bill to address this issue in this Parliament? We will be stuck in the current situation going into the election.
Bob Seely
I thank my hon. Friend for that important point. In the WhatsApp group in which we were chatting about this earlier, one of our north-east colleagues posted the idea that we could have a new Bill. I find that to be truly living in la-la land. The idea that everyone on the Government Benches would agree to a new Bill once we have killed this Bill is for the birds. It is this Bill or no Bill. It is this Bill or no chance. We have to face reality.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich spoke eloquently about the ECHR, and I want to touch on it because it is important. I am not a fan of it. Our freedoms and our liberties are not because of the ECHR. They are not because a Bulgarian judge gets out of bed at two in the morning to strike down democratically elected law. There is nobody in this House as willing as me to rewrite our relationship with the ECHR, but this Bill is not the time to do it. This is an argument for our manifesto. But if my hon. Friend were to suggest that what we need to do is make the ECHR advisory so that we fundamentally change our relationship and a vote in Parliament can overrule the ECHR, he will find no bigger champion than me. In the same way, we could look to review the Human Rights Act. I am as bored as him of hearing Ministers say in private, “We can’t do this, because of the Human Rights Act.” I pull my hair out. We are in Government. We should change the Human Rights Act if we do not like it. We should not use it as an excuse for inaction.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I am listening to his points with interest. As one who could be seen as one of the architects of the Rwanda scheme, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), I would have preferred to see the Bill with the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and I agree with many of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). But while I would prefer the Bill to go further, it is a Bill that could still work.
Bob Seely
I agree and I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. If there was a chance of it moving further, then yes, but I do not think there is. The issue is: it is this Bill or no Bill; it is this Bill or no chance.
To return to what my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) was saying about the ECHR, yes I accept and I agree, so let us reorient our relationship with the ECHR. Let us reorient our relationship with these European laws. Let us look again. I do not like judicial activism any more than anyone else on the Conservative Benches. Judicial activism is the enemy of democratic accountability if we have foreign judges who are willing to get up in the middle of the night and overrule law passed in this House, by this democratic body answerable and sovereign to the British people. So, let us talk about changing the ECHR, but we should not be doing it now.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Ind)
On precisely that point, is there not a further practical addition to my hon. Friend’s argument, which is that overriding the ECHR in this instance, as opposed to following a broader debate, may lead to the Rwandan side being less enthusiastic and pulling out of the deal, practically sending us back to square one?
Bob Seely
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. It is good to see him.
On rule 39, the pyjama injunction, where judges get out of bed in the middle of the night, I do not even know why our Government are still agreeing to abide by these rules. As far as I can see, it should be a matter of principle that rule 39 injunctions are advisory until such time as we wish to adopt them. Maybe the Minister has something he would like to tell us about that. It would be wonderful if he did. As part of the conversation, we are in a period of flux. As our electorate rightly become more concerned about issues relating to crime, sovereignty, and legal and illegal immigration, we start to talk about our relationship with the European human rights conventions. I am up for that, but now is not necessarily the time to do that.
Alun Cairns
My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point. Before he moves on to the last part of his speech, I want to press him a little further on the ECHR, as well as the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt). Does he recognise that some of the fundamental changes in the amendments are so great that they warrant a separate piece of legislation even if they were to come forward, so that this House could consider them in full and in detail, rather than them being attached to an extremely important Bill, where they could undermine its objectives as well as detract from the wider debate on the ECHR?
Bob Seely
I quite agree. I think that we are in danger of reverse-engineering a load of opinions on the European convention on human rights into a single Bill that is influenced by the ECHR, but is fundamentally about something else. I should like to see greater debate about the ECHR. I should like to see greater debate about the relationship between our laws and what we do about international conventions, being mindful and respectful of them while at the same time understanding—certainly this is my view—that our freedoms, our privileges and our rights as Britons do not come from post-war European documents.
We should remember where the ECHR came from. It was effectively written in part by ourselves to help Europe to recover from the appalling destruction caused by fascism, but also the threat of totalitarian socialism and totalitarian communism. Since then, we have seen what was a good document—partly because it was written by us—whose purpose was to help Europe to recover and get its legal and political dignity back become a target of politicised judicial activism. I believe that something that is a target of politicised judicial activism should not necessarily be overruling our own traditions, but I do find a tendency for that to happen.
David Simmonds
My hon. Friend is, once again, making some powerful points. Does he recognise that the number of interim measures that are handed down in respect of the UK is extremely small? In fact, in some years no such interim measures are granted. None the less, we need to review the way in which measures that are not specifically described in the original documents that underpin the European convention on human rights have evolved. It is therefore right that although it remains entirely non-binding and how to respond to those measures remains a decision for a Government Minister, we need to ensure that our courts and our system understand the role that Parliament expects them to play.
Bob Seely
My hon. Friend has made a valuable point, and one that I was about to come on to. Why do some people in this country and some political groups, generally on the left, idealise international courts as if they were fonts of Olympian wisdom when, in my view, many of their judgments are highly political and highly tendentious? They seem to me to constitute an exercise in studied disrespect for the English common law, which I consider to be one of the great wonders of human civilisation and achievement, along with monotheism and one or two other things. We seem to be allowing the international courts to overrule those extraordinary achievements—all these great judges from on high, who do not come from traditional judicial systems anywhere near as strong or as noble as ours.
Sir Robert Neill
I have been agreeing with the basic thrust that it is the Bill or nothing, but may I gently say something to my hon. Friend about the European Court of Human Rights? If he looks carefully at its case law, he will see that British common law traditions have, in fact, had a significant impact on the jurisprudence of that Court. It does not follow the pure civil law system of the continent, as those who have served on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will know. It has actually moved to a hybrid system, largely because of the influence of British jurists.
Bob Seely
My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. He is, of course, an eminent lawyer, and I, frankly am not. [Hon. Members: “There is still time!”] I am tempted to say, “I will stop digging.”
My hon. Friend is right in saying that we have had an influence, but I understand from what I have seen and read that there has also been the influence of a far more rationalist system on our own common law, and I do not consider the impact on EU law and casework on our system to have been entirely beneficial and entirely helpful.
Sir Robert Buckland
I am glad that my hon. Friend is making this point. I do not blame him because it is easy to elide the two now, but EU law and the operation of the Luxembourg Court is a very different discipline from what happens in Strasbourg. That Court is enjoined to interpret EU law, and what it says is gospel and we have to follow it. That is not the case with the Strasbourg Court. My hon. Friend has talked about case law. I will not put him on the spot too much, but can he name the cases that have posed a problem? Where are they?
I can help my hon. Friend. The judgment in the Hirst case, the prisoner voting case, was pretty poor. In fact, it was a bad judgment. Then there was the judgment about whole-life sentences, which we sorted out in the Court of Appeal: problem solved. The Abu Qatada case was a long saga, but we sorted that out too. Those are the only three problems we have had in 10 years, and that does not amount to a hill of beans.
Bob Seely
I am delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend has intervened, because those are exactly the three points that I was about to make to complete my case. I thank him for doing that for me. I accept the points that he makes, but I also accept that we are a sovereign Parliament and that our relationship with many of these institutions has changed. I do not think our relationship necessarily reflects that change. I will leave it at that, but I accept his point and also the wisdom with which he made it. At this point, unless I have any more interventions, I shall wind up.
Several hon. Members rose—
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. Just before we proceed and I call Jerome Mayhew, can I gently say that it has not escaped the notice of the Chair that a significant number of Members have wandered in, after many hours of debate during which they have not been here, and then sought to participate? Technically, the Chair has no power to control that, but Members must understand that we deprecate this. I take a very dim view of it as bad manners. I hope that is clearly understood. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) sat in his place for five hours waiting to speak. I believe that any other Member who wishes to speak in a debate should afford the Committee the same courtesy.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Thank you, Sir Roger. I should start my speech with a personal apology for not having been here for the full course of this debate. I very much wanted to be here, but I had duties in Westminster Hall in two debates during the course of the afternoon which prevented me from taking a full role in this debate. I am grateful to you for nevertheless agreeing to call me in what is obviously a very important debate. I have heard sufficient of the back and forth of the debate to know that there has been criticism from the Opposition Benches that the Bill goes too far, and that there are even some words of advice and criticism on these Benches that it perhaps does not go far enough. Before I get down into the nitty-gritty of the amendments, it is worth going back to base principles and looking at the fundamentals of why the Bill is necessary in the first place.
It is without doubt that every Member of this House, irrespective of their party loyalties, must agree that the current position in relation to small boats crossing the channel is deeply wrong and has to be addressed. What is happening at the moment is just not fair. We have seen the small boats programme on our television screens for the last two or three years, ever since we plugged the last gap in our external borders by making it harder for illegal immigrants to get on to lorries or on to the Eurostar—that goes back almost a decade, in fact. The business model is such that where we restrict one point of illegal access, the model will seek out the next weakest point in the border of our country, and right now that is small boats crossing the channel.
However, these are not individuals buying dinghies and setting off across the channel. We all know that this is a massive commercial opportunity for organised criminal gangs making masses of money—tens of millions of pounds—from the misery of others. That money is going into organised crime, which then finds a vent in other crime, both in Europe and in our own country. Criminal gangs are imposing violence on the vulnerable people who are then exploited by them in their crossing of the channel. It must be right that any responsible Government would take steps to challenge a set of circumstances where vulnerable people are being exposed to risk and violence, not only the risk of death as they cross the channel—my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) said that there were five deaths just last week as a result of this dangerous process—but the violence of the criminal gangs imposing their will on these migrants.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the massive amount of money wasted on the Rwanda plan would be better spent on creating safe, legal routes and clearing the backlog so that those fleeing persecution can build a better life in a country that is proud of its humanitarian actions, as so many have in Ealing, Southall?
Jerome Mayhew
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, which allows me to highlight the Government’s success in reducing the backlog, as the Prime Minister outlined at Prime Minister’s questions.
I do not shy away from the point that the Rwanda scheme is expensive. If the cost were calculated as the amount spent per person flown to Rwanda, it would be a very high cost indeed, but that is not the point of the scheme. The idea of the scheme is not that every single person who illegally crosses our border will be shipped to Rwanda but that it will act as an effective deterrent. If we send a few people to Rwanda, the criminal gangs and, more importantly, the people who pay them large sums of money will get the message that paying the criminal gangs to be ferried across the channel is no longer an effective way to gain access to the United Kingdom. If that is successful, as I believe it will be, it will be very sound use of money because it will not only prevent additional cost to our society and public services but will protect the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world, while righting a gross unfairness in our asylum system.
Alun Cairns
My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point, particularly on the costs. Is he aware that the President of Rwanda has been reported as saying that the UK could well be refunded if all the resource is not used because of challenges along the way?
Jerome Mayhew
I was not aware of that, but it adds grist to the mill and strength to the Government’s argument for proceeding with the Rwanda policy.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
My hon. Friend took an intervention from the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), who talked about safe and legal routes. One of the biggest problems is that we have not heard how many, where from and what they would look like. There are supposedly 100 million displaced people across the world. If 1% of them decide to come to the UK, that is 1 million people who have to be processed and found a country. This is a worldwide problem. If we do it as an individual country, we would create and facilitate a problem not only on our shores but on the shores where we open those centres. Does he believe the Opposition have a plan for where the centres would be, how they would be manned, how much they would cost and what those safe and legal routes would look like, especially when people are leaving the safe country of France?
Jerome Mayhew
The phrase “safe and legal routes” feels right, doesn’t it? It feels like we should be in favour of safe and legal routes and, speaking personally, I think they are part of a wider solution to immigration. My hon. Friend says there may be up to 100 million people currently seeking asylum. From memory, I think the figure from the United Nations report is actually 108 million.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. This Bill is dealing with a lot of the pull factors; at least, it mentions or implies approaching those in a more constructive and positive way. I know that he serves on the Council of Europe delegation. On the push factors, does he agree that this domestic policy should not be disaggregated from foreign policy and our overseas aid policies? Let us look at the examples of sub-Saharan Africa or the Sahel, where the French have recently exited, or are about to do so, and where the UK has an important counter-terrorism presence. In those places, fragile states that are becoming failed states are causing more push factors. In addition, some adversaries of this country, such as Russia, through its proxies in Africa, are trying to disrupt democratically elected Governments in order to create a migration crisis; they are happy to see people coming up through north Africa and into Europe. Given his international experience, does he agree that we have to have a more holistic view of this policy in the context of global foreign policy?
Jerome Mayhew
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for those excellent points. They highlight one reason why the merging of the Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to form the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has the potential to link those two areas of policy. The challenge with push factors is substantial and it is that they have only just started. He is right to refer to malign actors such as Russia in the short and medium terms, but there is a much bigger factor that this House needs to consider over the next 20 to 50 years: climate change. The likelihood is that there will be very significant mass migration from sub-Saharan Africa when large areas of countries, perhaps entire countries, may become functionally uninhabitable through water scarcity and heat. What we have seen currently in push factors will be nothing compared with what we see in the future, so it behoves us, as a responsible Government, to design and implement an immigration policy that is fit for purpose, not just for now, but for the future.
Bob Seely
I find it frustrating when people, especially Opposition Members, talk about the need for safe and legal routes. As a statement of fact, there were 10 such routes into the UK in the past decade—there are currently nine—which have been responsible for 50,000 refugees coming to this country since 2015. Overall, the number of refugees or people granted asylum in this country from 2015-16 is approaching the population of Manchester; we are talking about a number in the upper 400,000s—that is twice the size of the city of Portsmouth. When Opposition Members talk about the need for safe and legal routes, I assume that none of them has any clue what they are talking about; would my hon. Friend care to comment?
Jerome Mayhew
I am pretty settled with that last sentence. We have been a place of safety for about 80,000 from Ukraine; we have opened our arms to some 250,000 British nationals of Hong Kong descent; we have had the Syria programme, which I believe involved about 20,000; and we have had the Afghan resettlement programme, which involved about 18,000 to 20,000. All those have been safe and legal routes. The big difference is that the British Government, representing the British people, decided that those were the people we wanted to help. They were the most vulnerable, and we took the decision, not criminal gangs from abroad.
Dr Luke Evans
It is exactly that: the British people decided. Does my hon. Friend believe that the right approach is for Government to consult with local authorities on how many asylum seekers and refugees they can support, enabling them to come up with a number that Parliament will be able to vote on? That is pragmatic and practical while warm and welcoming to those who need help.
Jerome Mayhew
My hon. Friend makes another good point. We must not forget that our asylum policy depends on the support and acceptance of our people. If we have a policy that is rejected by people because they feel it is unfair and does not represent their views, then we run the risk of throwing the baby of asylum and welcoming people with vulnerabilities from around the world out with the bath water. The Bill helps to maintain a welcoming stance to asylum seekers who are decided on by the Government, while maintaining public support for the policy as a whole.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tim Loughton
As the author of the safe and legal routes amendment to the Illegal Migration Bill, I will shed a little light on this matter. My hon. Friend is right that we have generous safe and legal route schemes already, but they are mostly limited to set groups of people. The importance of the schemes the Government are working on is that those people who are genuine asylum seekers and genuinely fleeing persecution can be accommodated in some way, but those schemes would be subject to a cap. Although there are hundreds of thousands—millions—who might want to come here, the Illegal Migration Act sets a cap for safe and legal routes so that it is the number of people we can cope with and they are the right people. We will take in the most vulnerable people, separating them out from the people who have no credible case for coming to the United Kingdom, which is why the Bill is so important.
Jerome Mayhew
I am in accord with every point my hon. Friend made. There is real anger on the doorsteps. I am lucky to represent the seat of Broadland and Fakenham in Norfolk, and I was knocking on doors just before Christmas. Of the 100 or so doors I knocked on, I had 20 decent conversations with constituents. This is rural Norfolk, but 19 of those 20 conversations raised illegal migration as a key issue—that is the reality of the views of the people I represent. We would be mad in this House if we did not accurately reflect those views. I will take a final intervention.
David Simmonds
Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the East of England Local Government Association and the East of England Strategic Migration Partnership? They have done amazing work supporting the resettlement of British passport holders from Hong Kong, Syrians coming through the Syrian resettlement scheme and Ukrainians coming through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Does he agree that it would be more acceptable to his constituents to hear that those individuals have come to the UK through arrangements agreed with local authorities that have the capacity to support them, rather than, as I witnessed when I visited the Jungle camp in Calais, through rich smugglers, who say to people that the more they can pay, the more likely they are to be able to break into the UK through a backdoor?
Jerome Mayhew
My hon. Friend is exactly right. My constituents are generous minded and welcoming, but they do not like inherent unfairness. Typically, those who arrive are young men aged 20 to 40. Where are the women and children? Those young men are relatively rich because they have been able to pay £3,000 to £5,000 to the smugglers. Worse still, they may be indentured and end up in slave labour, trying to pay back a debt that will never be repaid. We have a terrible situation that needs to be addressed.
The Government have taken effective action that we can see in hard data from last year, not just because I say it. At a time when migration to the European Union is going up by about a third and to Mediterranean countries by fully 80% last year, the suite of interventions that the Government have already made have been so effective that they have reduced migration in this country by 36%, which is over a third. That is not because of Rwanda, but in addition to Rwanda. It is because we have increased French patrols on the coast by 40% and we have tracked down boat supplies in places like Romania, removing the ability of the gangs to physically get people across the channel.
We have increased raids on illegal workplaces, which were part of the pull factor for illegal migrants. More importantly, we have cut a deal with Albania, which has meant that, whereas the year before about 20,000 people who came from Albania claimed asylum, with the returns policy recognising that Albania is a safe country—just as Rwanda is, by the way—the number of potential migrants coming across the channel has decreased by more than 90%. If we want an example of why the Rwanda policy should work, we need only look at Albania and at the results that this Government have already achieved. I commend the Government for their hard work, the hard yards, and the incremental gains, which show that, although we are not all the way there, we are seeing 36% reductions already and counting. Our proposals in this Bill for the Rwanda relocation will make an enormous difference.
Michael Tomlinson
With your permission Sir Roger, may I on behalf of His Majesty’s Government pass on my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Sir Tony Lloyd, the former Member of Parliament—
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt on such a sensitive issue, but Mr Speaker intends to make a statement about that later.
Michael Tomlinson
I am very grateful for that guidance.
May I start by turning to those who have contributed to this debate? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his powerful points, challenging, forensic and learned points. He once again questioned what solutions are being offered by the Labour party, and he was right to do so. Answer came there none.
May I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)? As so often, he debated in poetry, and I will come back to some of his remarks in due course. I also thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). She was right to ensure that she did not make a Second Reading speech, but she did mention one or two amendments and other matters, and I shall turn to those in due course.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). He is always thoughtful, measured and so often right, and I am grateful to him for his contributions and also for his interventions during the latter stages of this debate. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) cited Robert Burns and asked what he would have to say to those on the Conservative Benches. My hon. Friend and neighbour, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), rather cheekily from a sedentary position suggested that Robert Burns might say to Conservative Members, “How can I join you?” That was not the gist or the thrust of her speech, but it was a cheeky intervention that I enjoyed none the less. I shall turn to her amendments in due course.
I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), as I always do, and I hope to be able to turn to some of the points that he made and hopefully allay some of his fears. He said sometimes the Chamber empties, or is not as full, when he speaks. That sometimes happens to Ministers as well—that not everyone is back when they are responding to Members’ contributions. But my hon. Friend is here, and I am grateful to him for sitting through so much of this debate and for his characteristic courtesy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) spoke with passion, as he always does, and I am grateful to him for his contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) spoke at some length, and I am grateful to him for that. He delved into the principles of the ECHR, and he was enticed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) to make some pronouncements on some of its judgements, which I thought was a little mean. None the less, my right hon. and learned Friend did proffer one suggestion, namely the case of Hirst, and I am grateful to him for that.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) for his intervention and for being on duty not only in Westminster Hall, but also here in this Chamber.
The course of the debate has been constructive, on the whole. I agree that it has been broadly thoughtful and instructive. We have had exchanges on scripture, and as a lawyer, it was a joy indeed to hear the word “otiose” not once or twice, but several times. We once even heard “otiose with bells on” from my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and I am grateful to him for that. I have not heard that expression before; it must be a legal reference that I brushed past in my youth.
We also heard about box sets from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and I will need to do a bit more research on that. We touched on ECHR membership, although my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark rightly said that this was not the place to have that full debate, but he set out some of the parameters for future debates that I am sure we will have.
Clause 1 sets out the rationale for the Bill. It sets out the legal obligations and how the treaty to which the Government of Rwanda have agreed addresses the concerns that were set out by the Supreme Court. Amendments 39, 40, 41 and 42, tabled and addressed today by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), and amendments 43 and 44, tabled by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), seek to exclude the core of those provisions. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central was clear about her intention in that regard. The treaty is binding in international law and, in accordance with Rwandan law, will become domestic law in Rwanda on ratification. That is set out in detail and confirmed in article 3(6) of the treaty. It rules out anyone relocated to Rwanda being removed from there, except to the United Kingdom. That is an important part of the treaty, set out in article 10(3), and that is regardless of whether the individual is found to be a refugee or to have another humanitarian protection need. That removes the risk of refoulement.
Everyone relocated to Rwanda will receive the same treatment. Those with refugee status, those with a humanitarian protection need and even those without that status will be able to stay in Rwanda and will receive the same rights and treatment. That addresses head on the concern that the Supreme Court set out. The asylum decision-making process is being significantly reformed. Annex B of the treaty—if I have time, I might turn to the details of that—contains strengthened monitoring arrangements, and there are also strengthened monitoring arrangements to ensure adherence to the obligations.
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for his engagement. I do not believe that his concerns are right. He said “offensive or otiose”. I would suggest that neither is right, and I hope to be able to reassure him, because clause 1 makes clear that Parliament is sovereign and that its Acts are valid notwithstanding any interpretation of international law. I will come back to that “notwithstanding” terminology, which has been so contentious, perhaps, in recent history. What it does not mean is that we are legislating away our international obligations. The purpose of the Bill is to say that, on the basis of the treaty and the evidence before it, Parliament believes that those obligations have been met. It does not mean that we do not care whether they have been met. He mentioned dualism and was right to do so.
The parts of the clause to which my right hon. and learned Friend’s amendments are directed do no more than make clear what we mean by a safe country, which is a key definition applied to Rwanda, namely that the United Kingdom can remove people to that country in compliance with its international obligations and that Rwanda will not remove anyone in breach of any international law. As a former Attorney General, he also mentioned the Law Officers convention. I was grateful to him for that, for so often in this Chamber it goes unnoticed. It is an important convention, and as a former Law Officer myself I abide by it very strictly, as I know he does, so I am grateful to him for reminding the House of it.
Turning to the amendments tabled by and the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon, I am grateful for his contributions not just today but yesterday. It is important that the will of Parliament is made clear and that, following the mammoth efforts between our Government and the Government of Rwanda, the obligations that we have agreed are fully set out. Clause 1 ensures that it is crystal clear that it is Parliament that has considered and concluded that Rwanda is a safe country. I know his concern about this sort of clause, but he will know that it is not unique and that it is not dissimilar to clause 1 of the Illegal Migration Act—[Interruption.] I suspect he is encouraging me not to pray that in aid, but it is a fact all the same that it is not unprecedented to have a clause such as clause 1 in a Bill.
I turn to clause 3. The United Kingdom has a long-standing tradition of ensuring that rights and liberties are protected domestically and of fulfilling our international human rights obligations. We remain committed to that position and will ensure that our laws continue to be fit for purpose and work for the people of the United Kingdom. Though some of the provisions in the Bill are novel, the Government are satisfied that the Bill can be implemented in line with the convention rights.
However, it has become clear that people will seek to frustrate their removal by any means. Therefore, this Bill goes further than the Illegal Migration Act, which was taken through by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman). As we have heard, that Act only disapplies section 3 of the Human Rights Act, whereas this Bill, and particularly clause 3, disapplies further elements of the Act. The effect is that the duty under section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act is disapplied for any public authority, including any court or tribunal, that is taking a decision based on the duty under clause 2 of the Bill to treat the Republic of Rwanda as safe.
I turn now directly to the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, starting with his amendments 11 and 18. He is right that the Bill does not seek to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act; it does not, in fact, disapply the declaration of incompatibility provisions in section 4. That is the only substantive remedy against the conclusive presumption that Rwanda is safe. Retaining declarations of incompatibility is important, but of course the final say on this matter will rightly remain with Parliament and with the Government because of section 4(6) of the Human Rights Act, which makes it clear that a declaration cannot affect the operation or the validity of domestic legislation.
Sir Robert Buckland
My hon. and learned Friend makes an important point about the extent to which the courts should and can intervene on issues relating to the compatibility of primary legislation with the ECHR. The section 4 procedure allows the courts to express a view, but does not trespass directly upon the functions of this place in dealing with the problem. It simply gives Parliament an opportunity to rectify any situation—or not, frankly. Does he agree that section 4 is a much better mechanism for the courts to use than the clunky, inelegant and sometimes very problematic section 3 procedure?
Michael Tomlinson
I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend says about section 3 and I agree with him wholeheartedly. He is right to describe it as clunky, and it has been disapplied in this Bill as well as in the Illegal Migration Act.
If I may say so directly to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, I accept entirely his comments that he is here to help the Government and that he believes passionately in this policy. He has had several very frank, open and honest conversations with me about that, both in this Chamber and outside it, and I am grateful to him for putting his points so ably and so clearly, but the disapplication of those sections within the Bill significantly reduces the extent to which public authorities are bound to act as a consequence of the convention rights.
May I turn to clause 5 and the further amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark? Clause 5 makes it clear that it is for a Minister of the Crown alone to determine whether to comply with an interim measure of the Strasbourg Court. It also makes it clear that the domestic courts may not have regard to the existence of any interim measure when considering any domestic application flowing from a decision to remove a person to Rwanda in accordance with the treaty.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The Minister just said that there will be circumstances in which we will ignore pyjama injunctions. What are the circumstances in which the Government will not ignore them and will therefore comply with them?
Michael Tomlinson
I could not have been clearer. There is the confirmation that we have the power, we would use the power, and the civil service will give effect to it.
Let me respond directly to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham? She spoke powerfully, as she always does, and I always listen carefully to what she says. She set out a number of cases in which medical reasons were cited in court. Medical arguments were presented that, as she said, frustrated the will of this place. In fact, section 39 of the Illegal Migration Act—the very Act that she took through this place with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark—addresses that exact point about medical records and medical evidence.
The following are examples of harm that do not constitute serious and irreversible harm. The first is:
“where the standard of healthcare available to”
the person
“in the relevant country…is lower than”
that available in the United Kingdom. It is there in the statute, in the Bill that we passed last year.
The second example is:
“Any pain or distress resulting from a medical treatment that is available to”
a person
“in the United Kingdom not being available to”
a person
“in the relevant country”.
That is not, does not and will not constitute serious and irreversible harm.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham is right to be concerned about that, but those concerns have been addressed and met in the legislation we have passed, and in the legislation that is mirrored in the Bill.
Let me turn to the important provisions of clause 8. I will directly address the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and his submissions in response to new clause 3. Nothing in the Windsor framework, including article 2, or in the withdrawal agreement affects the Bill’s proper operation on a UK-wide basis. Any suggestion to the contrary would be to imply that the scope of the rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity chapter of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement is far more expansive than was ever intended.
Michael Tomlinson
I will not give way.
We are unequivocal that that is simply not the case, and article 2 of the Windsor framework is not engaged. I would be happy to write further to the hon. Member for Belfast East and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on that point to set out further detail. I hope I can reassure the hon. Member that we have already achieved the aim he seeks.
Michael Tomlinson
I will give way, but my hon. Friend must be conscious that we are up against a very tight deadline.
Sir William Cash
On the statements he made with regard to rule 39 and so forth, can my hon. and learned Friend explain to the Committee how the Government would be able to prevent a judicial review of the decision taken by the Minister without legislation?
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend has heard what I said on that point. I respect and admire him; he knows the esteem that I have for him. We have a good-faith disagreement on the effect of clause 5, but the clause is clear: it is for a Minister to decide, and a Minister will decide.
Michael Tomlinson
May I finish my point in response to the hon. Member for Belfast East? I hope I can reassure him that we have already achieved the aim he seeks. The Bill will apply across the whole of the United Kingdom, in line with the application of our sovereign immigration policy across all four nations of the UK as a territorial whole. I am grateful to the hon. Member for his kind and generous comments about me personally, and for his engagement. I will continue to engage with him on this issue.
We have made progress towards stopping the boats, with small boat crossings down by a third in 2023, but we must do more. The only way to do so is if it is abundantly clear that illegal entry will never lead to a new life in the United Kingdom. The power of deterrence is proven beyond reasonable doubt by the success of our agreement with Albania. Parliament and the British people want an end to illegal immigration, and we need a deterrent. We have a plan—a plan to stop the boats—and I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to back it.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)
Amendment 11 has been proposed. Mr Jenrick, do you wish to press it to a vote, or do you wish to withdraw it?
Robert Jenrick
With your permission, Sir Roger, I would like to withdraw it. However, if you are agreeable, I wish to press amendment 23 instead.
Robert Jenrick
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Wednesday 17th January 2024
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 17 January 2024 - (17 Jan 2024)
21:16 - The House divided: - Ayes: 320 / Noes: 276 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I of course echo the tributes to Sir Tony.
The Prime Minister, the Government and I have been clear that we will do whatever it takes to stop the boats, and we have of course been making progress on that pledge, reducing small boat arrivals by over a third last year, but to stop the boats completely and to stop them for good we need to deter people from making these dangerous journeys—from risking their lives and from lining the pockets of evil, criminal people-smuggling gangs.
The new legally binding treaty with the Government of the Republic of Rwanda responds directly to the Supreme Court’s concerns, reflecting the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments. This Bill sends an unambiguously clear message that if you enter the United Kingdom illegally, you cannot stay. This Bill has been meticulously drafted to end the merry-go-round of legal challenges; people will not be able to use our asylum laws, human rights laws or judicial reviews to block their legitimate removal. And the default will be for claims to be heard outside of this country. Only a very small number of migrants who face a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm will be able to appeal decisions in the UK.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
As things stand, can the Home Secretary confirm that if this Bill receives Royal Assent it will not breach international law; yes or no?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend raises an important point and it gives me an opportunity to be unambiguous and clear. As drafted, as we intend this Bill to progress, it will be in complete compliance with international law. The UK takes international law seriously and the countries we choose to partner with internationally also take international law seriously.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The previous intervention was extremely apposite. Will the Foreign Secretary be kind enough to give me the advice as to why he said what he just did about no breaches of international law?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend will know that the Government do not make their legal advice public. We have put forward, of course, an explanation of our position but I am absolutely confident that we will maintain our long-standing tradition of being a country that not just abides by international law but champions and defends it.
Under our new legislation migrants will not be able to frustrate the decision to remove them to Rwanda by bringing systemic challenges about the general safety of Rwanda.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Home Secretary assure us that if this Bill is passed tonight there will be a system in place that accurately tests its success, month by month and week by week, so that we know that all this anger, all this frustration, all this work is not for nothing?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman certainly speaks for a number of Members in the House, although maybe not too many on his own Benches, because it sounds as if he wants this to work, whereas plenty of Opposition Members have tried to frustrate our attempts to deal with illegal migration. But we will of course want to assess the success because we want to be proud of the fact that this Government, unlike the Opposition parties, actually care about strengthening our borders and defending ourselves against those evil people smugglers and their evil trade.
To be clear, we will disapply the avenues used by individuals that blocked the first flight to Rwanda, including asylum and human rights claims. Without that very narrow route to individual challenge, we would undermine the treaty that we have just signed with Rwanda and run the very serious risk of collapsing the scheme, and that must not be allowed to happen. But if people attempt to use this route simply as a delaying tactic, they will have their claim dismissed by the Home Office and they will be removed.
The Bill also ensures that it is for Ministers and Ministers alone to decide whether to comply with the ECHR interim measures, because it is for the British people and the British people alone to decide who comes and who stays in this country. The Prime Minister said he would not have included that clause unless we were intending and prepared to use it, and that is very much the case. We will not let foreign courts prevent us from managing our own borders. As reiterated by the Cabinet Office today, it is the established case that civil servants under the civil service code are there to deliver the decisions of Ministers of the Crown.
The Bill is key to stopping the boats once and for all. To reassure some of the people who have approached me with concerns, I remind them that Albanians previously made up around a third of small boat arrivals, but through working intensively and closely with Albania and its Government, more than 5,000 people with no right to be here have been returned. The deterrent was powerful enough to drive down arrivals from Albania by more than 90%. Strasbourg has not intervened, flights from Rwanda have not been stopped and the House should understand that this legislation once passed will go even further and be even stronger than the legislation that underpins the Albania agreement.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
We obviously support the Albania agreement, but will the Home Secretary confirm that only 5% of Albanians who have arrived in the country over the past few years on small boats have been returned or removed? What has happened to the other 95%?
James Cleverly
As I have said, it is about deterrence, and the deterrent effect is clear for anyone to see, with a more than 90% reduction in the number of Albanians who have arrived on these shores.
I am glad that the shadow Home Secretary chose this point to intervene, because it reminds me that the Labour party has no credible plans at all to manage our borders. The Opposition have tried to obstruct our plans to tackle illegal migration over and over again—more than 80 times. They even want to cut a deal with the EU that would see us receive 100,000 extra illegal migrants each and every year. [Interruption.] They cheer. The shadow Home Secretary is pleased with the idea that we are going to receive an extra 100,000 every year. They can laugh, but we take this issue seriously, because it is not what our country needs and it is not what our constituents want.
We are united in agreement that stopping the boats and getting the Rwanda partnership up and running is of the utmost importance. Having a debate about how to get the policy right is of course what this House is for. That is our collective job, and I respect my good friends and colleagues on the Government Benches for putting forward amendments in good faith to do what they believe will strengthen the Bill. While my party sits only a short physical distance from the parties on the Opposition Benches, the gulf between our aspiration to control our borders and their blasé laissez-faire attitude to border control could not be more stark. Stopping the boats is not just a question of policy; it is a question of morality and of fairness. It is this Government—this Conservative party—who are the only party in this House taking this issue as seriously as we should. I urge this House to stick with our plan and stop the boats.
Yvette Cooper
May I first add my tributes to Tony Lloyd? He did such wonderful work in policing, as well as in this place.
What a farce. Today and yesterday have been more days of Tory chaos and carnage. We have a Prime Minister with no grip, while the British taxpayer is continually forced to pay the price. Former Tory Cabinet Ministers and deputy chairs from all sides have been queueing up to tell us it is a bad Bill. They say it will not work, it will not protect our borders, it will not comply with international law and it is fatally flawed. The only thing that the Tories all seem to agree on is that the scheme is failing and the law will not solve it. The Prime Minister is failing, too, and they know it.
We have a failing Rwanda scheme that is costing Britain £400 million, that sent more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers to Kigali and that will only apply to less than 1% of those arriving in the UK. This is the third Tory law on channel crossings in two years. It will get through tonight, just like the previous two Bills did—even though they failed. Just like the last two, it is a total con on the British people. This chaos leaves the Prime Minister’s authority in tatters. He is in office but not in power. No one agrees with him on his policy, and the real weakness is that he does not even agree with it himself. The Prime Minister is so weak that he has lost control of the asylum system, lost control of our borders and lost any control of the Tory party.
Sixty Tory MPs have voted against the Government, two deputy chairs were sacked, a Home Secretary and Immigration Minister have formerly been lost, and Cabinet Ministers have been briefing openly that they do not support the Bill. The Home Secretary himself thinks it is “batshit”, the Prime Minister tried to cancel it and yet is so weak that they are still going ahead.
Under the Tories, we have seen border security weakened while criminal gangs take hold, because they have not taken the action that we need. The backlogs soar; the budget bust. Criminal smuggler convictions have dropped by 30%, and returns have halved. That is instead of the practical plans that Labour set out to set up the new returns and enforcement unit to stop the Home Office from just losing thousands of people that it cannot keep track of, to stop the halving of the returns unit, to set up the new security powers to go after the criminal gangs and stop the 30% drop in criminal gang smuggler convictions, and to have the additional cross-border police unit that we could be investing in if we were not spending so much money on this failing Rwanda scheme.
Four hundred million pounds of taxpayers’ money is going to Rwanda, all without a single person being sent. That is all in addition to the Government’s whopping multibillion-pound hotel bill. Of course, if they get flights off, it will probably cost another £10 million to £20 million for every 100 people they actually manage to send. President Kagame made an astonishing intervention this afternoon. He said that he is happy for the scheme to be scrapped and may be offering to refund the money. Think what we could do with £400 million—that is more than a third of the budget of the National Crime Agency.
The Kigali Government have clarified the position this afternoon—and it is even worse. They said:
“Under the terms of the agreement, Rwanda has no obligation to return any of the funds paid…if no migrants come to Rwanda under the scheme, and the UK government wishes to request a refund of the portion of the funding allocated to support…we will consider this request.
Unbelievable. The Government signed a deal and a whole series of cheques to send hundreds of millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money to Rwanda for a scheme that they were warned would not work, might be unlawful, would not work as a deterrent, would be unenforceable and would be at high risk of fraud. They signed it because they do not give a damn about taxpayers’ money. Now they want to pass the Bill and spend even more taxpayers’ money on this failing scheme.
The scheme is likely to cover less than 1% of the people who arrived in the country last year. More than 90,000 people applied for asylum, and the Court of Appeal said that Rwanda had capacity for only 100 people. The Immigration Minister admitted that it is just a few hundred, and not any time soon. If the Government ever finally implement the Illegal Migration Act 2023, that will immediately create a list of 35,000 people the Home Secretary is supposed to send immediately to Rwanda. At this rate, it will take the Government 100 years to implement their own failing policy.
To be honest, it is probably even worse than that, because they cannot even find most of the 5,000 people they put on the initial Rwanda list. It is totally unbelievable: in the space of about 18 months, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have literally lost 4,200 people they planned to send to Rwanda. I bet the Prime Minister wishes he could lose a few of those Home Secretaries he managed to send.
Yvette Cooper
The Prime Minister did also lose his Immigration Minister as part of the chaos of the last few weeks and months—I give way to the former Immigration Minister.
Robert Jenrick
If the shadow Home Secretary does not like the Rwanda policy, why did she brief The Times over the Christmas holidays that she was in favour of an offshore processing scheme, which everyone knows is more expensive than a scheme like Rwanda and has far less deterrent effect? It seems that everything she does not like is her plan, except she did not have the guts to put her name to it, so she briefed The Times anonymously.
Yvette Cooper
Nice try with total nonsense from the former Immigration Minister, who has a history of making things up. It is not clear that there is anything on the planet more expensive per person than the Government’s Rwanda scheme: £400 million to send nobody to Rwanda and to totally fail. I give the former Immigration Minister credit for exposing the Government and the Prime Minister’s real plan—in his words, to try and get a few “symbolic flights” off before a general election, with a small number of people on them.
Not to worry about handing over a small fortune to another country, or the fact that all this focus on one small, failing scheme means that the Government are failing to go after the gangs. They have lost thousands of people the Home Office should be tracking. Not to worry that this new law is so badly drawn up that, frankly, the Government may be ordered by the courts to bring people back, at further huge cost to the British taxpayer, turning the whole thing into an even bigger farce.
This is not a workable policy; it is a massive, costly con. The Government are trying to con voters and con their own party, but everyone can see through it. A £400 million Rwanda scheme for a few hundred people is like the emperor’s new clothes. The Prime Minister and his Immigration Ministers have been desperately spinning the invisible thread, but we can all see through it. The Home Secretary is wandering naked around this Chamber, waving a little treaty as a fig leaf to hide his modesty behind. I admit, he does not have much modesty to hide.
There are things that the Home Secretary and I agree on. We agree on working with France. We agree on the deal with Albania. We agree on the importance of stopping dangerous boat crossings that are undermining border security and putting lives at risk. I think he probably agrees with us about the failings of the policy he is trying to defend today. We need stronger border security and a properly controlled and managed asylum system so that the UK does its bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, and those who have no right to be here are returned. We need Labour’s plan for the new security powers, the new cross-border police, the new security agreement, the new returns and enforcement unit, the clearing of the backlog, the ending of hotel use, and keeping track of the thousands of people the Home Secretary has lost.
The Government will get their law through tonight—the third new law in two years; the third Home Secretary to visit Rwanda with a cheque book; the third bilateral agreement with Rwanda. Tory Back Benchers have been saying that it should be three strikes and you’re out. We are now on three, six, nine strikes, and they have not even got to first base, because every time they bring forward a new law, it makes things worse. The first new law failed because its main provisions are now suspended. The second new law failed with the main provisions not even implemented.
Forgive us for not believing a word the Government say, and for voting against a third failing Bill today. The only difference now is that none of their Back Benchers believes them, either. Broken promises on clearing the backlog, on ending hotel use, on stopping the boats and on returning people who come. It is chaos—failing on smuggler gangs, failing on returns and failing to get a grip. Britain deserves better than this Tory asylum chaos.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I will simply reply to the Labour party. If I vote against Third Reading this evening, I certainly have no intention of doing a single thing to support the propositions of Labour’s Front-Bench spokesman. Let me get that completely clear. Labour is not doing anything. It has no plan. I want the Bill to succeed, and if I vote against Third Reading it will be because I do not believe, to use the Home Secretary’s own words, that this is the “toughest immigration legislation” that we could produce, nor do I think we have done “whatever it takes”. I can only say that in this context, but it is about the law.
My main concern is that there will be another claim as a result of this. I do not think anybody expects anything else. When it happens it will go to the Supreme Court and the question in front of the Supreme Court will be very simple. I put that point in my speech yesterday, and I do not retract a single word. I am extremely grateful to those very senior people some members of the Government, who said to me privately that they agreed with every word I said.
I say that for this reason. If the Act of Parliament was sufficiently comprehensive, using the “notwithstanding” formula, and the words used were clear and unambiguous, then there is no doubt at all that we would win that case in the Supreme Court. Sadly, I just do not think that that is going to happen. I explained why yesterday, so there is no need or reason for me to go into it now. I have said what I have said. All I can say is that I wish the Government well, but I cannot in all conscience support the Bill, because I have set out my case and, on principle, I am not going to retract it.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The front page of this tawdry, pathetic piece of unworkable legislation says, in the name of the Home Secretary:
“I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.”
It is another illegal Bill that will not work and will not fix the problem. It is a Bill for which the Government have no mandate. The 2019 Conservative manifesto said:
“We will continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution, with the ultimate aim of helping them to return home if it is safe to do so.”
Nothing about flights to Rwanda, nothing about extradition, nothing about ripping up people’s fundamental human rights. Since then, there have been two unelected Prime Ministers, four Home Secretaries and no mandate for this Bill.
The UNHCR’s assessment of the Bill states:
“It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated and the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme, does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible with international refugee law.”
Rwanda has been clear that it does not want to sign up to an agreement that breaches international law. The Bill breaches international law. That is very clear. It is very dangerous that the Government are going down this road. We cannot make a country safe simply by legislating that it is so. This Government are engaged in a fantasy. More dangerous than that, they ask the courts, public servants and all of us to engage in that same fantasy. It becomes upside down and topsy-turvy—right is wrong and wrong is right. All those things make no sense. We cannot make a country safe simply by legislating it so.
We know that the Bill is no deterrent, because the supposedly harsh Bills that came before it have not been a deterrent either. It has been 181 days since the last tough, harsh and difficult piece of deterrent legislation was passed, and measures are not yet even in force from the Government’s previous tough, difficult harsh Bill that was supposed to be a deterrent, so we cannot believe them now.
We also find that the tiniest number of people will sent to Rwanda anyway. Less than 1% of those crossing this year will be sent to Rwanda. What happens to the rest of the people left in immigration limbo to wander the streets of these islands? The Government cannot say, they do not know and they have no idea what they will do when people have no rights and are out looking for assistance.
The Bill amounts to nothing more and nothing less than state-sponsored people trafficking. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not like to hear it, but it is the truth. I will explain to them exactly why. They should listen to my description and see what they think. Far from dismantling criminal gangs, this Government have become a criminal gang, breaking international law and moving vulnerable people across the world without legal process—no right of appeal and no concern for the safety or human rights of asylum seekers—to a country they do not know, involving money and involving profit. It involves people this Government will never meet and never look in the eye. They will never sit across the table and watch them in tears because they cannot be safe.
Robert Burns, that great humanitarian of Scotland, said:
“Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!”
I mourn what this Government are doing to human rights, and the undermining of international law and international principles, and I give this assurance: when Scotland gets its independence we will take our place in the world, we will take our responsibilities seriously, and we will play our full part in the world as an independent nation.
Sir Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Let me begin by adding my tributes to Tony Lloyd, one of the most charming and civilised politicians in this House, a model that would do well to be replicated more widely than it sometimes is.
It is clear from the debates that have taken place in the last couple of days that it is this side, and this side only, that understands the concept of deterrence when it comes to the importance of dealing with illegal immigration. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) has had her hysterical say, and I will have mine. That understanding is in stark contrast to the intellectual vacuum that passes for today’s Labour party. On this side the debate has been entirely about the workability of the Bill, and we have heard some exceptional speeches over the last couple of days. If I may, I will single out that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick).
I do not believe we should be demonising, at any point, those who want to secure a better future for themselves by seeking asylum in, or migration to, the United Kingdom, which is a fine, fair, tolerant society that anyone would want to join. However, the principle of territorial asylum—the right to access the national asylum system on setting foot on land—has already had a coach and horses driven through it by the fact that many of these people are not coming by boat from a dangerous country, but are coming from France. That cannot be tolerated if we are to have control over our borders.
Even more important—this point has been made frequently by my right hon. and hon. Friends—is the need to curb the evil of people smuggling and destroy the economic model of those who traffic in that most disgusting trade. I have to say that political infringements of the ECHR are nothing compared with the duty to stop people suffocating in lorries or drowning while crossing the channel, especially given that when it comes to deportation, France is the country that is perfectly willing to ditch the judgments of the ECHR when it suits it. Our deterrent will be even greater if we pass this legislation and can persuade other countries to do the same in a synergistic way.
The Bill may not be everything that everybody wants, but it is much better than what we have today. If I had voted only for legislation with which I agreed 100%, my voting record in the past years 32 might have been different from what it is today. I hear those on my own side saying that we can replace this Bill with something else, but we cannot. As you well know, Mr Speaker, “Erskine May” says:
“When a Bill has been rejected, or lost through disagreement, it should not, according to the practice of Parliament, be reintroduced in the same Session.”
This is the one chance that we have to pass this legislation. What we do will be judged by our voters according to their priorities. If we leave tonight with nothing, that judgment will be harsh—or, worse, it will leave us to the cringing mediocrities that make up His Majesty’s Opposition.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I, too, pay tribute to Tony Lloyd, with whom I sat in Westminster Hall during his last speech. It was about human rights, the very issue that we are discussing now. He spoke with such wisdom, and we will all miss him.
I was shocked to hear a Member call another Member—a female Member—“hysterical”. It is a classic use of a misogynistic term, and I was shocked to hear it.
This is the Third Reading of the third Bill in two years to try to stop the channel crossings. The first, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, has been partially suspended because it was making things worse. The second, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, has mainly not been implemented because the Home Office believes it is unworkable. So here we are for the third time. This is the “fail again and fail harder” version: unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful. It weakens our national borders and undermines international courts—those courts that protect and on which we rely as British citizens. I have been very concerned about the attacks on the European Court of Human Rights during debates on the Bill. The costs are spiralling, at £400 million plus the £2.1 million that was already spent on legal bills alone by November 2023.
This latest gimmick—not a plan—lets down people fleeing persecution and will not deliver on fixing the immigration system. It will leave nearly 100,000 cases in the backlog, 56,000 people in hotels and, as we have now heard, more than 4,000 people missing from the system. It will not fix the system that the Conservatives have broken. It will not be that deterrent; it is too small and unworkable. It does not respond to the international situation of increasing climate change impact and conflict around the world that is driving people to seek safety. It feels like the Conservatives cannot cope with international reality and have stuck their fingers in their ears and are chanting something about Rwanda instead of facing up to reality. This lets our country down.
What will stop the boats and the dreadful deaths in the cold seas is Labour’s plan.
We will clear the backlog with a new fast-track system and 1,000 officers. We will end hotel use, saving the taxpayer over £2 billion, and improve enforcement with a new returns and enforcement unit to reverse the collapse in returns for those who have no right to be here. The Conservatives started this work by employing some temporary new officers and it started to work, so why not invest in the things that work instead of this gimmick? They have started clearing the backlog. The Tories have also started smashing the gangs through the work that they are doing in France. Again, it is beginning to work, so why not invest in those things that work, rather than in the Rwanda plan? It is nonsense to start something but not finish it and leave a half-baked plan in place.
What works is smashing the gangs and working with France. We would smash the supply chains with new powers and a new cross-border police unit, which would prevent the boats from reaching the French coast in the first place. We would work in partnership internationally to address some of the humanitarian crises that are leading people to flee from their homes. We believe in strong border security and a properly controlled, managed and fair asylum system, so that the UK can do our bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict but return those with no right to be here. We also believe in stopping the gangs, who are the only winners from this Bill. Under the Tories we just have costly chaos.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is important to speak in this debate. I have to say, I was somewhat astonished by the speech of the shadow Home Secretary, who cannot even get the name of the country right, talking about the Kigali Government when we are talking about Rwanda—a respected country that has recently been president of the Commonwealth.
I want to associate myself with the comments about the sad loss of Sir Tony Lloyd. As a Member of Parliament in both Manchester and Rochdale, he was assiduous for his constituents and assiduous when he was in government, and he will be much missed in this House.
The reason why I stand today is that I am keen to make sure that this Bill gets through its Third Reading with the largest majority possible, so that we can say to the other House that the elected House has had its say. We are doing this Bill solely because, having had the excellent Illegal Migration Act taken through by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—which, we should all remember, the Labour party opposed religiously, blocking everything that we tried to do—the Supreme Court, after disagreeing with the High Court, pointed to the issue of Rwanda specifically. It is important that Parliament stands up and addresses that specific point so that we can get through this stage and then commence the relevant sections of the Illegal Migration Act, particularly regarding having a safe third country.
I am conscious that temperatures are pretty high, but there is a genuine passion on this side of the House to respect the will of our constituents, who want to see a fair legal migration system and not the vague plan—which really is not a plan—from the Labour party. I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends: support this Bill tonight so that we have the biggest majority possible. I appreciate what other Members have said, but clause 2 is very specific that when decision makers are making decisions, Parliament has given its full confidence that when people go to Rwanda they will be treated fairly and that the conventions will be applied. Then we will have not only the effective process but the effective deterrent, which I think the whole House seeks.
Let us be clear and let us talk with one voice. I wish the Opposition would join us, but I know from their track record of opposing the Illegal Migration Act that they might talk the talk, but they are full of bluster. They do not really mean it and they do not really care. I know that this Conservative Government care, and I know that every Conservative MP cares. We need to make sure that the Lords listen to the elected House.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I am gutted by the loss of Sir Tony Lloyd. He was a decent, kind, wise man and an excellent Member of Parliament. We will all seriously miss him.
They say that the smaller the stakes, the more ferociously they are fought over. The small stakes are that if this Bill works, 1% of the asylum seekers who come to this country might just end up being sent to Rwanda, at a cost of £240 million and counting. We know it will not be a deterrent, as we know that people have travelled from the horn of Africa, through Libya, over the Mediterranean and through Europe. As if the 1% chance that they may go to Rwanda will put off the tiny fraction of people who try to cross the English channel, having taken all the risks they have taken to get as far as France.
Of course people travel from France. They are not going to bloomin’ sail directly from Libya, are they? For pity’s sake. People will come from France. The French Government could say to Spain and Italy, “No, these people should stay in your safe countries.” The House will see where I am going. If we do not work co-operatively, the whole thing falls down.
The real issue is the backlog of 165,000 asylum cases that this incompetent Government have failed to clear. I have covered the issue of deterrence, but the people smugglers may well decide to bring people into this country under the radar, without claiming asylum at all. We would not reduce the number coming here, but we would massively increase the number of people who end up in the black market as victims of trafficking and sexual slavery, and so on.
Only a quarter of those few people who are denied asylum, having gone through the system, are removed by this Government. We have a Government who talk tough and act weak. If they actually wanted a deterrent, they would make sure that there is a system to deal with those 165,000 people, and they would remove the ones who are not genuine asylum seekers. Even the Government’s own figures show that 75% of the people who come here to claim asylum are legitimate and genuine refugees. If the Government want to deter people, they should assess them and return the ones who are not genuine refugees.
The weakest thing about this Bill is that it is predicated on the Government’s desire to demonise the world’s most vulnerable people because they think the electorate like it. They have misunderstood and massively underestimated the British people, and certainly my constituents, who are better than they think they are.
I can tell the Government about my community. In 1945, half the children who survived the death camps in Nazi-occupied Europe came to our shores. In fact, they came to the shores of Lake Windermere. They were the Windermere boys, the Windermere children, and we are proud of that legacy because it speaks to the kind of people we are in the lakes and in Britain.
I have visited some of the refugee camps in Europe, and when I speak to the people who seek to come to the United Kingdom—by the way, it is important to remember that 19 European Union countries take more refugees per head than the United Kingdom—the thing that drives them to come here is not benefits or the NHS but a belief in Britain. They believe that Britain is the kind of place where they can raise a family in peace, where they can earn a living and where they can have religious freedom and other liberties. That reputation is built on hundreds of years of proud experience of what it is to be British. Our forefathers and foremothers built that reputation, and it will take more than this tawdry Government and this shabby legislation to undermine that reputation overseas.
The Government want to make Britain unattractive, and they will fail. The Bill will fail. It is a costly, expensive failure, and it deserves to be rejected by this House.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I will be quick, Mr Speaker. This has been a useful debate already, because we have heard from the Opposition parties where they stand. We have heard from the Scottish National party that it wants Scotland to take its place among the nations of the world. What we did not hear was whether the SNP wants Scotland to take its fair share of the refugees of the world, because as yet it does not do so. It was good to hear from Labour that it does have a plan to stop the boats—it is our plan. It is everything we are doing already, just without the Rwanda bit, which is the one essential piece of the jigsaw that will act as an effective deterrent and stop the boats. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made a passionate speech, but I think he was saying that we should just be more like Europe on refugees and asylum, and I am not sure that that is what the public want.
I wish briefly to pay tribute to a few people. First, I pay tribute to the Government Whips, who have done a brilliant job today. I congratulate them and honour them for their efforts; they have been more successful than I have today, but I am glad that we are all more or less united again as a party. I pay particular tribute to the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, who has worked with colleagues across our party and across the House to address the concerns we had. I am pleased to say that some commitments have been given today and in the past few days, although I do not think they go far enough. I want to acknowledge the important work that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) have done in Committee, because their amendments, which so many of us have supported in the past two days, would have made significant improvements to the operation of this Bill. We are all in the same place, as many colleagues have said; all Conservative Members want to do the same thing, which is establish an effective deterrent that would ensure that people who cross the channel are immediately detained and removed.
I do not think that this Bill, as drafted, is going to work. We will see legal challenges that will clog up the process and ensure that the deterrent is not enforced. I regret that we are not honouring the pledge we have made to the people to control our borders effectively, which is what they voted for in 2016 and in 2019 so decisively, what all the opinion polls and our constituents tell us, and what all common sense tells us is such an important part of our commitment and responsibilities in government. I regret that although the Bill pays tribute, ostentatiously, to the essential concept and principle of parliamentary sovereignty, it does not in fact ensure that that is what we will have. We believe that statutes passed in this place have supremacy over judge-made law and certainly over the jurisdiction of the European Court. I am afraid to say that much as the Government agree with the principle I have just established, the Bill, as it stands, still allows lawyers to use foreign, international law commitments and protocols to override the supremacy of Parliament, and I deeply regret that. We could have got a better Bill through Parliament in this Session; we could have developed it, and I understand that it would have been possible to bring forward a Bill of different scope that would have achieved the same ends. I regret that we are not doing that, but I understand that this is where we are.
Many of my colleagues have decided to vote with the Government tonight, because they do not want to cause the political disruption that would ensue from a Government defeat, and I honour them for their decision, I respect that greatly and think it is a very honourable position. My view is, as I said at the outset, that the Bill needed these improvements. I do not think it will work and we could have done better. Nevertheless, the fundamental fact is that Conservative Members are united in our commitment to stopping the boats through this policy. The real division is not the Gangway on the Government Benches, but the Aisle between us and the Opposition Benches. The great value of the debates we have been having is that it exposes the position of the Opposition parties. They do not believe in stopping the boats and we all do.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The tribute I received about Tony Lloyd today came from the ex-chief constable of West Midlands police, who used to be the deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester police. He said that Tony was one of the best people he had ever worked with, so I stand here to say that.
I want everybody in here to know that they are about to vote for a Bill when they have absolutely no idea how much it is going to cost. We have not been given that information. I was here during the debate in Committee earlier, when the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), said that there was a view that each person sent to Rwanda would cost £169,000. That piqued my anger so greatly, because I had just come from an event with the Home Secretary to do with it being a year on from the independent child sexual abuse inquiry, where we were considering what progress we have made since then. I was holding in my hand a piece of paper that said that in 2022 some 100,000 children were sexually abused and came forward to say that, and then I looked up how much money the Home Office allocated to its sexual abuse against children fund in 2022. It was £4.5 million, which I worked out was £42 for every child who had been raped in that year, and I thought about the political capital of walking round and round the Lobby for the third Bill trying to do something that won’t work.
The Prime Minister could find 150 judges yesterday—I don’t know where; under the sofa?—when rape victims in my constituency are waiting seven years for their cases to get in front of a judge. Frankly, people who think that it is worth the amount of time spent wasting taxpayers’ money on something that has not worked the last two times we tried it and will not work this time should be ashamed of themselves for voting for something when they have no idea how much it will cost the people in their constituencies. I hope that those who turned up today feel shame for the amount of airtime they have taken up when they did not do so for the victims of child abuse—[Interruption.] Excuse me? Would someone like to intervene? No.
I was in a British court last week—not a “foreign court”, but a British court—with a victim of human trafficking. She had been trafficked twice. We had deported her once already, as a trafficking victim, but she was re-trafficked back to this country and I went to the upper tribunal with her last week. She has two children born of the repeated rapes that she has suffered as a victim of human trafficking and the Home Office was trying to deport her again. The judge scolded the Home Office lawyers for daring to bring the case in front of them and because I was sat in the courtroom, the Home Office lawyers were not so keen to give their evidence in front of me, so they did not really give any—[Interruption.] Yes, I wonder why they did not want to talk about how it was fine for a woman who had been ritually raped repeatedly to have to go back to where that had happened before she had been trafficked here.
I have heard nothing in any of the debates today about what happens to the victims of human trafficking when we scoop up all these people without any appeal. What happens to them? Currently, I have sat in courtrooms where this Government are abusing them. I would never vote for the Bill and neither should anybody else.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I was first elected to this House on the same day as Tony Lloyd in 1983. He was a brilliant friend and comrade who voted against the Iraq war, student tuition fees and the renewal of Trident, and he was a brilliant shadow Northern Ireland Secretary. He will be much missed by many good people all over this country.
This Bill is an appalling piece of legislation. It fails to take any account of the human suffering of people who are forced, through lack of any other alternative, to try to make a very dangerous crossing of the channel. I have met people in Calais who are desperate, poor and confused, and have travelled from Afghanistan and other places. They are victims of war, human rights abuse, poverty and so much else. The Government are now claiming that the only way to deal with the issue is to attack what they euphemistically call “a foreign court”, when in reality that court is the European Court of Human Rights, which is part of our judicial system. They are trying to offshore their obligations under international law and treaties.
On the global stage, it is the wealthy countries, such as Australia and Britain, that want to offshore issues surrounding asylum and the rights of people to seek asylum, and pretend that somehow or other they are doing the world a favour. We have to work with other countries to deal with the issue of the desperation of so many refugees in Europe, and far more in other parts of the world.
The Bill blames those people for being victims and plays into the narrative of the most backward, horrible remarks made in our national media and newspapers about asylum seekers, without ever recognising that those people who have sought asylum legally in this country—it is always legal to seek asylum; that is there in treaty—will eventually be our doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers of tomorrow, as they are all over Europe. The Bill plays into this racist trope against refugees all over the world, and attacks refugees because of where they come from.
I hope that the House tonight rejects this Bill. I hope that, in future, we do not come back to this kind of debate, but instead start to look at the issues of human rights abuse, victims of war, victims of environmental disaster and the needs of those people to be cared for on this planet as fellow human beings, rather than making them out to be the enemies that they certainly are not. Desperate people are looking for a place of safety. Surely it is our obligation—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary is getting very excited, but it is his obligation to try to make sure that they do have a place of safety in which to survive for the rest of their lives.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, pay tribute to Tony Lloyd. I think that we would all admit that he was a far, far better man than most of us in this House. Those of us who have survived thus far advanced cancer often feel a particular poignancy—I know the Home Secretary will agree with this point—when a friend is lost to cancer, so my condolences go to Tony’s family. I hope that we will have proper time to commemorate him, as you have said, Mr Speaker.
I want the boats to stop, not because I do not value the lives of those who have paid thousands of pounds to risk their lives on the high seas in unseaworthy vessels, but because I do value their lives. I despise the people traffickers and I do not want the generosity of the British people to be tested to breaking point. I am voting against Third Reading today for four reasons. First, I agree with the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and the hon. Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Devizes (Danny Kruger), who are not all here now, that this Bill will not work. It is a false promise and I am sick of false promises. It is a waste of money and I am sick of the Government wasting our money. And I am very sceptical that it will actually act as a deterrent. After all, if the freezing waters of the channel that can take a life in a matter of minutes are not a deterrent, how will a 1% chance of being transported to Rwanda act as a deterrent?
Secondly, this Bill is based on a heady mixture of gross exaggeration, preposterous wishful thinking and miserably misconceived machismo. Let us look at the exaggerations. The right hon. Member for Newark said yesterday:
“Millions of people in the world want to make that journey”—[Official Report, 16 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 713.]
in a small boat. Where on earth is his evidence for that? The right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) said that there are many instances of asylum seekers purporting to be homosexual to receive preferential treatment in asylum applications. Where on earth is her evidence for that? Many have claimed that the vast majority of those arriving in small boats are economic migrants, but the evidence is that when the Home Office has investigated, it has granted 65% of them refugee status.
Thirdly, the right hon. Member for Newark said yesterday:
“The law is our servant, not our master.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 717.]
But it is wrong that, even without amendment, this Bill places Ministers above the law. It means that even if a dog is factually a dog and a court, having interpreted the law, has adjudged it to be a dog, the Government can declare it none the less to be a cat. The former Attorney General said earlier, quite rightly, that we rely in the UK on international law; it is the basis of how we protect ourselves and our interests. How then can we argue that China, Russia and the Houthis should not renege on international human rights law when we ditch it when it is inconvenient for us? And how many of us condemned Russia, quite rightly, when it declared by statute law that Luhansk and Donetsk were part of Russia when they are patently part of Ukraine, as laid down in international treaty?
Fourthly and finally, the right hon. Member for Newark said yesterday that
“we are not a parish council.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 717.]
I agree, so let us stop behaving like Handforth Parish Council. Let us behave like the House of Commons: protect ancient liberties, including the right to appeal; respect the rule of law; and honour our international commitments, like honourable Members.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Committee of the whole House has gone through the Bill and not made any of the varying and contradictory amendments from the varying and contradictory factions of the Tory party. We are left with a Bill that, in reality, nobody actually wants. The hardliners on the Tory party right do not like it—something to do with foreign courts. The Tory left do not particularly like it because they realise how close it sails to breaching our international human rights obligations. The official Opposition do not like it because, I think, it is too expensive. The SNP is opposed to the Bill and the entire hostile environment policy in principle, because this is just completely the wrong way to deal with some of the poorest and most vulnerable people who come to these shores seeking refuge and safety.
We want to welcome refugees and encourage them to contribute to our economy and society, but it seems that even the Republic of Rwanda is getting cold feet—and no wonder. Notwithstanding the fact that the United Kingdom continues to grant asylum to asylum seekers from Rwanda, why should a country that aspires to be a prosperous, stable African democracy allow itself to become a political football for wannabe Leaders of the Opposition that currently inhabit the Tory Benches?
According to the Prime Minister today, the best—or, perhaps, worst—thing about Rwanda is that it is not the UK, and the very fact of its not being the UK is a deterrent to people coming here because they might be deported to it. By the same logic, if the Government threaten to deport people to Disneyland, that would also be a deterrent because Disneyland is not in the UK. Of course, Disneyland is a place where dreams are supposed to come true, but I think the dreams of the former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), and, indeed, the former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), of flights taking off to Rwanda will not come true, and neither will their dreams of becoming the next Leader of the Opposition after the election. The SNP’s dream of an independent Scotland—the dream that will never die—that has its own independent, humane asylum system that recognises human rights and wants to welcome refugees will come true, and sooner rather than later.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Thursday 18th January 2024
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 17 January 2024 - (17 Jan 2024)
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Monday 29th January 2024
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 17 January 2024 - (17 Jan 2024)
21:33 - Division on Lord German’s amendment to the Motion - Ayes: 84 / Noes: 206 - Lord German’s amendment to the Motion disagreed.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by craving the indulgence of the Lord Speaker in your Lordships’ House. I had temporarily stepped outside to collect another piece of paper. With your Lordships’ indulgence I shall now begin to open, and beg that this Bill be now read a second time.
I am speaking to the House today as a member of the Government for the Bill, not in my formal law officer capacity, and my contributions and responses will reflect this.
The United Kingdom has a proud history of providing protection to those who are most in need, through our provision of safe and legal routes. Since 2015, we have offered over half a million people safe and legal routes into the United Kingdom through our Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong routes. This includes over 28,700 refugees, including over 14,000 children, via our formal refugee resettlement schemes. These established resettlement schemes play a key role in the global response to—
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
I apologise for interrupting the noble and learned Lord when he has just got going, but I just wanted him to clarify his opening remarks. Is he saying that he is speaking to this House as a general government Minister and not in his capacity as a law officer—or did I mishear him?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
The noble Lord heard me correctly. I remind the House of the convention that relates to law officers, whereby we do not divulge whether our opinion has been sought or the content of that opinion. It was in order to clarify my position—that I was not trespassing on that convention—that I spoke. I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord.
I was discussing the refugee resettlement schemes that this country has in place. These established resettlement schemes play a key role in the global response to humanitarian crises, saving lives and offering stability to those most in need of protection. However, our willingness to help those fleeing war and persecution must be tied to our capacity to do so, and critical to this is tackling illegal migration. There is nothing generous about allowing the status quo to continue; that would serve only the deplorable people smugglers who facilitate these dangerous crossings. It would only put more lives at risk and continue to strain our communities and public services.
As the Prime Minister has made clear, it is this Government’s priority to stop the boats, and I welcome the fact that this is a shared objective across your Lordships’ House. The Government are making good progress in stopping the boats. Last year, in 2023, small boat arrivals to the United Kingdom fell by around one-third, with Albanian arrivals down by over 90%, while we saw illegal entry rise elsewhere in Europe.
We have ramped up efforts to prevent crossings and disrupt the smugglers, with particular success stemming from increased collaboration with the French authorities. Our joint work with France prevented over 26,000 individual crossings by small boat to the United Kingdom. Since July 2020, the joint intelligence cell and French law enforcement partners have dismantled 82 criminal gangs responsible for people smuggling of migrants via small boat crossings. As of September 2023, immigration enforcement visits were up 68% compared with the same period in 2022. Last year, the Home Office arrested 92 individuals identified as small boat pilots and 253 people smugglers. In addition, during financial year 2022-23, the National Crime Agency conducted what is believed to be the biggest ever international operation targeting criminal networks suspected of using small boats to smuggle thousands to the United Kingdom. The operation saw the seizure of 135 boats and 45 outboard engines.
However, the increase in crossings in recent years means that around 51,000 otherwise destitute migrants are currently being accommodated in hotels, costing the taxpayer in excess of £8 million per day. The small boats problem is part of a global migration crisis. It is a challenge that most of us accept has no single solution, but this Government remain resolute in our commitment to preventing the misuse and evasion of our systems by illegal migrants, stopping these dangerous crossings and addressing the concerns of the British people. Operationalising the Rwanda scheme is a key part of the Government’s efforts to deliver this mission—a partnership which has always been part of the wider programme of work to deal with one of the most significant challenges of our time. It is only by fully implementing the migration and economic development partnership that we will create the strong deterrent necessary to stop these dangerous crossings and break the business model of the criminal gangs. Doing nothing is not an option.
The Supreme Court’s judgment on 15 November 2023 concluded that deficiencies in the Government of Rwanda’s arrangements for determining asylum claims could lead to risks of refoulement. But their Lordships also recognised, explicitly and in terms, that those deficiencies could be addressed in future. In response, the Home Secretary signed a new internationally binding treaty between the United Kingdom and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda which responds to the concerns raised and resolves those issues.
The Government also introduced this Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which buttresses the treaty, confirming that the Government of the Republic of Rwanda will fulfil their obligations under the treaty and supporting the relocation of a person to Rwanda under the Immigration Acts. The Bill is limited solely to the issue of the safety of Rwanda and relocations to that country and makes it clear that, with the new treaty, Rwanda is a safe country.
The Bill also makes it clear that Parliament is sovereign and that its Acts are valid notwithstanding any interpretation of international law. Let me make clear that the Bill does not “legislate away” our international obligations, nor does it seek to overrule or contradict the view of the Supreme Court. Its purpose is to say that, on the basis of the treaty and the evidence before it, Parliament believes those obligations to have been met and the concerns raised by the court dealt with, not that the Government do not care whether they have been or not.
The Bill creates a conclusive presumption that the Secretary of State, immigration officers and courts and tribunals must make decisions about relocation to Rwanda and review any such decisions on the basis that Rwanda is safe for the purposes of asylum and, in particular, will not send someone on to another country—the practice of refoulement, to which I referred earlier—in breach of the refugee convention.
The Supreme Court’s conclusions were based on the evidence submitted prior to the High Court hearing in September 2022 and did not—indeed, could not—consider subsequent work and efforts by and with the Government of Rwanda to strengthen the readiness of Rwanda to receive and support individuals relocated under the partnership.
Crucially, this has included work to bolster Rwanda’s asylum system in terms of both decision-making and processing by: delivering new operational training to asylum decision-makers; establishing clear standard operating procedures which capture new processes, and guidance in the asylum system on reception and accommodation arrangements, the safeguarding of vulnerable persons and access to healthcare; strengthening the Republic of Rwanda’s asylum system and appeals body; and strengthening procedural oversight of the migration and economic development partnership. When considered together with the legally binding provisions in the treaty, alongside the evidence of changes in Rwanda since summer 2022, this means that Parliament can conclude with confidence that Rwanda is a safe country.
Clause 2 also contains a clear notwithstanding clause, requiring courts to honour the previous clauses notwithstanding all relevant domestic law, the Human Rights Act to the extent disapplied by the Bill, and any interpretation of international law reached by the court or tribunal.
The Government remain committed to ensuring that rights and liberties are protected domestically, and to fulfilling our international obligations. We will always ensure that our laws continue to be fit for purpose and work for the people of the United Kingdom.
We recognise that some of the provisions in the Bill are novel. However, the Government are satisfied that the Bill can be implemented in line with both our domestic law and international obligations.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, before the Minister sits down, will he tell us his Government’s reflections on the debate on the International Agreements Committee report in your Lordships’ House last week? Will also tell us, clearly, whether the Government intend to send anyone to Rwanda under the Bill before all those concerns are met?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I am obliged to the noble Lord for that intervention. On whether I deal with it in this part of the speech or it is left to the end, I will consult with colleagues.
As I was saying, the provisions in the Bill will ultimately allow us to deter people from taking unsafe and illegal routes into the country.
It is also clear to us all that people will seek to frustrate their removal through any means and, to prevent people from making claims to prevent their removal, the Bill disapplies elements of the Human Rights Act 1998. It disapplies Section 2 in relation to any systemic challenges to Parliament’s settled view that Rwanda is safe, Section 3 in relation to the whole Bill, and Sections 6 to 9 where the courts and others are considering whether Rwanda is safe and where the test that must be met before removal is whether it will result in serious and irreversible harm. In the context of the Bill, which deems Rwanda a safe country, this will ensure that people cannot frustrate removal by bringing systemic challenges in our domestic courts and, when considering any question relating to the safety of Republic of Rwanda, domestic courts and tribunals are not required to have regard to Strasbourg jurisprudence. It makes it clear that the courts and tribunals should defer to Parliament’s sovereign view that Rwanda is a safe country, as defined.
The Bill allows individuals to bring challenges against removal to Rwanda in exceptionally narrow circumstances, where there is compelling evidence relating specifically to their particular individual circumstances. The basis on which an individual may bring such a challenge is if they can demonstrate that there is a real and imminent risk that they would face serious or irreversible harm related to their particular individual circumstances if they were relocated. If people try to abuse this route by making claims without clear or compelling evidence, or in regard to general claims that they would be unsafe in Rwanda, their claim will be dismissed by the Home Office and they will be relocated from the UK before they can challenge that removal.
It is possible, but not necessarily likely, that those subject to removal may be subject to injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights. The Bill is clear that it is only for a Minister of the Crown to determine whether to comply with an interim measure of the Strasbourg court. It also makes it clear that domestic courts may not have regard to the existence of any interim measure when considering any domestic application flowing from a decision to relocate a person to Rwanda in accordance with the treaty.
The terms of the treaty that we have negotiated with Rwanda address the findings of the United Kingdom domestic courts and make specific provision for the treatment of relocated individuals, guaranteeing their safety and protection. The rule of law partnership that we have signed with Rwanda is a partnership to which both we and Rwanda are completely committed. The Bill, along with the treaty, puts beyond legal doubt the safety of Rwanda. We want to make sure that this legislation works. It is essential that we act now and do whatever it takes to stop people being manipulated into making dangerous crossings of the channel. Illegal migration is one of the most significant challenges of our time and the Government are acting in the national interest. I beg to move.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, this is the third time in as many years that the Government have asked this House to consider legislation to stop boat journeys and to reform the asylum system—our third year of being presented with increasingly rushed, unworkable and inhumane solutions to the problem of small boats and asylum. There is a very real problem that needs fixing, but this Bill, like its predecessors, will not do so. The Opposition do not support the Bill or the schemes that underpin it. The record of votes cast at Second Reading in this place and Third Reading in the other place will attest to this.
However, the Bill completed all its stages in the House of Commons. Our role is not to undermine the will of the elected House, but nor is it to rush through legislation without due consideration. We must treat this Bill in the usual manner. We must scrutinise the details of these proposals and advise changes where we think the Government have got it wrong. We should not deny ourselves the opportunity to do so or our neighbours the chance to consider our work. In this spirit, we will not support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord German.
The Bill, as it stands, threatens the UK’s compliance with international law. I know that this point will be spoken on at length in further stages, so I will not dwell on it for too long here, and nor will I speak for very long on what the Bill demands of our domestic courts. When introducing the Bill, the Secretary of State claimed that
“the UK is a country that demonstrates to the whole world the importance of international law”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/23; col. 748.]
Is this the message that the Bill sends to the world about the UK’s respect for international law? How will the decisions we make now be cited in future when other countries are asked to follow international law or to respect human rights? Is this the contribution we want to make?
What does the Bill say about our respect for our own courts? If the treaty fails, if refoulement happens, if there is a coup or if asylum seekers are shot at or killed, the Government say that British courts cannot consider those facts.
It is a large price to pay for what is ultimately a hugely limited scheme. The Government have stated that the Rwanda Government have made an initial provision to receive a few hundred people. To put this figure in context I say that, over the first nine months of 2023, 63,000 people claimed asylum. Therefore, this Bill and this plan, even if they somehow worked out in exactly the way the Government hope, would relocate only a small proportion of asylum cases. Can the Government confirm whether Rwanda can still receive only a “few hundred people”? Can they outline what is to happen to everyone else?
Given that the Illegal Migration Act—a majority of which has not yet been brought into force—rests on the use of third countries rather than returns to countries of origin, are we right to question what will happen to the 99% of people who will not be sent to Rwanda?
We still do not know the full cost of this scheme. The Government have been reluctant at every stage to divulge the cost of this flagship policy. In December, the Secretary of State appeared to indicate that around £400 million will have been sent to the Rwandan Government by 2027. Can the Minister confirm this figure? It is an extraordinary sum of money, but not the whole picture. According to the treaty, there are additional per-person costs of the scheme.
The economic impact assessment for the Illegal Migration Act was published only after considerable pressure from noble Lords from across this House. In this document, the Home Office was prepared to tell us that the average imagined cost of sending an asylum seeker to a third country would be £169,000. However, the details of the treaty suggest that these costs may be higher for sending someone to Rwanda. Before we begin to fully debate the details of this legislation and its role in the implementation of the Rwanda plan, will the Minister be clear about how much this plan is actually going to cost?
This Bill, whatever its impact, will not address the state that our asylum system is currently in. The UK deserves a managed asylum system that upholds strong border security and that can process claims fairly, accurately and quickly—a system that can return those with no claim to stay and help those who rightfully seek sanctuary. That is not our current asylum system. We have a backlog of 100,000 asylum claims waiting for a decision, 40,000 people who have yet to be removed from the UK, and up to 17,000 people whom the Government cannot account for.
The pace of decision-making is improving, but the backlog that has been permitted to develop will take time to fully clear and more work is needed. Nor will the Bill help us to negotiate returns agreements. Threats to our compliance with international law undermine our ability to establish returns agreements with other countries. Far from helping us, the Bill may greatly harm our ability to reform our asylum system.
The Government have repeatedly said that they are motivated by a desire to see the end of criminal smuggler gangs and to prevent boat crossings in the first place, yet this is now the third Bill that seeks to end small boat crossings without any measures to directly target the gang activity behind them. In fact, the latest police workforce statistics show a fall in the number of National Crime Agency officers, the law enforcement body responsible for fighting back against smuggling gangs. Between March and September 2023, their numbers fell by 343 personnel. Four hundred million pounds is just under half of the total budget this year for the NCA. Would the Government’s money not be better spent increasing the size of operations fighting against human traffickers, working with our European counterparts and going after the supply chains?
This Bill, and the deal behind it, will do nothing to stop boats coming to our shores. The Government’s plan hinges on the idea that the Rwanda scheme presents a deterrent effect, without presenting any evidence that this will be the case.
It is certainly difficult to imagine what deterrent effect a 1% or 2% chance of being sent to Rwanda would have. It is even more difficult to imagine why this would stop criminal traffickers; nor would the Bill present those fleeing conflict and persecution with safe alternatives to channel crossings. Last summer, the Government committed to publishing a report detailing existing and proposed additional safe and legal routes. A report has arrived, but it contains no proposals for creating safe routes for those seeking asylum. Can we assume, then, that the Government’s additional pledge to implement any proposed new routes by the end of this year is to be broken too? This was an issue raised repeatedly in both Houses during the passage of the then Illegal Migration Bill, and it is disappointing that the Government have not taken the request seriously.
If we are to truly address the challenge of migration, we must accept that we cannot do so alone. The Government are acting as though the challenges here are not related to those in other countries, particularly those of our European friends. The UK lacks the leadership needed to succeed in a world now marked by increasing conflict, the climate emergency, and the erosion of law and order, all of which fuel migration. We need an approach that restores the aid budgets, puts a renewed focus on conflict mitigation and resolution, and seeks international agreements and co-operation—an approach that is workable, strategic, humane and rooted in the conventions that we have signed.
I will conclude shortly, but I want to mention that one colleague—my noble friend Lord Dubs—is unable to join us today. He is in Berlin taking part in events to mark the anniversary of the Kindertransport, which began in late 1938. In June, it will be 85 years since he arrived in Britain, having been put on a train by his mother in Prague. Although we miss his contribution today, we can be reminded of what and whom we gain when we play our part in helping those who flee conflict and persecution, and we look forward to his return.
I hope the House will not be deterred from changing the Bill where it sees fit: it certainly needs our help. I hope too that the Government, rather than trying to communicate through press conference, engage with this House in good faith and through more conventional channels. We are faced with a deeply broken system and layers of bad legislation, which have only made things worse. I hope that the Government rethink this Bill, this plan and this approach to migration, but I fear we will be left without the change we need until we change the Government.
Lord German
Leave out from “that” to the end and insert “this House declines to give the bill a second reading because it
(1) places the United Kingdom at risk of breaching its international law commitments;
(2) undermines the rule of law by ousting the jurisdiction of the courts;
(3) will lead to substantial costs to the taxpayer;
(4) fails to provide safe and legal routes for refugees; and
(5) fails to include measures to tackle people smuggling gangs.”
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I direct the House’s attention to my interests as laid out in the register.
The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, which this Bill is seeking to affect, is completely contrary to how we should act as a country with a reputation for protecting individuals’ rights and freedoms, where the rule of law is upheld. I do not need to repeat the key points of last week’s debate on the Rwanda treaty, but the decision of this House is significant in respect of the Bill. This House resolved that it could not ratify the treaty that the Government are using to declare that Rwanda is safe. The House determined that the safeguards and protections outlined in the treaty must be fully implemented. Moreover, the House agreed that future assurances of changes in the processing of asylum seekers in Rwanda were not sufficient: the changes needed to be fully operational and effective.
Significantly, the treaty is the instrument by which the Government declare that they can state in this Bill that Rwanda is safe. Clause 1(2)(b) is clear:
“this Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.
However, this House of Parliament has not determined that this is the case. The treaty is the platform on which the Bill sits. If this platform is not in place, the Bill sinks. The legs have come off the table, or, to put it another way, the Bill’s foundations have been removed. It was the settled will of this House last week that the treaty cannot yet be ratified. How, therefore, can this House consent to a Bill that relies on that treaty having the approval of this House?
This is critical, because the decision of the Supreme Court was based on its analysis of the facts. The contrary case put forward by the Government in the Bill has not been supported by this House. The Bill before us requires Parliament—which of course includes this House—to agree that, in our judgment, as a House, Rwanda is safe. This House, in this respect, needs to be consistent with itself, and with the decision it took last week.
The Bill places the UK at risk of breaching our commitments under international law. We as a country have signed up to comply with the obligations of international treaties and conventions. Having done that, we need to demonstrate that, as a country, we can be relied upon to uphold international treaties, and that we promote a rules-based international order—because if we do not then we cannot expect others to comply, and are in no position to call out other countries when they fail to comply with international law.
The West is often accused of double standards, and under this legislation this accusation will only increase. Our global leadership and our ability to have a serious voice on the world stage will be severely damaged. We will no longer be a country whose voice is respected and listened to. We simply cannot rely on our historical traditions when our current actions are going in the opposite direction. Global responsibility-sharing is the foundation of the 1951 refugee convention; it relies on us all doing our part. The Government say that this plan is a “partnership” and “burden-sharing”, but, frankly, it is offloading—offloading the most vulnerable people on our planet and offloading our responsibilities under international agreements we are signed up to.
If the Bill is enacted, we will be legislating contrary to our international legal obligations. Our domestic law would be out of step with these obligations. Some might say that is acceptable but I do not believe that is the case; I think this House will stand up for the object and the purpose of these international instruments to which we are signed up. Our courts would have their hands tied by this legislation. There is a strong possibility, particularly without pre-existing safeguards being proved operational and effective in Rwanda, that this would lead to refoulement and breaches of Article 2 and Article 3 rights. That is why it is critical for the steps set out in the treaty to be seen to be working before the Bill can have any effect.
The Bill introduces the option for Ministers to refuse to comply with a Rule 39 injunction from the European Court of Human Rights. Ignoring an injunction would be a clear breach of international law, as the president of the court declared last week, and this view is strengthened by the Rule 39 reforms which the court itself has introduced.
Domestically, the Bill undermines the rule of law and, further, ousts the jurisdiction of our courts. The rule of law is a central tenet of our society, expressed by AV Dicey, well-known to all lawyers, who wrote,
“we speak of the ‘rule of law’ as a characteristic of our country, not only that with us no man is above the law, but that here, every man, whatever be his rank or condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals”.
My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford will elaborate on this in his contribution.
The Bill seeks to exclude a group of people from accessing the legal protections we grant to everyone else in our society. It is critical in a democratic society that the law is applied equally and that human rights apply to everyone, not just some in our society. The Government’s Bill prevents the right to access redress, which is afforded to the rest of us.
Further, the Bill is an abuse of Parliament’s role in reversing the Supreme Court’s factual assessment of risk of harm in Rwanda. If the Government believe they have new evidence to show that Rwanda is safe, surely the correct procedure to follow is to let the courts decide it and consider the evidence and come to a judgment. That is the proper way to go. If Rwanda was indeed safe, there would be no need to have the option to ignore interim injunctions from the ECHR or disapply elements of the Human Rights Act. This Bill represents an overreach of Parliament, and it is critical that we retain the balance in our democracy achieved by the separation of powers.
Despite all this, the Bill will not actually achieve its stated aim, and it certainly does not represent good value to the taxpayer—£368 million at the last count, added to which at least £169,000 for each person removed to Rwanda. These are staggering, eyewatering costs, which could pay for 100 million free school meals or nearly 6 million more GP appointments.
Far from being a deterrent, the Bill will promote smuggling—a point which my noble friend Lady Northover will develop in her remarks. It does not address real solutions to prevent people using criminal gangs to take dangerous journeys to the UK. The focus on deterrence is misplaced. Two-thirds of all those who have crossed the channel since the Illegal Migration Act was passed came from six high-grant countries. The push factor for these people is far stronger than any deterrent the UK may dream up. We need safe alternatives to dangerous journeys, and this must be part of the strategy to reduce dangerous crossings. Swift, efficient, accurate and just determination of asylum claims and humane removal of those who do not qualify will be a deterrent in itself to people without a protection claim.
We also need constructive engagement with European neighbours on co-operation on asylum. Addressing the root causes of displacement and onward movement is critical, and a strong international aid and development budget is key to that. Instead, we are presented with a political totem of the Tory right—a device to satisfy its internal party politics and a Bill from which there is no going back. If Rwanda is found to be unsafe then this Bill will act as a block to putting matters right. This legislation was not in the Government’s manifesto; the Addison/Salisbury convention does not apply. I maintain that this is one of the rare occasions—which have been used by both Conservative and Labour parties in this House, and which was foreseen by a report of the Constitution Committee—when this House should vote against a Bill at Second Reading. It is within our powers as described in the Companion.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, for giving way. Does he agree that the function of this House, the second Chamber, is as a revising Chamber? It is not a vetoing Chamber; it is a revising Chamber. Can he explain to me the Liberal Democrat’s novel constitutional thinking that, by throwing out this Bill on Second Reading, we should prevent the revising Chamber revising?
Lord German (LD)
The noble Lord is wrong. I think in 2011 he voted against the Health and Social Care Bill at Second Reading, as had happened before, in earlier versions, by Members of the Conservative Party. If our laws and the rules of this House say we can do it then we can do it, and it has been done by both sides here.
I maintain that this Chamber should listen to the real power in what people will be saying this afternoon about the nature of this Bill. It asks us to believe that black is white—that facts are not facts. It breaches conventions and treaties to which we are signed up. It damages our credibility on the world stage and the agreements that we have with other countries. It seeks to damage our relationships with things that we have already signed up to, including the European convention on trafficking, the CTA with the European Union, the United Nations, the ECHR and many more. It damages the separation of powers in this country, which is a fundamental tenet of our democracy. It offends against the rule of law. Fundamentally, it treats some of the most vulnerable people in the world—people who are facing persecution and torture and fleeing for their lives—as undesirables. For us on these Benches, that is unconscionable. I beg to move.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, the United Kingdom is a three-legged stool. Each of the legs—the judiciary, the Government and Parliament—waxes and wanes a bit in its thickness as power shifts in small ways, a subject of much work and comment by my noble and learned predecessor, Lord Judge. However, each leg is required to operate independently to ensure that balance at the core of our democracy. It would not do for one of the legs to instruct another on how to operate or how to look at a particular issue. By way of example, it would be quite wrong if the House of Lords sought to instruct the judiciary on whether to hear a particular case.
I hope that the Prime Minister, sitting atop, as he does, the government leg of the stool, will reflect on those simple thoughts as he thinks back to his words of 18 January at the Downing Street press conference, concerning our role and this Bill. The duties of this House are inextricably linked with a series of conventions by which we, an unelected Chamber, cohabit with our elected neighbour. Among these conventions, the Salisbury/Addison convention is especially pertinent today and to the Bill in general. It has a number of parts but, simplifying matters for reasons of time, one is that a government Bill with manifesto characteristics will be given a Second Reading in this House. One can see that the convention has a number of people concerned about it and, as your Lordships know, I am currently preparing a series of papers on this convention. For my part, I feel that the convention is engaged here. Accordingly, I will not be supporting the amendment to the Second Reading Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord German.
The convention also has elements concerning the speed with which this House will consider things. The House is already assisting the speed of consideration of this Bill. We have changed our business around and freed up today for Second Reading. Three days have been set aside for Committee, which, given the likely number of amendments that will be tabled, will work only if the House sits late—to at least midnight on probably two of those three days. However, I am sure that on those days, and nights, the Benches will be full and the quality of the debate will remain high, with our natural respectful tone. I expect that this House will send back various matters to the other place for its consideration—for it to think again—as is our role. I imagine that we will then enter a ping-pong phase.
Conventions will apply if agreement cannot be reached, but the elected House, at the end of the full due process, has the right to pass law, whether that be good law or bad law. In the meantime, this House will engage in our full processes, uncowed by any creaks and groans in the other legs of the stool.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, in almost every tradition of global faith and humanism around the world, the dignity of the individual is at the heart of what is believed. In the Christian tradition, we are told to welcome the stranger. Jesus said:
“I was a stranger and you invited me in”.
In numerous places in the Old Testament and the New, the commands of God are to care for the alien and stranger. It has already been said, and I agree, that the way that this Bill and its cousin, which we debated in the summer, work is by obscuring the truth that all people, asylum seekers included, are of great value. We can, as a nation, do better than this Bill.
With the Bill, the Government are continuing to seek good objectives in the wrong way, leading the nation down a damaging path. It is damaging for asylum seekers in need of protection and safe and legal routes to be heard. It is damaging for this country’s reputation, which the Government contradicted even as late as last week, when the Prime Minister himself spoke eloquently on the value and importance of international law for this country. It is damaging in respect of constitutional principles and the rule of law.
Most of all, it is damaging for our nation’s unity in a time when the greatest issues of war, peace, defence and security need us to be united. We are united on, I think, almost all Benches, in agreeing that the boats must be stopped. The Government are to be congratulated that the number has come down. We also agree that the people smugglers who trade in human misery must be brought to justice, and it is good news that so many of those groups have been broken up. We need to be united on effective controls on agreed limits to immigration. The right way forward, though, is to enable the unity on ends to be translated into a unity on means. That is not happening in the way that these Bills are successively brought to the House and before the country.
The challenge of migration is, as has been said, long-term and global. So must our response be. We need a wider strategy for refugee policy—I spoke on this at boring length in the summer and will not repeat it—that involves international co-operation and equips us for the far greater migration flows, perhaps 10 times greater, in the coming decades, as a result of conflict, climate change and poverty. Instead, the Bill offers only ad hoc, one-off approaches.
Rwanda is a country that I know well. It is a wonderful country, and my complaint is not with it, nor its people. It has overcome challenges that this House cannot begin to imagine. But, wherever it does it to, the Bill continues to outsource our legal and moral responsibilities to refugees and asylum seekers—when other, far poorer, countries are already supporting multitudes more than we are now—and to cut back on our aid. At the end of 2022, 76% of refugees globally were being hosted in low- and middle-income countries—countries far poorer than our own. The UK should lead internationally, as it has in the past, not stand apart.
Others on these Benches will say more about international and domestic law, human rights and the constitutional impact. I say simply that a pick-and-choose approach to international law undermines our global standing and offends against the principle of universality that is their increasingly threatened foundation.
Finally, my colleagues and I on these Benches take our revising role seriously. When we vote, we seek to improve something. I will—sadly—not be voting with those who want to vote the Bill down today, although I found the speech by the noble Lord, Lord German, convincing and powerful. We must wait until Third Reading and we have done our revising work. We on these Benches have been criticised many times over many decades by those thinking that defence of the Government of the day should be our highest virtue and aspiration. We were accused last week of voting against the Government’s Whip. I am sorry to say we do not take the Government’s Whip. It may be worse news for this House to recognise that on the Labour Benches it is not 95% of times that there has been a vote against the Government’s Whip—that is a false statistic—but 100%. Maybe they should be criticised for that obnoxious behaviour.
We serve on these Benches as independent Members. As recently as last Thursday, we were discussing what had happened in a particular vote and saw that we had cancelled each other out—bishops often cancel each other out in every possible way. We vote because we value deeply the traditions of this country and this House, and the truth we derive from the Bible and our service to Jesus Christ—our first priority. To misquote Luther, slightly: on that we stand. We can do no other.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, this Chamber has had to consider many complex and challenging Bills, as has already been observed. This Bill is in that category. Legal experts and experienced hands in the realm of international affairs in your Lordships’ House will have their views—we have already heard some of them—but I look at this issue through a different prism: one based on pragmatism, not party-political tribalism and certainly not ideology.
The exploitation of vulnerable, frightened people by repugnant criminal gangs and extortionists is unacceptable and must be stopped. Watching and listening to the harrowing accounts of overturned boats and drownings in the channel demands that action be taken. There is little dignity in any of that for these poor souls.
What I have gleaned is that, across the gamut of opinions about these perilous channel crossings, one inescapable conclusion is drawn: something must be done. The most reverend Primate referred to that. Paradoxically, with the exception of the Government’s proposals, I have seen no other credible, deliverable solution advanced—and I am afraid to say that, so far in this debate, that lacuna remains. So I have been prompted to speak in this debate in support of the Government not because I consider this measure excellent but because I think it is the only thing to do. I therefore do not support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord German.
Why are the criminal gangs able to extort money from these vulnerable victims? Regrettably and tragically, it is because their victims, desperate to reach the UK, feel that any risk—even the risk of drowning in the channel—is worth taking, and the gangs ruthlessly exploit that desperation. The gangs could not care less about the safety of the migrants; all they care about is money. So we have to cut off that money supply, which will happen only if migrants seeking to come here illegally realise that they will not be able to stay here. I say to the noble Lord opposite that the examples of Australia and Albania indicate that that approach works.
Recent measures to reduce the flow, which have been referred to, can only ever be a mitigation. The Government are obliged to find a solution, and I believe that this Bill and the accompanying treaty provide it. This solution is not perfect, but I do not believe that a perfect solution exists. Those who believe it does have yet to produce it. I am clear that pragmatism has to usurp perfection. We have to act.
I am in no doubt that the Bill and the treaty place onerous obligations on the Government. I do not agree that the treaty should be delayed for reports to Parliament on how the arrangements are unfolding. We shall know how the treaty and the Bill are working only once the arrangements are being delivered in practice. There is no other way to make a meaningful assessment.
There are explicit safeguards in the treaty and in the Bill, but these require the UK Government to know in detail who has been sent to Rwanda, where they are, what is happening to them, the outcome of the individual’s application, and of course continuing engagement with the Rwandan Government. Without that information, the United Kingdom Government will not be in a position to assess whether these safeguards are being met. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure me on these points?
I am clear that parliamentary sovereignty is a uniquely precious attribute. It is fundamental to a nation’s democratic freedoms that, when a grave and extraordinary situation confronts that nation, the Government must be able to act, and act untrammelled. I am sure that it was never intended that the laudable arrangements entered into long ago by different nations would, as clamant challenges emerged, render those nations powerless to deal with them. That would be perverse. Mainland European countries are now wrestling with such challenges. That is why I believe that Clause 2 and the other provisions in the Bill are justified and necessary.
I will make two final points to my noble friend the Minister. In Scotland, we have a worrying skills deficit, incapable of supplement from the indigenous population. Are we clear that, where such deficits exist, we are realistic about the need to meet them, including from immigrant applicants?
In relation to asylum seekers, in my own community many volunteers have supported asylum seekers with language education, provision of clothes and including them in social activity, such as attending my own local church and church events. There now seems to be a Home Office instruction to disperse asylum seekers, separating them from that human contact and support. Is that a sensible approach? Can my noble friend the Minister offer me any reassurance on that point?
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, for whom I have great respect, but telling asylum seekers to “suck it and see”—to find themselves in Rwanda and, if we have made a mistake, we might be able to do something about it—is frankly ridiculous.
The Minister clearly has a terrific job in reading out something he did not agree with. When he mentioned resettlement routes, which used to exist, the resettlement was from other dangerous parts of the world to the UK, not from the UK to other countries. This afternoon, in the brief time available, I will address that issue, because others have addressed and will address the questions of convention rights, morality, the reputation of this country and the clash between the different parts of our constitution. I happen to take a Jonathan Sumption view of the balance between Parliament and the courts.
One thing is absolutely clear in the Nationality and Borders Act, in the Illegal Migration Act, and now in this so-called Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill—this is nothing to do with finding solutions. It is everything to do with virtue signalling, with “virtue” in quotes, to a particular part of the electorate and finding scapegoats for government failure. The scapegoats are, of course, the Opposition, the courts themselves and this House.
This House cannot fall into elephant traps by allowing the Government to say that, if only they had been able to process this Bill, they would have shown the British people that this worked, but because this House declined to give a Second Reading, they were not able to. It is a very silly and old elephant trap, and anyone who falls into it needs to take a degree in politics.
I will say this about the issues before us today. It seems that Tory Members of the House of Commons did not understand the issue of the one-way ticket to Rwanda. You can understand the electorate not understanding something that we have never done before. In fact, we have said the opposite—time and again, the Government have said that asylum seekers should have chosen to claim asylum in the last country they were in. This is the last country they will have been in when they are sent to Rwanda and refused by the Illegal Migration Bill the right to claim—only to claim in Rwanda. In his wind-up, will the Minister say what they will be claiming—will they be claiming asylum in Rwanda? What happens if they choose not to claim asylum in Rwanda, having chosen to claim asylum in the United Kingdom under their convention rights? If they do not claim asylum, will they be at risk?
The UK judiciary are in massively short supply, by the way. I met a barrister this weekend who is defending an individual four years on from the alleged crime. Our judiciary, courts and criminal justice system are in meltdown, and we are going to send people over there to try to ensure that this is safe. When someone has their asylum claim processed and is duly accorded refugee status, why are they not allowed to come back to the United Kingdom?
If Giorgia Meloni, who is addressing African leaders today, can say that her offshoring proposals would allow return to Italy, Lord help us: the Brothers of Italy can do it, but our Tory Government in 2024 cannot. What sort of country are we? If they cannot return, then all the risks being debated on this Bill kick in, including what happens to the most vulnerable when they do not get proper treatment and support after their claim has been approved.
When their claim is approved and they are allowed to settle in Rwanda, what would stop them, in time, being able to come to the United Kingdom? Surely, they would have travel rights, or are they imprisoned in Rwanda? These are questions that I hope will be addressed at the end of this debate; but let us make no mistake, we are not dealing here with practical issues.
Yes, the Albanian agreement was a success, quite rightly; it is entirely responsible for the drop in numbers. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the threat to asylum seekers—it is not a threat to traffickers—is not the reason that we have had the drop so far. What will achieve that drop is Britain getting its act together: securing the borders, ensuring the processing and, yes, reaching further agreements with the French. What will not do it is the safety of Rwanda Bill, which is shoddy and less than this country deserves.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I greatly admire the noble Lord, Lord German, but I cannot support his amendment. I dislike the Bill as much as he does. I explained at length in last week’s debate why I dislike it. In the time available today, I just want to add two points.
First, on sequencing, I was struck as a member of the International Agreements Committee by Rwanda’s rejection rate for asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Syria. It is 100%. Rwanda has always rejected them all, out of hand. That was one of the reasons why the IAC recommended, and the House last week resolved, that the new treaty should not be ratified until the reforms prescribed in the treaty have been implemented.
The Government clearly accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling that, without those reforms, their Rwanda scheme would be unsafe. The House agreed, adding that fine words would not be enough; what mattered would be implementation. Until the new systems are up and running, and none of them yet are, Rwanda cannot be deemed safe for those the Government want to send there. Yet that is precisely what Clause 2 of the Bill does. We are asked to deem Rwanda already safe now, today; and we are asked to require everyone—individuals and courts—from the moment the Bill becomes law, to treat Rwanda as safe.
This is Lewis Carroll country. In Alice, the Queen believes six impossible things before breakfast. To make sense of the nonsense, we have to get the sequencing right. It has to be: first, implementation, when Rwanda reforms; secondly, ratification, when Parliament is satisfied that Rwanda has reformed; and third, legislation—a Bill, maybe this Bill, when all are clear that Clause 2, on the determination of safety, is based on real facts and not Trumpian “alternative facts”. If the Government insist on reversing the right sequence, they must surely consider amending Clause 9 to introduce appropriate commencement conditionality, so that our Looking Glass world aligns with reality.
My other point concerns deterrence. Clause 1 of the Bill says that its purpose is to
“prevent and deter unlawful migration”,
and the Government make much play with the deterrent effect. I cannot see it. The Home Office Permanent Secretary could not see it either, or at least he could not quantify it and so justify the Rwanda scheme as providing value for money, just as the lawyers will not let the Home Secretary claim that it is compatible with convention rights.
Those seeking asylum here are fleeing from war, torture, famine and persecution. In the year to last September, 93,000 applied, with 46,000 having arrived on small boats. Much the largest groups came from Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Sudan and Syria. Of those in these groups whose cases were considered—there is still a backlog of 165,000, 75% of whom wait for more than six months—the large majority were granted refugee status, over 99% in the case of Afghans and Syrians.
Our rejection rate verges on zero, while the Rwanda rate is 100%. It is hardly surprising that it verges on zero, as we knew all about the Taliban and the ayatollahs, the atrocities and the bombing. It is absurd to suggest that those people would not have tried to come here, risking the Channel passage, if they had heard about our Rwanda scheme. If you are an Afghan, now in Pakistan and at risk of being sent back, you have already faced far greater dangers than the Channel. Crossing the Mediterranean kills many more than the Channel. If you have made it to Calais, and 9,000 Afghans did last year, would you turn round and go home if we passed this Bill? Of course, you would not.
Let us suppose the Government had been able to send 200 people to Rwanda last year, as they hoped. That is 200 out of 46,000 people who arrived on small boats, so it is less than a 0.5% risk of Rwanda. If you had heard about it in Calais, it certainly would not have deterred you. Of course, there would be some deterrent effect if the Rwanda system stays unreformed, maintaining its 100% rejection rate, but the reforms, if they are implemented, will eliminate that. Any vestigial deterrence disappears as Rwanda reforms; the policy eats the policy. It is a Goya; Saturn is devouring his children.
I profoundly believe that the deterrence argument just does not stack up. The Rwanda scheme will not break the smugglers’ business model. What would put them out of business, as the noble Lord, Lord German, said, is new, safe and legal routes, but there are none in the Government’s Section 61 report, despite what we were led to expect. Like the Italians in Albania, we could try offshore processing but instead of offshoring, we are offloading, with a treaty that offloads responsibility in defiance of convention commitments and a Bill to create “alternative facts” in Africa. Next step, shall we legislate the sky green and the grass blue?
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, with Rwanda, rather like that venerated old Irishman, I would not have started from this point either. But we do, and so many countries are struggling: Germany, France, Greece, little Malta and even the muscular Turks, who have 3.5 million refugees massed on their southern border. The challenge is felt around the world, not just here.
I wish that we could have realised some years ago the world’s new direction of travel and accepted that the international conventions on human rights and refugees were created for a very different era before jumbo jets, before the criminal gangs and modern slavers, and before the scourge of mutant lawyers whose objective is not to uphold the law but to evade it. I wish we had reached out to others and tried to create new conventions and a new understanding of the challenges of mass migration, but we have not. While that must surely eventually happen, many countries are struggling with the short-term consequences.
This Bill is not our final destination. It is a means to a specific end and the end is clear: to break that sickening trade of the people smugglers, to protect the weak, the children and the vulnerable young women, and to smash the criminal gangs whose trade is human flesh.
I believe that we in Britain have come closer to living out Martin Luther King’s dream of racial togetherness than perhaps any other country in the world. I have spoken before in this House about that. It is work in progress, of course, but this dream, his dream, has taken root here. We are a good and a decent people, yet that is under significant threat. Look elsewhere: “Wir schaffen das”, Angela Merkel said. Oh no, she did not, and look at what is happening today in Germany as a result, and France and elsewhere: extremism and intolerance are on the rise.
No one is pretending that there are easy solutions but the problem is real, growing and a pressing and present danger to us all. Even here, we might find that we so easily fall back into those dark days when race was a dividing line that cut so deeply through our community. Yes, these are all connected issues, and no amount of hand-wringing is going to make them go away. There is no dignity of the individual to be found in a small boat in the hands of people smugglers.
To all those who have their doubts, who say that they do not like this direction and who claim the moral high ground, I simply ask: what is your alternative? How will you smash the evil trade? How long will you wait, watching the suffering and refusing to offer any hint of an alternative solution, content to sleep comfortably in your beds wrapped up in your consciences?
The Opposition, so silent about what they would do, say that we are rushing things through—words from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on the Opposition Front Bench. Delay, delay, they insist—or do nothing. It is the silence of the lambs. Ordinary, decent British people want us to do things more rapidly and believe that we have not moved fast enough.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
If I have it wrong, I very much look forward to hearing the specifics of what the Opposition would do instead. We will wait and we will wait.
Weigh a doubt against a certainty—the doubts about the destination to which we are asked to travel against the certainty that if we stand still and do nothing, the consequences for this country are likely to be catastrophic.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)
My Lords, to understand a nation and its people, you need a feel for the inner bundle of practices, characteristics and states of mind that create the image that a country carries of itself, which in turn shapes the way that others see it. For those of us fortunate enough to have been nurtured within the bounds of our cherished archipelago in the cold northern seas, the rule of law has a fair claim to be the most lustrous of our values, almost talismanic in its properties, so anything that threatens, weakens or tarnishes our crucial defining value, the inspirational principle for governing and living well together, is a first-order matter. I regret to say that the Bill before us falls into that category.
This is a moment of immense significance for Parliament, the judiciary, our people and the very quality of our democracy. In no way do I diminish the electric charge of the question that uncontrolled immigration generates, but I fear that the Government have become fixated on their talisman, the Rwanda policy, which Ministers claim will break the economic model of the cruel, evil, heartless people who put the boats and their desperate passengers to sea off the beaches of northern France. For what it is worth, my own view is that it cannot be beyond the capability of Whitehall to work up a scheme for the swift dispatch of asylum claims, with safe and humane shelter provided in the UK for claimants while they await the results of their applications.
By rushing this emergency legislation through Parliament with the intention of getting the deportation flights to Kigali under way by late spring, the Government have already secured for themselves a special place in British political history. The day may not be far off when the Rwanda Bill, having cleared all its parliamentary stages, will be forwarded from the Cabinet Office to Buckingham Palace to receive Royal Assent. In the few minutes that it takes to pass down The Mall and across the tip of St James’s Park on its return journey to Whitehall, our country will change, for the Government will have removed us from the list of rule-of-law nations. We shall be living in a different land, breathing different air in a significantly diminished kingdom. Is that what any of us really wants?
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, it is easy to list the defects in the Rwanda proposal; it is expensive and cumbersome and, as we were told at the beginning of the debate, has taken up an inordinate amount of parliamentary time without any guarantee that it will not yet be challenged in the courts. Let us admit that there is something slightly distasteful; there is an aesthetic objection to shifting the problem half way around the world. I get all that. I have heard all the arguments, including from many of the people in the Chamber now. As the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, reminded us, we have spent a great deal of time debating this—three times in as many years. I have heard those arguments very eloquently articulated, but I have not heard a plausible and credible alternative.
Politics is often a choice between imperfect outcomes. These days it is almost always such a choice. In an ideal world, there would be no need for a Rwanda scheme. We would have a Rolls-Royce Home Office bureaucracy where all claims were processed swiftly and immediately. In an ideal world, we would have no judges who push the limits in an attempt to overturn deportation orders. We would have a judiciary that rules solely on the basis of what the law says, rather than what it feels the law ought to say. We would have neighbouring countries that played by the rules of the game and took back people who had entered our territory improperly from theirs. In an ideal world, international conventions would have kept up with changing circumstances.
But the world we live in is not ideal; it is gross and sublunary, and we have to make choices that are less than perfect. We are deluding ourselves when we repeat pieties about smashing gangs, as though somehow, if you took away the people offering the supply, the demand would dry up. The demand comes not from gangs but from the fact that people understand what the figures say—that once you have entered this country, it is highly unlikely that you will ever be removed from it.
I also think there is a certain wishful thinking in what seems to be the main argument of the Opposition—I am willing to be corrected—which is that all this can be solved with better collaboration across the channel, as if that is something that nobody has thought of or tried before. I looked up the figures from when we were last subject to EU jurisdiction and covered by the returns agreement. In 2020 we attempted to return to other EU countries 8,502 people who should not have been here—people who had arrived here improperly—and succeeded in removing 105 of them. The rest of the EU tried to remove 2,331 people to the United Kingdom and we accepted 882, which is a significantly higher proportion. It seems very difficult to argue that a returns agreement with the EU would mean anything other than taking more people from the EU than we send there.
I will not argue that the Rwanda scheme alone will be enough to solve the problem; it will not even be the biggest component of it. There is more to be done on individual return agreements. I think there was agreement on all sides about the efficacy of the Albania scheme, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said. There is more to be done in speeding up claims and, yes, there is probably more to be done on collaboration. But it is part of a package to have some element of deterrence. The facts of geography mean that people have to pass through several safe countries on their way here. If they think there is a prospect that they will end up in Rwanda, even if it is a percentage chance and not a certainty, that is bound to have some impact on whether they make their final claim here or in another safe country en route.
It is in that spirit, and not in any great mood of joy or enthusiasm—rather in a spirit of grim realism—that I oppose the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, and support the legislation.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, speaks with his usual eloquence. One of the problems from our Benches is that he seems to think that it is an acceptable risk to breach the rule of law. It is that fundamental issue that my noble friend Lord German set out in his Motion, and that is why, unusually, this is something that we should vote against at Second Reading.
This weekend, the i newspaper reported:
“Four Rwandans have reportedly been granted refugee status in Britain over ‘well-founded’ fears of persecution … the cases are in addition to the six people who Home Office figures suggest had UK asylum claims approved between April 2022 and September 2023, according to the Observer”.
So how can the Prime Minister say that Kigali is “unequivocally” safe?
I want to raise a couple of issues in the short time that I have available on the details of how this will work. First, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, referred to access to healthcare, but the British Medical Association raised the important point that:
“The use of offshoring has previously led to asylum seekers being removed to countries where they are unable to access medical care they may need … Medical reviews of 36 people under threat of removal to Rwanda revealed that 26 displayed medical indicators of having been tortured”.
Is it right that people like that should be going elsewhere?
The government website on the agreement with Rwanda talks about age assessment for both accompanied and unaccompanied child asylum seekers. Article 3(4) says that the United Kingdom
“confirms that it shall not seek to relocate unaccompanied individuals who are deemed to be under the age of 18. Any unaccompanied individual who, subsequent to relocation, is deemed by a court or tribunal in the United Kingdom to either be under the age of 18 or to be treated temporarily as being under the age of 18, shall be returned to the United Kingdom”.
How is that going to work if they are assessed in Rwanda? How is the decision made on who are deemed to be under age, given the provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and the arrangements set out in the Rwanda treaty? Will an unaccompanied child or young person have been entitled to appeal prior to removal to Rwanda—or will, as the latter part of the paragraph implies, they be sent to Rwanda and assessed with all other asylum seekers, and only then returned to the UK? That is against the United Nations rights of the child declaration. Will Rwanda use age assessment, as we debated during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill and the Illegal Migration Bill?
I particularly want to ask about those who are accompanied and remain with their families—and it is good that families are kept together. But Rwanda does not have a secondary school system, so does the arrangement that is being made with Rwanda ensure that these children will have access to education, if they are of secondary age?
Open Democracy reported that:
“LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in Rwanda have previously been given immediate verbal rejections by officials responsible for registering applications, who said it ‘is not the place for them, or Rwanda does not deal with such issues’, according to evidence by the UNHCR submitted to the Home Office”.
So is it appropriate for these vulnerable people to be sent to Rwanda?
Finally, the Illegal Migration Act stipulates that, if someone arrives in the UK irregularly, there will be a duty on the Home Secretary to detain and remove them—even those arriving who are known to be victims of modern slavery. In the passage of that Bill in the Commons, Theresa May, former Prime Minister and Home Secretary, said sending people to Rwanda would
“consign more people to slavery”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/23; col. 219.]
The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, asked what opposition parties would do. We would ensure swift and effective assessment of cases. What we will not do is to send people to a country where we do not yet understand how the treaty will work, because what is said in the treaty is that there are arrangements proposed, but they have not yet been sorted. For vulnerable asylum seekers, that is not good enough. It is certainly not good enough for what any British Government and British Parliament should do.
Above all, for vulnerable people, Rwanda is not a safe place. As the treaty says specifically, there is much still to be sorted out. I believe that this House should not agree to the Bill at Second Reading.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the movement of large numbers of people seeking asylum is in danger of overwhelming the international asylum system, as the Government’s policy statement on this Bill suggests, and this requires a different response. There appear to me to be two alternatives: work collaboratively with all countries affected, with a global response to a global problem; or take this Government’s approach, working in the United Kingdom’s sole interests, or, arguably, in the interests of party politics. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said in this House on 12 July last year,
“this is a massive, international issue on a generational basis and that tackling it needs profound thinking on a long-term basis ... It is essential that the solutions, as we go forward, bring together the whole of politics, all sides of both Houses, and unite our country instead of using this as a wedge issue to divide things”.—[Official Report, 12/7/23; col. 1872.]
The most reverend Primate reiterated that this afternoon.
The Government quote figures from last year, when boat arrivals into mainland Europe apparently increased by 80% while boat arrivals into the UK fell by about one-third, according to the Minister in his opening remarks, as if this were some kind of victory. I am sure that for domestic party-political purposes it might look that way, but I doubt our European neighbours see it in the same light: “I’m all right, Jack” does not translate well in continental Europe.
The Government insist that the Rwanda scheme is only one part of their plan to “Stop the boats”, co-operation with our European neighbours arguably being a far more important part of the plan. What will our European neighbours think if, as the Prime Minster seems intent on doing, the United Kingdom ignores so-called pyjama injunctions issued by a so-called foreign court? Of course, what the Government are referring to are Rule 39 indications issued by the European Court of Human Rights, an international court of which the UK is a member. As the noble Lord, Lord German, said, last Thursday the President of the ECHR said:
“Where states have in the past failed to comply with rule 39 indications, judges have found that the states have violated their obligations under Article 34 of the convention”.
If the Government decide that, like Russia, they no longer wish to be bound by international law, because, like Russia, they do not agree with the decisions of judges of the ECHR, then they should ask Parliament to remove the United Kingdom from the European Court of Human Rights. Two days on from Holocaust Memorial Day, perhaps we should remember why the UK was instrumental in establishing such a court and consider the impact such a withdrawal would have on the willingness of our European neighbours to co-operate with us on this issue.
What other steps might ease the flow of asylum seekers? A representative of the International Organization for Migration told the Radio 4 “Today” programme this morning that what drives people to migrate is that they feel they have no options in their home country, with climate change overtaking conflict as the biggest driver. If the Government were serious about doing whatever it takes to stop the boats, why have they pushed back the deadlines for selling new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers? Why have they announced plans to issue hundreds of new oil and gas licences, and given the go-ahead for a new coal mine that will produce an estimated 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year? Why have they reduced overseas aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, while spending almost 30% of that budget in 2022 on housing asylum seekers in the UK, rather than spending it overseas? I am not saying that these are not legitimate political decisions, but they are not consistent with the claim that the Government are doing everything they can to stop the boats.
Doing everything the Government can to stop the boats should include doing whatever they can to encourage co-operation with our European neighbours and to improve conditions in asylum seekers’ home countries. They should not ignore or withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights; they should reinstate their previous commitments to combat climate change and their commitment to 0.7% on overseas aid—what one might call a strategic approach. As the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and the most reverend Primate have said, this Bill is not the answer.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the Bill exhibits several characteristics of this Government. Exhibit A is their contempt for the courts, the rule of law and the constitution. They are smarting at the judgment of the Supreme Court, which found conclusive factual evidence that Rwanda was not a safe place to send asylum seekers. The court found “serious and systematic defects” in Rwanda’s procedures for processing asylum claims. The Rwandan authorities practice refoulement and have breached an agreement with another country, Israel, on that issue.
Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, has ruled by dint of rigged elections and contempt for civil rights. He despatches his agents to murder political opponents. He targets journalists who report killings, disappearances and torture. Even as the Government have been insisting that Rwanda is safe, Home Office officials have been giving asylum to Rwandan dissidents, accepting that they have a well-founded risk of persecution. The Government’s policy is morally and practically chaotic. It is a monstrous fantasy to assert that, by hastily negotiating a treaty with the regime and by legislating to declare that it is safe, Rwanda thereby becomes safe.
The Bill is unconstitutional. It usurps the function of our domestic courts. It ousts their jurisdiction in regard to its main provisions. It requires tribunals and courts to treat Rwanda as a safe country, whatever the reality may be and notwithstanding any existing provision of statute, common law or international law. By giving Ministers the power to refuse to comply with the interim rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and preventing a UK court having regard for them, the Government show particular contempt for a court that we were once proud to have been instrumental in establishing.
The Government are also suborning the Civil Service. By obliging civil servants to act on a basis they know to be false, the Bill would legitimise and institutionalise dishonesty in Whitehall and its agencies.
Exhibit B is therefore the Government’s denial of reality. The persecuted of the world will not be deterred from seeking asylum in Britain by this policy—they will not understand the law. The traffickers will not break their own business model by informing their clients that there is no point in them travelling to Britain. The traffickers, who get paid before they launch the small boats, will have no incentive to desist. The former Immigration Minister, Mr Robert Jenrick, who is the biggest enthusiast for deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda and deeply informed, says the Bill will not work. Clause 4, which provides limited scope for individual cases to be heard in our courts, intended to provide a veneer of conformity with international law, creates a major loophole.
Exhibit C is the cruelty of the policy the Bill seeks to implement. Desperate people, fleeing from persecution and danger to their lives, instead of being greeted with compassion, respect and help, are to be deported out of hand. To despatch people who may well be suffering the physical after-effects of torture, and whose mental health is highly likely to have been damaged by their experience as asylum seekers, to a country with an underdeveloped health system is horrible.
Exhibit D is political misjudgment. This would-be populist appeal to the worst in human nature is to misread the British people. The great majority of the British people do not want to see their Government acting cruelly; they want to see fair play, competent administration and the rule of law upheld.
Exhibit E is obsession. What the Government would have us believe is a great crisis—an invasion by foreigners in small boats—is a confected crisis, blown out of all proportion. In the peak year of 2022, 46,000 people crossed the channel in small boats, whereas 1.2 million migrated legally into the UK. According to the Migration Observatory, 86% of asylum seekers arriving in small boats whose cases were determined between 2018 and 2023 were granted refugee status or permission to stay. By closing off safe and legal routes, while disingenuously pretending their purpose is to save lives, the Government have forced these people into acting illegally and then scapegoated them.
Instead of cynically buying ourselves out of our obligation, the Government should deal humanely and competently with these arrivals. Instead of the literal displacement activity that the Bill exhibits, the Prime Minister should focus on the real ills and challenges of the country.
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, there are so many impermissible aspects to this Bill that it is difficult to know where to start. There is the overarching point that the Rwanda treaty—which underpins the central theme of the Bill that Rwanda is a safe country—has not yet been ratified, and then there are all those aspects of the Bill which contravene our constitutional norms or breach our international obligations.
The Bill seeks to pre-empt any future consideration by the courts on the factual question of whether Rwanda is a safe country. This is a blatant usurpation of the judiciary’s function. Contrary to Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Bill contains no domestic remedy should the courts conclude at any time that the Bill is incompatible with Articles 2 or 3 of the ECHR. The courts could make a declaration of incompatibility under Section 4 of the Human Rights Act, but that would not be an effective remedy in the present case, as it is plain that the Government have no intention of complying with their obligations in so far as they conflict with the Bill.
Clause 4, which provides for a decision not to remove based on compelling evidence relating specifically to a person’s particular individual circumstances, is inconsistent with established jurisprudence that, for members of a particular social group within Article 1A(2) of the refugee convention who have a well-founded fear of persecution, it is sufficient merely to establish membership of such a social group. This is of particular importance to LGBT+ people. I was given assurances from the Dispatch Box during the passage of the Illegal Migration Bill by both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, that the principles found in the 2010 Supreme Court case HJ (Iran) would continue to apply. They expressly confirmed that, if the open expression of a person’s sexual orientation would prevent them living in a third country without facing persecution, that would constitute a risk of serious and irreversible harm. Rwanda is such a country, as the Government accept and as the current travel advice of the FCDO describes.
Clause 5, which gives Ministers a discretion to ignore interim measures of the ECHR, plainly breaches the convention. It would deny a refugee an effective right to apply to the European court and be in direct conflict with the obligation to comply with decisions of the court. In its latest analysis, the UNHCR has repeated that the Bill represents impermissible burden-shifting in contravention of the refugee convention.
Finally, the proposed Rwanda treaty does not remedy the human rights deficiencies in Rwanda—other than refoulement—mentioned in the Supreme Court judgment. I have already described the hazardous situation there of LGBT+ individuals seeking to live openly, consistent with their sexual orientation.
What conclusion can we draw from all this? The Bill is a travesty of our constitutional and legal norms and our historical moral standards.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, who is among those noble Lords who have shown authoritatively and powerfully the moral, constitutional, legal, financial and practical difficulties of this Bill. In the time available, I shall focus on three narrower points: how safe Rwanda is; where public opinion lies; and how alien to us are the laws this Bill proposes to breach.
First, the measures in Clause 3 of the Bill and set out in detail in the treaty, intended to meet the arguments of the Supreme Court that Rwanda is not safe, are not in place. It is therefore just not possible to accept that Parliament can decide, by passing this Bill as it stands, that Rwanda is safe, as was extensively discussed and agreed in the debate on the report of the International Agreements Committee.
At present, Rwandans flee to Britain. Will the Minister tell the House what was the well-founded fear of persecution of each refugee from Rwanda granted asylum here since 2022? How many Rwandans have our police warned to beware of assassination by Rwandan government agents? Is it the case that Rwanda will not take LGBT refugees and that blasphemy is a crime there?
Secondly, the Prime Minister has warned parliamentarians not to defy the will of the people by finding fault with the Bill. In fact, YouGov—widely respected—polled on 17 January that a majority did not support getting the policy through and thought that the proposals were not effective or not very effective. Only 19% thought they were value for money. Members in the other place cited Savanta’s findings that 72% of Britons were dissatisfied with the policy—hardly a ringing endorsement. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has noted, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office told the Select Committee that he could not supply value-for-money figures. I ask the Minister: can we see them now?
Thirdly, as regards the so-called foreign laws—that is, international law, which members of the government party have decried as alien to the processes in the Bill—the clue is in the name: international, or, literally, between nations. These treaties and conventions were hammered out with full, often leading, British participation. They are our laws too. Usually, when a new Government are elected, they undertake to honour the international agreements made by previous Governments. I ask the Minister: did his Government do so?
In conclusion, this Bill would allow contravention of laws we are party to. It abrogates the rule of law to achieve unknown and possibly dangerous results at vast expense to the taxpayer, in order to get rid of a very small proportion—probably less than 1%—of the asylum seekers who arrive in boats. As currently drafted, it looks like a desperate and absurd answer to a real and tragic problem, but I await the Minister’s answers.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, the policy of offshoring asylum seekers for assessment and resettlement abroad will indeed be costly, to judge from the down payment already made. Its likely deterrent effect is at best uncertain. However, as a lawyer, I start by acknowledging three things. The policy was given statutory force in the Illegal Migration Act, which we passed last year. It is consistent in principle with the refugee convention, which does not oblige us to settle asylum seekers here, but only to avoid sending them to places where their lives or freedoms are threatened. The principle was not called into question by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.
The only issue that remains is safety. This Bill, said the Minister in the Commons,
“puts beyond … doubt the safety of Rwanda”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/23; col. 751.]
How could it? The Supreme Court has already found that Rwanda operates a profoundly dysfunctional asylum system. We know from our own International Agreements Committee, whose conclusions we supported last Monday, that work still needs to be done to build institutions, change attitudes and monitor compliance. A solution may be within our grasp, but it is not a legal fiction, still less a legal fantasy. A way must be found of determining whether Rwanda is and will remain safe in reality.
When we are concerned about the safety of a country, we often consult the Foreign Office travel advice. Expertly informed and responsive to events, it is a valuable resource. However, in expecting Parliament to come to a judgment, in the words of the Bill,
“that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”,
the Bill makes no provision for expert scrutiny, second thoughts or revision of that judgment. Flattering as it may be for some of us to be treated as infallible, to cast Parliament as decision-maker in this changeable and fact-specific context is fraught with constitutional danger. If we are persuaded to take on that role, we will surely need, at least—as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has hinted—an independent body on the ground to tell us when the deficiencies already identified have been remedied, and a mechanism for ensuring that, when conditions change, the verdict can change.
Ouster clauses—even partial ousters such as those in Clause 4—are among the most fundamental attacks on the rule of law because they challenge, as the noble Lord, Lord German, said, Dicey’s first principle. Indeed, more impressively still in my book, they challenge the first principle of my noble friend Lord Hennessey that nobody—not even the Government—is above the law. However, the very seriousness of these issues means that we owe the Commons the courtesy of our careful consideration of them. For that reason, I will not support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, tonight.
Finally, I turn to Clause 5, with its proposed exclusion of the right to seek interim measures from the Strasbourg court. I view with dismay the proposal to defy successive rulings of the court, whose opinion on the matter is decisive under Article 32 of the ECHR, to the effect that these measures are binding on the states party to the convention. As we acknowledge in our own legal systems, and have previously acknowledged in this context too, the effective adjudication of any case can depend on a workable system of interim measures. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether interim measures will be a feature of the new Rwandan asylum law, which, as far as I am aware, no one has yet seen.
We did, it is true, in the end accept Section 55 of the Illegal Migration Act, but that was presented as a negotiating ploy—perhaps a productive one, since the court is now in the course of improving its procedures for interim measures. This clause, however, is different. No such conditions are mentioned in it. The crocodile, having devoured the bun offered by the international court, now proposes to kick it into the water with a casual swipe of its tail. Some will say that this pass is sold, but I hope that, if only out of self-respect, your Lordships will push back hard at this casual dismantling of international protections that are as necessary now as they ever were.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I declare my interests as laid out in the register. I stand in agreement with the arguments already made regarding the domestic constitutional, international standing and human rights concerns surrounding this Bill. I echo the belief that we should not outsource our moral and legal responsibilities to refugees and asylum seekers. However, today I hope to bring some insight to this debate through my own experience of Rwanda.
Rwanda is a country that I love. It is a country that I have travelled to on 20 occasions since 1997. I have observed the amazing transformation of Kigali and some aspects of the whole nation. My visits take me to rural villages, small towns and cities, not simply the glamour of a great international city. I have had the privilege of becoming friends with many local people whom I have met and stayed with there. The conversations I had there last August further led me to conclude that this policy will simply not work.
Under the new UK-Rwanda treaty, Rwanda is required not to remove any person relocated under this partnership. Instead, those sent to Rwanda will remain in the country and live there for the foreseeable future. However, is Rwanda truly capable of delivering the support and opportunities required for each of these refugees and asylum seekers to rebuild their lives? Can Rwanda offer enough employment opportunities for them to provide for themselves, when many of its young people are leaving because there are no jobs? In Rwanda you need Kinyarwanda and English. Will adequate language training be available to enable those sent there to successfully integrate? Locally, also, Kigali residents know where a few hundred might be initially housed—they offered to take me to see it—but seriously wonder how thousands would, or even could, be received with dignity.
From what I have observed during my time spent in Rwanda, there will not be enough in all of these areas. Low incomes in the country require people to rely on their own land to provide crops. However, those removed there from the UK will not have ownership of, or access to, such land. In a country without high levels of social security, who will ensure that these people do not face destitution?
Each time I have travelled to Rwanda, I have been met with great kindness and hospitality. I am aware, though, that this is not the case for every individual who steps foot on Rwandan soil. I note, for example, the arrest of pastors who criticised the Government in 2018, following the closure of churches due to legislation, some of which made sense. How can we ensure that Rwanda is safe for people of all faiths to practise their religion? Courts and decision-makers should not be compelled to treat Rwanda as safe without a commitment to ongoing scrutiny. Simply put, the Bill is not workable either in the UK or in Rwanda.
My right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol regrets that she cannot be in her place today, but I express her concerns that the Bill might also create a greater risk to victims of modern slavery. There is reason to be sceptical that survivors will be as safe in Rwanda as they would be in the UK. According to the 2023 Global Slavery Index, prevalence of modern slavery in Rwanda is more than twice as high as in the UK, and Rwanda is not a signatory to ECAT.
I further worry that this legislation will apply to people who have been receiving support through the UK’s national referral mechanism for some time. Could this support be replicated to the same quality in Rwanda, and what would be the impact of removal of any such people on their physical and mental health? My right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol will seek to pursue this issue in Committee.
We are speaking of some of the most vulnerable people, many of whom have experienced the devastation of war and conflict, leaving behind their homes and livelihoods. They are human beings, each with value and deserving of dignity. We need solutions where people are provided with adequate support and opportunities to rebuild their lives. I and many others in this House have made many proposals as to how this can be done better. I am afraid that the Bill will not achieve it.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, last year I listened to quite a lot of the debate during the passage of the Illegal Migration Act and contributed to it once or twice. I had difficulty making up my mind as to whether I was going to support that Act. Eventually, although I expressed my reservations about whether Rwanda was a suitable place, I was persuaded that it was a good thing to support and I gave it my backing. Unfortunately, in the light of subsequent events we now have this Bill. At the moment, having considered it carefully, I must say that the details of the Bill, or its main point as in Clause 2, are a step too far for me, so I do not think I could possibly support it unless it is substantially amended as it goes through this House; we should urge the Commons to revise it.
My motive was that, first, it is necessary to have a credible and effective policy on illegal migration. It is a big problem and it is growing. It is small in relation to our total migration but its symbolic effect on public opinion is very important. The public need to be reassured that we have control of immigration into this country; if they think we have lost control, that threatens a very nasty change in public attitudes caused by doubts. We should all be proud of the relatively strong, multicultural and multi-ethnic society we have created in this country, much more successfully than most other European countries. That will be threatened by reactions to illegal immigration if it obviously starts to grow again and gets out of control.
The only policy I have heard in the debates so far, either here or anywhere else, that really resembled a possible working policy was that of using a safe third-party country to consider the refugee status of applicants. I listened to the debates here, most of which were legalisms and arguments about international law—which I last studied for my postgraduate degree and which I have never practised. I thought that the safe third country proposal—if you could find a safe third country—was worth a try, and I continue to back it in principle.
That policy hit a brick wall when it got to the Supreme Court. It failed there not because of any finding of international law that a policy of using a safe third country was in any way contrary to any convention, such as the refugee convention or the European Convention on Human Rights. The Government were defeated on an issue of fact. Five Supreme Court judges considered the evidence submitted to the High Court, and all five of them were persuaded that on that evidence, which they had heard arguments testing, Rwanda was not a safe country for this purpose, particularly because of the risk of refoulement. That brought the Rwanda aspect of the policy completely to a stop.
The Government’s reaction, which we are asked to approve, is quite startling to me. They have decided to bring an Act of Parliament to overturn a finding of fact made by the Supreme Court of this country. If we pass this Bill, we are asserting as a matter of law that Rwanda is a safe country for this purpose, that it will always be a safe country for this purpose until the law is changed, and that the courts may not even consider any evidence brought before them to try to demonstrate that it is not a safe country.
That is a very dangerous constitutional provision. I hope it will be challenged properly in the courts, because we have an unwritten constitution, but it gets more and more important that we make sure that the powers in this country are controlled by some constitutional limits and are subject to the rule of law. Somebody has already said in this debate that Parliament, claiming the sovereignty of Parliament, could claim that the colour black is the same as the colour white, that all dogs are cats or, more seriously, that someone who has been acquitted of a criminal charge is guilty of that criminal charge and should be returned to the courts for sentence. Where are the limits?
As time goes by in my career, I always fear echoes of the warnings that Quintin Hailsham used to give us all about the risks of moving towards an elected dictatorship in this country. The sovereignty of Parliament has its limits, which are the limits of the rule of law, the separation of powers and what ought to be the constitutional limits on any branch of government in a liberal democratic society such as ours.
The way this should be resolved is for the Government to say that the facts have changed. We are not hearing or testing arguments. I am meant to cast a vote as to whether Rwanda is safe, and I have received an email, the text of the Government’s treaty and the Explanatory Notes. I do not have the expertise on Rwanda that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham has just demonstrated. I have never been there. I know that it has been a one-man dictatorship for more than 20 years, that we sometimes give refugee status here to people fleeing persecution in Rwanda and, indeed, that it has a rather dodgy record—not as bad as some African countries—on human rights in various respects. I am not surprised by the judgment.
The Government say that things have changed, but I have no means of testing that, and I agree with all those who have said that change is subject to the Rwandans actually complying with the treaty, to the training being effective, to change on the ground reaching the required standard and to periodic checks being made of that. That is not what Clause 2, which we are asked to approve, sets out.
I hope we consider this Bill with very particular care. I will probably be attracted to support some pretty startling amendments that go to some of the main purposes in the Bill. If the Government wish to demonstrate that the facts have changed, some means should be found of going back to the court, facing another challenge, having a proper hearing of up-to-date evidence in the light of demonstrated improvement in the situation of Rwanda and getting a fresh judgment, if necessary, from the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, search for other safe countries. Do not vote for the Liberal amendment today because, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, although I would love to see the Conservative Party got out of this particular mess, the main effect of the amendment would be to get the Government out of the hole that they have dug for themselves. They have based far too much on this Rwanda policy, putting it at the heart of their political ambitions for the election. To be able to turn around and say that they would have stopped the boats but the unelected House of Lords, the Liberal Democrats and the metropolitan elite stopped them would save this Government from what I think are their follies in crashing on with this policy in this way, and I hope we will not fall into that trap, at least, in our proceedings.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, since he sets the foundations of what I am about to say. I agreed with everything that he said except his conclusion.
This Bill does two things. It creates a legal fiction that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers and it purports to exclude the courts of this country from examining that fiction. Let us first consider the morality of creating a legal fiction that a country is a safe haven for an asylum seeker when in fact, as the Supreme Court has found and this House has agreed, it is not. Is it in accordance with the ethical standards which the British people were once proud to carry across the world to deal with refugees from oppression, or indeed, any person within this jurisdiction, on the basis of a lie—a lie which may put their very lives in danger, not least for the reasons given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham?
How is that legal fiction, this lie, to be created? By the “judgement of Parliament”. This is a new constitutional concept. It is certainly not a judgment in the legal sense, which requires an impartial tribunal, weighing the evidence and arguments on both sides of an issue and coming to a considered conclusion. How then is the “judgement of Parliament” to be ascertained? By a majority vote? In which case, the upper House of Parliament has determined that, for the moment, Rwanda is not safe. It seems that the Government construe the “judgement of Parliament” as a majority vote in the House of Commons only.
Your Lordships will quickly appreciate that the so-called “judgement of Parliament” is a very different animal from a legal judgment of the Supreme Court. “Judgement” is even spelled differently in the Bill from the conventional spelling of a court judgment. It cannot subsume or supplant the legal judgment of the Supreme Court. In our constitution, under the doctrine of the separation of powers, it cannot usurp the Supreme Court’s function.
Sir Winston Churchill championed the ultimate sovereignty of law in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, where he wrote, in volume 2, page 169:
“The underlying idea of the sovereignty of law, long in existence in feudal custom, was raised into a doctrine for the national state. When in subsequent ages the state, swollen with its own authority, has attempted to ride roughshod over the rights or liberties of the subject, it is to this doctrine that appeal has again and again been made, and never, as yet, without success”.
Finally on this point, this legal fiction could exist only in domestic law. It has no effect on international law, international courts and United Nations institutions, not least the European Court of Human Rights. “International law? Poof!” say the uber Tories. I remind them that we are currently relying on the doctrine of self-defence in international law in bombing the Houthis.
Turning to the second issue, the denial of access to our courts:
“To none will we sell, to none will we deny, to none will we delay justice and right”.
That is just Magna Carta, chapter 40.
In 1769, James Somerset, born in Benin, was brought to England by a customs officer who had purchased him in a Virginian slave market. Two years later he escaped his master, who pursued him and imprisoned him on a ship bound for Jamaica. He was to be sold there to labour in a plantation. He was not denied access to the court of King’s Bench in habeas corpus proceedings. Lord Mansfield ordered his release. Slavery was odious, not recognised in the pure air of England. That was a judicial decision; it was another 60 years before Parliament abolished slavery in the British colonies.
The “judgement of Parliament” is a novel concept, introduced into the Bill, I suggest, to avoid judicial review. After all, how would you judicially review Parliament as a body? Whose clever, tricksy idea was that? Habeas corpus disappears as the major protector of the liberties of all within the jurisdiction of this country, whether foreign-born slave like Mr Somerset, or an asylum seeker. Trashing our legal obligations in international law, the Bill is odious and an affront to the 800 years of the common law of these islands, its values and traditions. The Bill must go no further.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, the flow of migration, unless obstructed, is rather like the flow of water—it finds its own level. The Bill is, of course, intended as an obstruction to that level. To take my water analogy, the Thames Barrier is a necessary obstruction to prevent the flooding of the City of London. We read in many assessments that the number of people who will potentially come to this country is now over 100 million. The number who can come is obviously limited by the capacity of the country to absorb them, either temporarily or permanently. The natural level at which migration will find itself, if not impeded to a level that meets the capacity of a country, is when the standard of living that a country can provide has been diluted to a level so close to the country from which people want to come that the journey is no longer worth the risks, hazards and costs of undertaking it.
That being said, what is absolutely clear is that the Government have made a huge mistake in choosing Rwanda. Why Rwanda? We have heard from the right reverend Prelate what a good place it is, and I absolutely accept that. But Rwanda is a small, landlocked country in Africa which is a tenth of the size of the United Kingdom and has a population density that is double ours. The United Kingdom has 278 people per square kilometre and Rwanda has 569. Can the Minister reveal to us the process of thought by which the Government came to the conclusion that they would even suggest Rwanda as a suitable obstacle to try to get to the right number of people whom we can absorb.
Some of your Lordships may remember that, in 2015 and 2016, I put forward an alternative plan, again to address the obstacle of finding another country. I said that we needed a very big country that had a desert and was very underpopulated. I suggested that the migration problem was a global problem that must be dealt with by the United Nations. I suggested that—and bear in mind this was several years ago—perhaps Libya might meet that aim. I thought that an area of desert could be negotiated by the UN to which everyone would go and there it would be determined whether they went where they wanted to, or went back where they came from, or whatever. The population of Libya is four people per square kilometre. I do not say that Libya is suitable now, but I cannot understand why the Government are persisting with Rwanda, since it is obviously wholly impractical. I hope the Minister will address that point.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege for this daughter of migrants to share your Lordships’ House, but today in particular it is a huge responsibility.
People were once imprisoned for being in debt and transported across oceans as punishment for the smallest crimes of hunger and desperation. I believe that future generations will come to look at this Government’s flagship policy with an incredulity similar to our feelings about those past inhumanities. But that is just my opinion.
It is also just my opinion that this Bill is repugnant to each tradition represented in your Lordships’ House. It is discriminatory, undermining the dignity of our fellow human beings, which is what asylum seekers and refugees are. It is illiberal and unconservative in its attack on a hard-won international rules-based order, the creation of which a previous generation of British statesmen was so proud. It is unchristian—indeed, contrary to the better instincts of all the great world faiths in its cruelty and dehumanisation. People are not sacks of carrots or widgets to be shunted around the globe for “processing”. To offshore one’s humanitarian responsibilities is as immoral as it is to offshore personal wealth as a means of evading public duty. But, as I say, that is just my view.
However, that the Republic of Rwanda is not currently or yet a safe place for those seeking asylum is not mere opinion; it is, as we have heard, fact. Furthermore, these are the facts found by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom: not an international or “foreign” court, as the Prime Minister—another child of migrants—likes to caricature referees whenever he concedes a penalty or misses a goal, but the highest court in a land that has contributed so much to the development of the rule of law across the world. Your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee has ably reported on the factual conditions that must be met before the Rwanda treaty—the trigger for the commencement of this proposed Bill—can even begin to assuage the concerns of the Supreme Court.
Wisdom counsels changing our minds when the facts change, not doctoring the facts when our minds are made up. In attempting to change facts with a draftsman’s pen while simultaneously ousting the jurisdiction of our courts, the Bill is repugnant to the rule of law in general and the separation of powers in particular. In purporting to take ministerial powers to ignore interim rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, a permanent member of the Security Council will lose any moral authority to lecture other states on their international rule of law obligations in dangerous times.
It is hard to justify unelected legislators in a democracy. Noble Lords no doubt have their own arguments to offer their children and grandchildren, such as the expertise, experience and wisdom of a scrutinising and revising Chamber. For me, the most important argument, in an unwritten constitution that lacks entrenched protections even for the independent courts themselves, is that independent parliamentarians will stand with judges against executive abuse, because before democracy—before even our modem notion of rights and freedoms—the bedrock of any civilised society is the rule of law.
Lord McDonald of Salford (CB)
My Lords, the international system for dealing with refugees is breaking. That is hardly a surprise given that in 1951, when the refugee convention was approved, there were about 2 million refugees, whereas now the UN estimates there are 110 million forcibly displaced persons. We need a new system, but that would take years of painstaking multilateral negotiation.
His Majesty’s Government have reached instead for unilateral solutions. To be fair, so have other countries which normally welcome refugees, including Denmark and Sweden. But unilateral approaches to complex international problems generally fail. This policy has little chance of success.
When considering any new policy, civil servants always ask the key question: “Does it represent value for money for taxpayers?” On 13 April 2022, in the early days of the Rwanda scheme, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office sought a ministerial instruction on value for money grounds. Two years and at least £260 million later, without a single refugee sent to Rwanda, evidently Sir Matthew was right. The Government persist in wanting to dump our problem on a fragile central African country, which is only now beginning to put in place systems to cope with traumatised refugees.
Other noble Lords have pointed out the constitutional, legal and moral problems of the Bill. I add my voice to those questioning the Bill’s most basic contention—that Rwanda is safe. Rwanda is safe, but only for people on the right side of the regime. It is not safe for others—not at all safe for its political opponents. It is not safe for the LGBT+ community.
Rwanda is a well-run country in its neighbourhood, but it is a dictatorship; no one can safely challenge President Kagame. No one doubts the outcome of the next presidential election on 15 July; after 24 years in office, he will be elected to a fourth term, this time for five years. Rwandan institutions depend on Paul Kagame; what happens when he goes is uncertain. A country whose institutions are only 30 years old and one man deep cannot be said to be safe for vulnerable refugees simply because it signs a treaty promising to treat those asylum seekers well. But such a country can provide reassurance by proven good performance over time. That is the position taken by the International Agreements Committee of your Lordships’ House.
Listening to today’s debate, we can all foresee that many amendments will be proposed in Committee. We can be sure that the Government will reject them, so Report will be fractious. Whatever we then send to the Commons will no doubt also be rejected. As the Prime Minister points out, we are merely an appointed House; he expects us to accept the Commons draft in toto.
After the Commons rejects Lords amendments, we will face a choice—either to cave, or to insist on, say, one essential change. That single change might relate to when the Bill’s provisions can be implemented. The International Agreements Committee set out 10 changes or tests related to structures, recruitment and training needed before the UK can safely proceed. We could insist that the Commons pays attention to that single, deep concern.
In the end, what is the point of a revising Chamber if it does not do all it can to improve fundamentally flawed legislation? I hope we do just that.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I will support the Bill tonight, not because my Whips are suggesting I should do it but because I was the Home Secretary in 1990, the first to have to deal with a huge surge of illegal asylum seekers. In the previous 40 years from the refugee convention, there had been only a modest number of applications from people genuinely suffering persecution, and many were allowed in.
However, in 1990, the number surged to 45,000 in Britain and 90,000 in Germany. We soon moved on to 70,000 and then 90,000. What had happened was that the world’s human traffickers had realised that there was a wonderful loophole in the convention: it gave every citizen in any country of the world the right to go to another country if they were facing persecution—so redefine persecution. A lot of people who were not suffering persecution but suffering destitution, poverty and hunger in their own countries were sold the chance to go to another country. Who could blame them for paying out money if it would improve their lives? No one could possibly do so. The traffickers said, “When you go there, try to persuade them that persecution covers destitution—if the Government refuse to employ you or something; whatever it may be. If you don’t succeed, appeal, stay on. You will never be deported”.
That is the position that now exists. Where are the safe countries to which people can be deported? The only country we are deporting people to is, in the case of Albanian refugees, Albania. Albania will not take refugees from Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, or any of the sub-Saharan African countries.
What the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and I tried to do in 1990 was not to stop immigration—we all need immigration; every country needs it; last year, Britain approved 745,000 people to come to this country. We welcomed them in a friendly way, which was much better than what most European countries do. Immigration is a fact of life—controlled state immigration.
Regarding illegal immigration, from 1990, human traffickers could say, “Once you get in, you will be there for good”. My noble friend Lord Clarke said that we must search for safe countries, but can anybody mention a safe country that would take refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or any of the sub-Saharan African countries? Can anyone name a safe country? Is there a cry of even one country? Your Lordships ought to know; you are highly intelligent and informed people. Where are these safe countries? There are none left; those human traffickers know that, once they can get a refugee into any country, they will stay there.
This presents huge political problems. I do not know whether any of your Lordships heard the speech by the President of Germany at the weekend about the AfD. The AfD is now the official opposition in west Germany. It is a right-wing, vicious party which supports violence and huge repatriation. The President said that it is likely to win three states in west Germany in elections this year. That is a problem for Germany because they have had 400,000 applications for asylum this year. In the case of Holland, its very popular and successful Prime Minister of 10 years was thrust out because Holland was going to abandon its policy of open borders. It is now following closed borders.
Many European countries are already transgressing international law. Hungary does not care a fig for it. It has created fences all around. If anybody gets over them, it provides the refugees with coaches to take them to the borders of Slovenia and Austria. In France, Macron has just appointed a right-wing Prime Minister to try to hold off the growth of the right-wing party in France, which is now ahead in the opinion polls.
This is happening right across Europe. We have a problem. As I have said, once a refugee gets into any country now, they are likely to stay there. I believe the Prime Minister’s policy of trying to stop them entering the march to migration is the right one. It is an immensely difficult policy to achieve. It will inevitably involve applications, from the individual countries themselves, by individual migrants. Some will be approved and some will not. We have that pattern now; 745,000 came in on that basis.
America is close to doing that, but the whole policy will be turned upside down by Trump. He has decided that he can win the next election this year by focusing on migration. The governors in the southern states have now loaded busload after busload of immigrants and sent them off to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. The most liberal part of America is Brooklyn. Brooklyn has been invaded by immigrants, and even it is now saying, “Go home, go home”. I am quite sure that, if Trump does win, which I think is likely, he will not give a fig for international law or the views of other countries. He has a slight problem with inflatable boats, which are now taking refugees across from Mexico. He will deal with inflatable boats in rather differently than we are.
One has to realise that there has to be international agreement. We cannot do this policy by ourselves. I hope that our leaders will co-operate with Europe to find a way to tame mass migration. Human nature being what it is, if it becomes a conflict between humanitarian zeal and national politics, national politics will win over; and that has very ugly prospects.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I begin by urging noble Lords interested in the circumstances in Rwanda to pay close attention to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford. Members of the Rwandan Green Party have been at the forefront of opposition to President Kagame. They have paid dearly for it, including with their lives. I want to acknowledge that today.
My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will later concentrate on the contents of this Bill: its hideous human impacts and the indefensible politics behind its existence. I will focus chiefly on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord German, which he so powerfully and effectively introduced to us. I will set out why the Green Party believes we should vote down this Bill today.
In that, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who, making arguments with which we are all too familiar, suggested that “We’re the unelected House; we cannot overrule the elected House”. Can we really claim to have a functioning government majority in the House of Commons, a fast-shrinking majority, put in place with the backing—four years ago and three Prime Ministers back—of little more than a third of registered voters, the majority of voters choosing opposition parties?
It is not working, our constitution accreted over centuries of historical accident. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, set out powerfully, the Government are seeking to overrule on a matter of fact a judgment of the Supreme Court. I ask those who have been in this House for decades to mull on that reality and consider how shocking, how unbelievable, how banana republic you would a decade or two ago have considered even a suggestion that that might happen.
So what do we do? We often hear praise for the independence of your Lordships’ House and the relative weakness of the party Whip in those old-fashioned parties that do still whip. How about we apply independent judgment, independent thought, to this Bill, as your Lordships’ House did last week in scrutinising the Rwanda treaty—scrutiny that the Government have said they are going to dismiss without any consideration?
If the House cannot stop this Bill that the UNHCR tell us is in breach of the basic principles of international law, what is this House for? What defence is there for its existence and for its very curious composition? Sure, we can scrutinise, tidy up the Government’s mistakes in legislation, straighten out some of the worst elements and loosen things a little, and that is a job worth doing, but what use is that if we are within a deeply broken system, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred. I think the noble Lord meant the asylum system, but it fits perfectly too as a description of our constitutional system, which is unable, it would seem, to defend the basics of the rule of law.
There is one point on which I somewhat disagree with the noble Lord, Lord German. He said that the West is often accused of double standards. I say that the West is often guilty of double standards—something that has all too often been hidden in the past behind gunboat diplomacy and economic might. The balance of the world is changing and we are no longer in a position to suggest that other nations should follow the rules while we do not. We desperately need the norms that have been established—very often by British campaigners, civil society and lawyers over decades—to be upheld, and that means that we need to uphold them ourselves. As the noble Lord, Lord German, said, to pass this Bill would be to undermine our global standing and the principle of universality, however often in the past the West has ignored it in its own interests.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for whom I have the highest respect, said that the Commons has the right to pass bad law. The question I am going to leave noble Lords with is this. How far would your Lordships go in accepting that precept? How bad does the law have to be? I have asked this question before, when we passed the policing Bill which explicitly targeted Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. I asked it during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill, when we declared millions of Britons to be second-class citizens, capable of having their citizenship taken away by the stroke of the Home Secretary’s pen. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, asked where the limits are. That is the question I put to your Lordships’ House today.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, along with many other noble Lords, I am, frankly, distressed and shocked to see this proposed legislation in front of the British Parliament. To me, it is hardly credible that a British Government should ask Parliament to pass a Bill that insists on denying established facts, almost certainly breaks international agreements, lowers our reputation in the world sharply, takes away judicial powers and hands them to the Executive, and treats other human beings—including genuine refugees—in an outrageous, cavalier and reckless manner. And all this in some desperate and false attempt to fool the electorate that the Government are serious about immigration.
Yet the Bill is in front of us, and we have been warned—if not threatened by the Prime Minister, at perhaps the most ludicrous press conference ever heard at No. 10—to pass it speedily and without amendment, or else. This was surely the wrong approach and only encourages those of us who believe the Bill to be unconstitutional and not worthy of this country to be more determined.
I want to concentrate briefly on Clause 1(2)(b). I agree exactly with what the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, told the House a few minutes ago. That clause is a bold statement of fact, not of opinion—although there is an attempt at Clause 1(5) to give a ridiculously inadequate definition of a “safe country”. As a statement of fact, it is false. All the best regarded opinion is that Rwanda is, alas, not a safe country. That is what the Supreme Court unanimously found, and anyone who saw yesterday’s Observer newspaper, for example, will know that there is striking evidence that any opposition to the Government there is just not tolerated.
Again by way of example, how does the Minister begin to explain how four Rwandan citizens, all supporting the opposition party, have in the last four months all been given refugee status in this country—one of them, ironically, at the time the Supreme Court was considering the case? Does that not perfectly describe how absurd it is, in the face of so much evidence, to say that our courts and our judges have to assume that Rwanda is a safe country?
Like many others in this House, I was privileged to be at the memorial service last week for our late and much missed colleague Lord Judge. The reading was from Deuteronomy and concerned the obligations on those asked to do justice. One phrase struck me as being really relevant to this Bill. It is the direction given in the Bible—and this is the modern translation—that:
“You must not distort justice”.
If this Bill becomes law, with a plainly false proposition at its heart, how will it be possible not to distort justice? I agree with those who say that this Bill is not worthy of our country, neither its traditions nor its present, and certainly not its future.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I do not want to add to what has been said about the content of the Bill but want to make one or two observations on the role of your Lordships’ House in dealing with it.
As has been said, this is not a manifesto Bill, so it is not covered by the Salisbury/Addison convention and there is no constitutional bar to the House’s refusing to give it a Second Reading. On the other hand, when the elected House, having heard the arguments, has passed the Bill, even under the duress of the majority, and without amendment, I agree respectfully with the convenor that that gives it some of the aspects of a Bill covered by the Salisbury/Addison convention. I think the House would be wrong to refuse to give the Bill a Second Reading and wrong, therefore, to vote for the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord German.
The role left for this House to exercise is as a revising Chamber—to amend the Bill and send it back for further consideration. However, we need to be realistic about what, in these circumstances, is meant by a revising Chamber. I do not believe that amendments are possible which would make the Bill unobjectionable and yet meet the Government’s objectives. Amendments passed by this House are likely to be regarded by the Government as wrecking amendments, and I have no doubt that, as the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, said, the Government will use their majority to reverse them in the House of Commons.
Will we be wasting our time in debating and amending this Bill? In one sense, we will. Debates will take place and amendments will be passed, and in the end we will surrender after ping-pong and the Bill will go through. However, in another sense I believe that we will not be wasting our time. In our democracy, political parties and Members in this House have a right and a duty to assert their positions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said. If we did not do so, we would be adding to the damage that will be done to our democracy by the Bill itself.
In my view, the No. 10 spokesman was profoundly wrong in saying that this unelected House has no right to pass amendments removing what we regard as objectionable and dangerous features of the Bill. This House has a right and a duty to do so, even though we must recognise that such amendments will in practice be no more than a kamikaze operation.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I share many concerns about the Bill that have been expressed by many other noble Lords, but I will focus on human rights. What underpins my contribution to the House is a fundamental belief that all people are made in the image of God. It is a belief that is the foundation not just of the Christian faith but of many other faiths and religions. People have an inherent immeasurable value and deserve dignity and respect. In the Bill, unfortunately, the value of people is consistently maligned. For example, the Bill decides who is and is not entitled to human rights. Has history not taught us the risk of that?
It is an odd situation that we find ourselves in when it feels necessary to state in your Lordships’ House that the Government should obey the law, yet the Minister has stated on the face of the Bill that he is unable to say that the measures within it are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Clause 3 disapplies sections of our Human Rights Act and Clause 1(6) lists great swathes of international law that will be contravened to pass the Bill. As many noble Lords have said, it is illogical that the Government are disregarding international law while relying on Rwanda’s compliance with it to assure us it is safe. That is not a mark of global leadership.
Clause 5(2) states that compliance with interim measures made by the European Court of Human Rights will be decided by a Minister of the Crown. Disregarding these orders will cause legal uncertainty, with a profound impact on how we expect others to abide by international law. We have a respected place on the world stage, with very few injunctions in comparison to other European countries, because human rights legislation is so well embedded in our law. As a number of noble Lords have said, the Bill marks a change. We cannot afford to forfeit our place in the international community in the face of the significant global challenges that must urgently be navigated. Global conflict remains a serious issue, and we must not lose our focus or our leadership on it.
Passing the Bill will mean that other countries will be tentative in reaching forward to us on other international agreements. In addition, it is troubling that the vulnerable are not being protected in the Bill, with no exceptions made for victims of trafficking or children who either are in families or are suspected to be adults. The right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Chelmsford and the Bishop of Bristol are not able to be in their places today but hope to explore amendments to further protect these vulnerable groups, to which I hope the Government will give due consideration.
The Bill disapplies parts of the Human Rights Act with respect to asylum seekers, and the Government are doing the same in respect of certain prisoners in other legislation before this House. This is a slippery slope. Making a minority group unprotected from the actions of the Government undermines everyone’s collective access to justice.
If our courts find that this legislation is indeed incompatible with rights under the ECHR and issue a declaration pursuant to Section 4 of the Human Rights Act, will the Minister confirm that the Government will make a Statement to Parliament and bring forward regulations to remedy the incompatibility?
I underline that my overriding concern is that in this legislation we are deciding to whom human rights apply and to whom they do not. Again I say: has history not taught us the risk of that? I hope the Government will consider that question before proceeding any further. As the House has heard, we on these Benches will continue to engage with the Bill to develop better legislation that will recognise the value of each human being.
The House may not be surprised to hear that I also support the most reverend Primate in his call for a long-term strategy for immigration that is cross-government and worked out with our international partners.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, in the absence of an immediate returns agreement with France, for which there seems little appetite, it is only by delivering the Rwanda scheme that the Government can achieve the deterrent effect necessary to prevent migrants from attempting to enter the United Kingdom by dangerous and illegal means.
In the brief time available to me, I shall focus on two matters that have been the subject of much misperception in your Lordships’ House. The first is the effect of the Section 19(1)(b) statement on the face of the Bill. As a person who has previously signed such a statement, I have carefully considered its significance. Contrary to a common misunderstanding among opponents of the Bill in your Lordships’ House and the other place, and as we have just heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, the statement does not mean that the Minister is certifying that the measures in the Bill are incompatible with the human rights convention. Following a practice introduced under the last Labour Administration, a Minister will not make a Section 19(1)(a) statement of compatibility unless they are satisfied that, if there was a legal challenge to the new law or a decision taken under it, there is a greater than 50% probability that the court will find the measure to be compliant with the convention commitments of the United Kingdom. In all other circumstances, the Minister will issue a Section 19(l)(b) statement. That is what has happened here.
Therefore, the placing of a declaration of this kind on the front of the Bill cannot, and must not, be characterised as a statement that the Government believe that the measures in the Bill are incompatible with the UK’s convention commitments. The point is that in making such a declaration the Government do not concede any breach of the convention, and indeed there is every prospect that the Government will prevail in any litigation, as occurred in the 2013 Animal Defenders case, which upheld the compatibility of a provision in the Communications Act 2003 that had, when before Parliament, been accompanied by a Section 19(1)(b) statement.
In any case, it is for Parliament to decide whether it thinks the Bill is compatible with convention rights, and it should not be misled by the way in which Section 19(1)(b) statements are phrased, because that would be to misunderstand the substance. Given the treaty and the commitments underpinning the Bill, it is evident that the Bill does not expose anyone to a real risk of removal to conditions under which they would be tortured or exposed to any other convention violation.
The second misperception was exemplified in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord German, today, and the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, today and in last week’s debate on the ratification of the Rwanda treaty. It is that the outsourcing of asylum claims made in the UK to a third country is unlawful or, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, “dishonours our convention commitments”. This is not so. In the recent Rwanda litigation, this was rejected by the Divisional Court, which held that third-country processing was not unlawful or contrary to the refugee convention. The claimants unsuccessfully sought to appeal that finding. The Court of Appeal, unanimously on this point, agreed with the Divisional Court. The Supreme Court did not even grant permission for any further appeal on that and therefore the law is clear. Third-country processing of asylum claims is lawful.
Having clarified these two matters, I make one final point. This Bill will save lives and protect our borders. It warrants the support of this House.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, although it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Murray, I would urge him to stop his tango on the head of a pin.
It is a remarkable but welcome thing that an issue, the outcome of which will apparently affect fewer than 200 people, should be debated twice within one week in your Lordships’ House. I agree with the comments made by noble friends and other noble Lords on the rule of law, including the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, my noble friend Lord Anderson and my noble and learned friend Lord Etherton.
This Bill and the treaty said to underpin it have attracted both headline and detailed criticism. The headline part has included the unusual press conference at which the Prime Minister, who in the past has been generally accepting of the role of your Lordships’ House, took time out of his busy schedule to wag his finger at us. I suggest that those who look after the Prime Minister, when he is on his much-publicised exercise bike tomorrow morning, should place before him the magnificent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. It was three and a half minutes of sheer eloquent wisdom from this House. The Prime Minister was just wrong, and this House will not be influenced by finger-wagging.
That episode reminded me of a brief remark by one of the heroes of my generation, Desmond Tutu. He said of such debates:
“Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument”.
I have been waiting for the Government to improve their arguments against those presented by most Peers who spoke in last week’s debate. So far, at least in this debate, the improvement has not occurred.
I agree with those noble Lords who have said that the fundamental question is if Rwanda is a safe country. At best, the Government’s position on Rwanda’s safety is ambiguous. For example, as one noble friend said privately to me earlier, Clauses 5(2) and (4) of this Bill are plainly in breach of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2005, but the Government seem to have overlooked that completely. There is plenty of evidence that Rwanda is not a safe country. The Government have said, in or out of court in a number of cases, that individuals applying for asylum in this country could stay here because Rwanda is not a safe country.
Last Saturday, an article in the Guardian referred to an investigation, which has not been refuted by the Government, by the Observer and the colourfully named campaign group Led by Donkeys. They found that, in the last four months, six Rwandans have been given asylum on the grounds that they would not be safe if they were sent back to Rwanda. Those decisions were on various grounds. In one case, the person was connected to an opposition party. In another case, the Home Office simply said:
“We accept that you have a well-founded fear of persecution and therefore cannot return to your country Rwanda”.
How can a country, in which opposition to the President makes it unsafe for a refugee to return—simply by expressing his or her political views—be safe? We have the spectacle in the teeth of the evidence of His Majesty’s Government telling us that Rwanda is safe. They are asking us to legislate a lie. I hope that we will not legislate that lie.
An admired teacher of mine had the habit of quoting Plato at bemused 15 year-olds. I stuck it out with him to the end of my schooling, and I remember him later reminding us of Plato’s advice. “To present arguments at a time when one is in doubt and seeking … is a thing both frightening and slippery”. This debate is about a proposal both frightening and slippery and, indeed, duplicitous.
If this Bill is to be passed, it must only be brought into force once the misgivings contained within paragraph 45 of the International Agreements Committee’s report are resolved and certified by this Parliament as properly resolved. Only then will I support this Bill.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, whom I worked with on the Illegal Migration Act. It seems as though we will be working together on this. I do not, as some have suggested on these Benches, come to this issue with party-political motives.
I approach this from a personal perspective. How would I want to be treated? How would I want my family to be treated? Therefore, I must stand in the shoes of others and imagine, as Shakespeare asked us to imagine in a brilliant speech in “Sir Thomas More”. The strangers have made their way from Calais to Dover. The threat of them is whipped up and the strangers are politicised. To paraphrase, to a voice among the crowd that says, “Remove them!”, Sir Thomas More replies: “You bid that they be removed, the stranger with their children upon their back, their families at their side, their belongings at their feet. You bid that they be removed. Imagine you are the stranger, with your children upon your back, your family at your side, your belongings at your feet. Bid that they be removed and show your mountanish inhumanity”. Four hundred years later, I beg the same question.
This Bill is outsourcing legal and moral obligations, and I consider it not only unacceptable but repugnant. It will have long-term profound consequences for the United Kingdom and in Rwanda, as outlined by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. The Bill is unacceptable, as we have heard, for many reasons—on legal, constitutional and moral grounds. In essence, I believe it is entirely unacceptable in any country that considers itself civilised or allied to the rule of law.
The Government have continually stressed that relocation to Rwanda, coupled with detention and the removal of rights within the Illegal Migration Act, are the deterrents that will end small boats crossing the channel and so-called illegal migration. It is one thing for the Government to try to fool their critics, but when they fool themselves, we are all the losers and democracy is the greater loser. Not in my name and not with my silence will this Bill pass.
It puts at risk the most vulnerable minorities and individuals. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, that LGBT+ people will not be safe in Rwanda. Like him, I was given the same assurances during the passage of the Illegal Migration Act. I seek the assurances of HJ (Iran) again.
In conclusion, this is the heart of my concern: this drawback mentality offered by the Government will achieve nothing except diversion, division and greater degrees of inhumane treatment against those who are among the most vulnerable and in need. I hang my head in shame when I see what my country has fallen to, when all we can offer is a legislative lie.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I am honoured, as ever, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, who has made a very passionate case. Many speakers today have focused on the legality and morality, or otherwise, of the Rwanda scheme, and the astonishing claim that this Parliament has the overriding ability to decide whether Rwanda is safe. I will focus on another astonishing aspect: the simple unsuitability of this scheme.
Last July, I was in Rwanda for a major conference on women’s rights. While I was there, I visited, with the UNFPA, the Mahama refugee camp in eastern Rwanda. Overseen by the UNHCR, this houses 60,000 refugees, largely from Burundi, but also from other countries in the region which have been suffering conflict. There are strong cultural similarities between the refugees and their hosts. Full provision is made for housing, schools, and training. There are villages led by local leaders, markets for stallholders, and a bus service to enable travel to work. We visited impressive health clinics, which covered a range of care, including minor operations, vaccinations, malnutrition care and mental health services. What is more, the local population can access these facilities, so they can see a benefit from having refugees among them.
Let us contrast this with what the UK plans to do for those seeking assistance at our borders. None of these elements is in place. It is no surprise that the Government do not want parliamentarians to visit the site, as we found. It is beyond amateur. It is in Kigali, in an unused housing development, surrounded by other housing developments for the local population. Its capacity is extremely limited, for merely a few hundred, and these will supposedly be men from diverse countries, backgrounds, languages, religions and experience—people who will have been uprooted from their countries, communities and families. How is that supposed to work? Of course, the site is not big enough to provide specialised healthcare, training, or language or cultural support—any of the facilities that such asylum seekers potentially need. It is right in the middle of the local population, with the strong possibility of mutual fear—a potential recipe for conflict and exploitation.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee refrained from speaking today because of the number of speakers, but she has mentioned to me points made by various organisations. Removing asylum seekers to a country where they do not want to be, with little prospect of work, not understanding the language, with inadequate support, increases the likelihood that they will seek to leave, or be open to offers to help them do so. Israel had an agreement with Rwanda, but no one knows what happened to that cohort. They are not there now; it is very likely that they were smuggled onwards or trafficked and exploited. The Minister says that he seeks to reduce trafficking, yet this policy opens up a new market for traffickers. The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has advised that the Bill will put the UK in breach of the convention on trafficking in human beings.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury have rightly said, Rwanda has made great strides since the terrible years of its genocide. Nevertheless, the UK Supreme Court has deemed it still an unsafe country—and we have heard a number of reasons why that is the case, not least from the noble Lord, Lord McDonald. We have recently granted asylum to Rwandan refugees, as my noble friend Lady Brinton pointed out. Of course, it appears to be part of the Government’s narrative for the right-wing press that Rwanda is a desperate place in which to end up—acting as an apparent disincentive to those who may seek asylum in the UK. It is ironic that they then deem the country safe.
Conflict and climate change will doubtless increase migration. Working on global strategies to tackle this, as the most reverend Primate Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out, is clearly vital. Right now in central America, they are facing a massive traffic in migration. Costa Rica, with a population of 5 million, is housing a further 1 million from Nicaragua. One of the first things must be to invest in conflict prevention and development. The assistance that has been channelled to Rwanda since its terrible conflict has clearly improved the lives of many of its citizens, so there is less migration from Rwanda itself, despite the clear limits to freedom there. Yet we cut our aid budget—how short-sighted.
Others have argued with overwhelming force that the Bill offends against both morality and legality. From what I have seen of the UK’s plan on the ground in Rwanda, compared with more effective ways of supporting refugees in that very country, it seems to me that we are pouring huge amounts of money into what is almost an amateur scheme. That hardly reflects well on the United Kingdom.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, many moons ago I was a staff writer on the Financial Times and occasionally involved in writing leaders. Those of us who wrote leaders for national newspapers were well aware that they were not exactly the first point of interest. I do not know how noble Lords read their newspapers, but I start with the back pages, which were particularly pleasant today, with the reports of the win in India in the first test match. Then I went to the news on the front pages, then to the features and then finally the leaders. However, as a leader writer, I was aware that the opinion expressed in the leaders is the collective view of at least the senior people on the newspaper in question. Therefore, I was very interested to read the views of the Times on 15 January, where it said, under the headline, “Return of Rwanda”:
“The legislation would prevent a general claim that Rwanda is an unsafe destination but not rule out a specific case of an individual being at risk for some reason. That is in principle a sensible balance, respecting the will of parliament and the rights of the individual”.
That is precisely the view taken by our colleagues in the other place, without any further amendment.
Of course, we are here because the Supreme Court concluded that the Government’s policy was unlawful. I therefore took the trouble to read the Supreme Court evidence—57 pages of it. I understand from its procedures that it has to take a view on the hard evidence; that point has been made. The hard evidence that it took was from the UNHCR before September 2022.
However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, pointed out in his opening remarks, the problem with this approach is that it does not look at the evidence today or as it may be in the future. It did not go to Rwanda and took no evidence of that kind. The fact is, as has been pointed out many times, that Rwanda is a rapidly developing situation. It is helping the UK with its illegal immigration and, in return, getting a significant chunk of development aid. It hopes this will be a model for other European countries—and other European countries are following this closely—which will work for the future. Therefore, Rwanda has every incentive to make this policy work.
This raises the question, incidentally, of whether this sort of decision—as to whether Rwanda can be trusted—is one that should be made by Governments or by courts. The Supreme Court raised this question, but it did not, in the end, give a view.
We are where we are. I believe the Government have made a big effort to meet the Supreme Court’s points. In particular, they have put a lot of work into capacity building, which is what the Australians did when they faced a similar problem over outsourcing to Nauru, near the Solomon Islands. The Australians provided training, support and expertise, and had a permanent presence on the ground, and the UNHCR was kept in touch. This trilateral approach has worked and now has all-party support. That is the opportunity we may face here. I think it should be put to the test.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I think we can all agree that the Bill is contentious. I think we can also agree about what it is actually about: controlling permitted migration and ending illegal entry. That is a good thing, but I suspect that is where the agreement ends.
This evening, we are discussing something that is part of a much greater problem facing the western world. History, it seems to me, tells us that there is only one way to respond to existential threats to western Europe and tsunamis of migration, and that is by coming together and standing shoulder to shoulder. For example, when Jan Sobieski led a European army to defeat the Turks at the Battle of Vienna, it was a composite army. When Wellington was victorious at Waterloo, the majority of the troops he was commanding were not British, and the day was saved by the Prussians, under Blücher. In the Second World War, when we played a crucial part, eventual victory is in fact owed to Russia and the United States. We are approaching this as though we can try to do it by ourselves, and I believe that that must be doomed to fail. We are all in it together.
We were told earlier in the debate that collective action has failed in the past, but we have to remember what financial advisers tell us: that the past is no guide to the future. We have simply got to make it work in some way or other, even if we end up with a collection of disjointed unilateral actions that have only some degree of coherence across them.
As long as there are boats and migrants on the other side of the English Channel, and as long as the view from there is that there is a better life in this country, there will be those trying to break into this country, thinking it is a Shangri-La—it is certainly an improvement on life in the camps at Calais. That is the reality. Sometimes, we seem to be using the same political advisers as King Canute did on that beach at Hunstanton, over 1,000 years ago. On that occasion, the king appreciated that they were talking nonsense.
I am not a good lawyer, and in the presence of so many distinguished lawyers I shall keep my opinions private. I simply say that the Bill as it stands is an attack on the rule of law. If Parliament, led by the Executive, excludes the proper and constitutional role of the judiciary and the system of checks and balances in the system, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We are being asked to go into a world of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, as was explained earlier, where Humpty Dumpty expounds the doctrine that a word means
“just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.
Much of this is fuelled by what is a fashionable, at least in some circles, antipathy to the European Convention on Human Rights. It may commend the convention to some at least in this Chamber that, let us not forget, it was devised by British Conservative lawyers. We should also recall that the reason it came into being—I think this was mentioned earlier in the debate—was to deal with exactly the Humpty Dumpty school of legal interpretation which, once adopted, spread widely in the 20th century to become the basis of horrifying totalitarianism and all that that led to. I believe we should not and must not allow this approach to the law to enter our system.
Let us have some leadership from our leaders in the great British tradition of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and not put our long-established traditions up for sale for the supposed benefit of a mess of short-term political pottage.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, this time last week, I was in Strasbourg for meetings of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—a body dedicated to the rule of law, democracy and human rights. On its first day, as is usual, there were two meetings of its various committees. I sit on its migration committee. We were pretty much preoccupied with the plight of abducted Ukrainian children being forcibly taken into Russia to be Russified and eventually turned back to fight against their own people—a horrendous situation indeed.
However, in the informal times between our business items, I was besieged by people from Parliaments across Europe who wanted to ask me about what was happening here last Monday. I explained the nature of that debate, and wished I had been here myself. There was a short gap in the proceedings that allowed me, with such technical ability as I have, to get the debate on my telephone screen. I was able to follow a small part of the debate that took place here last week, pretty much on the subject we are debating right now. I got only a snippet of the debate, but enough to make me think a great deal.
I saw an exchange, some might call it a spat, between the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, who is in his place—an honourable man of Tredegar, which is what confers the honourableness on him—and my noble friend, if I may be allowed to award him that accolade for the purpose of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. The discussion was about the rule of law and the role of the UNHCR in the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. Sitting next to me was Andreas Wissner, the UNHCR official in Strasbourg.
The point at issue was the decision of the Supreme Court that the UNHCR is entrusted
“with the supervision of the interpretation and application of the Refugee Convention”.
I am getting my bearings from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, because it is he who was quoting. Later, it was said that the UNHCR’s guidance
“should be accorded considerable weight”.
The two words that the noble Lord singled out in his speech were “supervision”—that is, of the interpretation allowed to each member state to apply the laws and conventions according to the light of their own experience—and “guidance”. Both of these, he argued, offered a clear indication that the UNHCR was not entrusted with final or binding decisions but merely with the giving of critical advice and counsel.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, was clear that the noble Lords, Lord Wolfson and Lord Murray—who is not in his place; I could have been complimentary about him but I am glad not to be given the opportunity—were both wrong in their suggestion that the UNHCR is not charged with the interpretation of the refugee convention. It is so charged, said the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and the Supreme Court agreed with him. When lawyers, even distinguished lawyers, disagree—I am a minnow here, swimming for his life in a deep bowl—it is sometimes a good thing to turn to the way the point at issue has been applied in previous cases.
Indeed, Section 2 of the Human Rights Act requires courts to take into account the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in making their decisions. This is good advice, not only for courts but for distinguished lawyers speaking in your Lordships’ House. The UNHCR has given detailed attention to all three major pieces of legislation that have been before this House in the last short period. Its reports make most interesting reading and have been very carefully drawn up. We have to bear in mind the role of the UNHCR and, in looking to resolve the dispute that was on air last week, case law—the way the laws have been applied—needs to play its proper part. The advice was clear: the way we are going will involve a serious breach of international law and seriously damage the UK’s standing in the world.
As I did some thinking on these matters in Strasbourg last week, the battery on my phone ran out. The screen darkened, and so did my spirits lower, as I thought, “Next week I’ll be here trying to make some kind of contribution to what I believe is a fundamental aspect of what it means to belong to this country”. Nobody could have said it better than the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in his welcome return to this House earlier—in three minutes, and, gosh, look at me. Well, to return to my meeting in Strasbourg—guess what? We were discussing migration and the rule of law.
Baroness Fairhead (CB)
My Lords, we do need to stop the abhorrent practices of the criminal gangs and save people dying at sea, and we do need to control our borders. I therefore commend the actions that the Government have implemented, as described by the Minister in his opening remarks. However, as other noble Lords have said, the Bill is not part of the answer.
I have had the honour of representing this country in international trade negotiations. In its current form, the Bill has the potential to damage the reputation of the UK as a defender of democratic principles, and the rule of law and all its facets, including the principle of the separation of powers. In so doing, if passed, it will damage the future ability of the UK to lead on breaches of international law, and more generally on the world stage.
The UK has a long and proud track record of respecting and promoting the rule of law. Indeed, the most recent European Court of Human Rights report demonstrates our impressive compliance: the court takes into account the fact that we have integrated the human rights convention into our public bodies and that it is overseen by our judiciary. But this hard-earned reputation is now at risk.
Although sending immigrants to safe countries is well established under international law, the Bill is being proposed for a very different situation, positioning itself and the treaty debated last week as an answer to a unanimous ruling by our Supreme Court that Rwanda was not safe as a matter of fact.
I will not repeat its detailed clauses, but many legal commentators, including those in this House, have questioned the Bill’s legality, arguing that, even if its passing enables Rwanda to be deemed a safe country under UK domestic law, it is not relevant in determining whether it breaches our obligations under international law.
The Bar Council of England and Wales commented:
“There is an obvious difference between a country that is in fact safe, and one that is not safe but is deemed to be safe. The United Kingdom’s obligation under international law is to ensure that asylum seekers are only ever sent to countries that are actually safe”.
The Bill does not respect the rule of law, including the separation of powers, as clearly articulated by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and it breaches our obligations under international law. The great irony, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London stated, is that the Bill is proposing that the UK breaches its international obligations but insists that Rwanda meet its own.
Ultimately, government is about two things: the making of laws and the allocation of money. If it is not bound by the laws it dislikes, the authority of government is eroded. That is why this House has an important role in helping the Government find solutions—but solutions that do not breach the fundamental principle on which their own authority is based. I will therefore not be voting in favour of the amendment, in the hope that our role as a revising Chamber can take place.
Like so very many in the House, I had the privilege of knowing and learning from the late and much lamented noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, called out already by the noble Lord, Lord Bach. Lord Judge highlighted the critical importance of the rule of law during his lifetime. I will end by using words from his published essays, as I urge the Government to consider amending the Bill to comply with them. He said:
“The rule of law is indeed our safest shield … it has a resonance for each and every one of us, from whichever country we come. Never take the rule of law for granted. Never, ever. The best of constitutions can be subverted”.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, in the short time available, I shall concentrate on my conclusions. The first point that I wish to make relates to the policy that the Bill is intended to facilitate: namely, deterring small boats. I do not believe that the Bill, if enacted, will serve as an effective deterrent. I believe that individuals who choose to make the perilous journey across the channel in overcrowded and vulnerable boats are unlikely to be deterred by the slight prospect of being relocated to Rwanda. Those of your Lordships who have principled reservations about the Bill should not support a Bill that cannot achieve its desired objective.
My second point, and my principal objection to the Bill, is the statutory reversal of the Supreme Court’s judgment that Rwanda is not a safe country. Whether Rwanda is or is not a safe country is a matter of fact, to be determined after careful assessment of the relevant evidence. This is what the Supreme Court did. In my view, it is contrary to long-standing principles to reverse, by a statutory pronouncement, a judicial finding of fact.
I turn to my broader objection. This country prides itself on being a country in which the rule of law prevails. We are a country which adheres to its international obligations. The Bill trashes our reputation for domestic and international probity. I cite two provisions. Clause 1(4)(b) states:
“It is recognised that … the validity of an Act”—
any Act, I note—
“is unaffected by international law”.
International law is very broadly defined: see Clause 1(6). That provision is right in strict law, but its sole purpose in the Bill is to provide comfort for the Braverman wing of the Conservative Party and it is a proposition that we should voice with very great caution.
Clause 5 enables a Minister, at his or her discretion, to determine whether or not to be compliant with judicial rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. Members of the international community reading the Bill would be entitled to conclude that the given word of the United Kingdom cannot be relied on.
On Clause 3—the disapplication of the Human Rights Act in respect of individuals who would otherwise benefit from its provisions—I call to mind the words of Pastor Niemöller, spoken in 1947:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me”.
Of course, the circumstances are very different from those of the 1930s, but we should beware the precedent that we would create. It is best not to step on to a slippery slope; it can end in some very murky places.
I end with what I hope is a constructive suggestion: the Bill should not be implemented without a positive resolution of both Houses of Parliament. Such a resolution should not be considered until Parliament has received a report on the safety of Rwanda from, for example, a Joint Committee of both Houses appointed for the purpose; there may be other ways of meeting the objective. In the event of no report or an unfavourable report, the Bill would remain in the long grass, where it should be. Such an approach could be reinforced by sunset clauses and constant, continuing assessment. That way, Parliament would at least have an assessment of fact on which it could properly rely. Incidentally, it also accords with the judgment of this House in last week’s vote.
The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
My Lords, as the 41st speaker, I will inevitably repeat or underline others’ points, but I will briefly make a couple of observations. I am struck that some noble Lords supporting the Bill nevertheless do so with a hint of equivocation, saying that it is not perfect or the final destination. In addition, I have not heard evidence that the proposal will work. The Minister commented in opening that progress had been made and the numbers of those coming across in boats had decreased. Why do we not put more effort into the courses that have enabled that reduction?
I do not think there is a single noble Lord who is not determined that the dangerous boat crossings of those seeking asylum in this country be stopped. Our valuing of and care for human life and the plight of those fleeing danger place a moral duty on us to work out a way to stop these perilous crossings and find a just and safe way for people to find refuge. We know from the Government’s figures that the great majority of those who have sought asylum in this country through this life-endangering method have had their applications upheld. We are not talking about people risking their lives without legitimate cause. We need to find, as a number of noble Lords have said, safe ways to achieve this goal with our European neighbours. This is a good moral purpose to which I believe we would all assent.
However, from every angle that I look at the Bill, it seems to have lost that moral compass. This continues to be a deeply immoral solution, treating victims as perpetrators and not providing a real, just and sustainable plan for the rapidly changing global refugee situation. I will touch on two related aspects of this.
First, His Majesty’s Government have signed a treaty with Rwanda which they believe addresses the concerns that led the Supreme Court to conclude that it was unsafe. The Government responded by arguing that the facts had changed and those changes are now expressed in the treaty with Rwanda. However, the International Agreements Committee asserts:
“Evidence that these arrangements have bedded down in practice is also needed”—
as a number of noble Lords have said—
“the Treaty is unlikely to change the position … in the short to medium term”.
Rather than testing the evidence through the courts, or possibly via the method referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, the Government have decided to introduce the Bill, which in reality dictates to the courts that they must treat Rwanda as a safe country. The use of Parliament as decision-maker in these circumstances is impractical and troubling. I see the Government’s approach as constitutionally inappropriate.
My second and more fundamental point is the constitutional danger of excluding the jurisdiction of the courts in future cases. Under these proposals, as we have heard, the courts would be required to ignore evidence that may emerge in future, thus removing their ability to protect. No Bill should place such limits on access to justice. This raises a serious constitutional issue and potentially, yet again, victimises the victims.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I will leave the important legal aspects of the Bill to the many outstanding lawyers who have spoken and will focus on much wider aspects of the current situation. This is a critical stage for the Government’s asylum policies and, by extension, their even more important immigration policies. Net migration last year was roughly 20 times the number of people who crossed the channel.
The Bill sets up a complex system to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda as a deterrent to future channel crossers, yet, at the same time, the Government are granting asylum to applicants from six Middle Eastern countries by a paper process without even an interview. Nearly all of them will have destroyed their documents and most will have crossed the channel and therefore come from a safe country. Young men in those countries total about 23 million. It is ludicrous to be talking purely about law—although it is right for this body to do so—when the policy has lost its way entirely.
The numbers could get even worse. The Migration Advisory Committee recently suggested that asylum seekers, including those who have crossed the channel illegally, should be allowed to work in any job after six months. Surely that would completely undermine the effect of any Bill before us. One is left with the suspicion that the Government’s policy is to focus on asylum to distract attention from the much greater scale of immigration more generally. As has been mentioned, net migration in the last calendar year reached 745,000. That is an incredible number, by far the highest in our history, albeit with some special factors such as Hong Kong, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
What are the possible consequences if we focus so much on asylum, without any reflection on the immigration policy itself? Migration Watch UK, of which I am president, has done some work on the population impact of asylum and immigration taken together. We have made one projection based on net migration of 600,000 a year at current birth rates. The result was a population increase of about 20 million for the UK in the next 25 years. That would be roughly 15 cities the present size of Birmingham. Even at a much lower migration assumption of 350,000, which some other think tanks have suggested, the population increase would be about 9 million.
We are looking here at policies that will have a massive effect on the future of our country. In either case, the implications for housing, health and education would, of course, be huge. To take one example from the education sector, according to government statistics, British children could become a minority in state schools in England in about 20 years’ time.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, was the only speaker to mention public opinion. The wider point of the Bill is surely that failure to achieve an effective legal structure to deter illegal immigration, combined with a failure to achieve a considerable reduction in legal migration, would lead to very serious consequences for the scale, the nature, and—indeed, let it be said—the continuing stability of our society.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, it is right that we approach this debate with seriousness. Once more, the responsibility to ensure real scrutiny of a Bill rests with our House.
Today, the Government are attempting to rectify what the UK Supreme Court has identified as
“serious and systemic defects in Rwanda’s framework and procedures for processing asylum claims … Its past and continuing practice of refoulement and the changes in procedure, understanding and culture needed”
before Rwanda can be considered a safe third country.
However, the Bill, as it stands, risks entangling us in a complex web of ethical and legal dilemmas that could diminish our international reputation, betray our duty to the genuine asylum seekers, undermine the rule of law and place our courts in an exceedingly difficult position. It risks creating a legislative or legal fiction. Much has been said about the infamous late-night pyjama injunctions, or Rule 39 orders, and the meddling of the so-called foreign courts. Let us be clear: the European Court of Human Rights is not a foreign court; it is a shared court. The UK was instrumental in its establishment and has significantly contributed to its jurisprudence. A British judge sits on the court and British lawyers are involved in its administration.
In Rule 39 orders against the UK, the context is that the court grants only 2% of requests. Last year, there was just one. Also, last year, the court found the UK in violation of the ECHR on only one occasion—the 38th lowest of all member states. Under the Bill, Ministers will have the power to ignore Rule 39 orders. Neither these new powers nor any amendments to the Civil Service Code would alter our international legal obligations. Should a Minister opt to disregard interim measures, this would place the UK in direct violation of its treaty obligations. How can the UK continue to be a global advocate for the rule of law—as many others have said—and honouring international commitments if this happens?
To illustrate the unprecedented nature of such an action, I point out that no member of the Council of Europe has ever taken steps to disregard ECHR rulings or interim measures except Russia, and that is not good company to be in. I am not alone in being perplexed by the inconsistencies that this policy and this Bill will introduce. Our treaty with Rwanda obliges it to adhere to the refugee convention, yet the Bill explicitly exempts the refugee convention and other international obligations from consideration within the UK.
The Government may not thank me for doing so, but I feel compelled to remind the House of the agreement with Rwanda, which included an intent to
“resettle a portion of Rwanda’s most vulnerable refugees”
here in the UK—a process that, as we know, is already under way, with numbers increasing. Even if the plan is enacted and we finally have refugees going to Rwanda, the numbers will be modest, in the hundreds at most. By comparison, in 2023, almost 30,000 irregular migrants entered the UK via small boats.
Even so, it is perfectly fair to ask those of us who dislike these provisions, “How are we going to deal with the rest?” There are many tools available to the Government. We simply need to know which tools to use and how to deploy them better. The Government have actually made progress and I commend them for that. Small boat crossings, as my noble friend the Minister has said, are down by 36% compared to 2022. The grant rate for asylum decisions in 2023 was 67%, down 9% on the year before. When I was Immigration Minister myself it was actually 19%, applying the criteria of the 1951 refugee convention fairly but firmly.
To clear the backlog, the number of staff working on asylum cases has increased significantly, and 112,000 asylum cases were processed in 2023, the most in any year since 2002. The Government have signed an agreement with Albania for removal of their nationals and to strengthen co-operation. To date, 5,500 Albanian migrants have been returned. The deal with France last year has greatly enhanced co-operation between our countries, and further agreements were secured—correctly—with Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy and Georgia. All these tools—and a number of others—have been, and will continue to be, more effective in stopping the boats than these Rwanda proposals. The Government should focus on these instead, and I believe the country would be grateful.
My remarks today stem from a deep sense of regret and disappointment in witnessing how we have become embroiled in what can be described only as an unhealthy obsession with Rwanda. This fixation appears to be an attempt to satisfy certain factions and individuals, who seem to possess neither the depth of understanding nor the nuanced appreciation of the complexities involved in asylum and immigration matters. For them, nothing will be enough—neither the Bill nor ever-more radical ideas. If we are to restore public confidence in our ability to manage our borders, we should focus on the other tools available and avoid the inevitable problems which will most certainly ensue if we persist with these proposals.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, when researchers and historians come to assess the work of the 2019-24 Parliament, I suspect they will be completely baffled by the reasoning that led three successive Governments—those of Johnson, Truss and Sunak—to rely so heavily in countering the obnoxious human trafficking of migrants across the channel on a scheme to send those migrants, despite the fact that a majority of them are likely to have legitimate grounds for seeking asylum, off to a small African country which our own Supreme Court has ruled is not a safe destination for them. That is without even considering their case for seeking asylum here.
This scheme, the third legislative iteration of which is before this House today for Second Reading, is deeply flawed on the grounds of practicality and of value for money. It requires the upending of the unwritten conventions which have governed the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary for centuries, by barring our courts, from the Supreme Court downwards, from intervening. It makes a bonfire of a large number of this country’s international legal commitments and puts others at serious risk of following them on to the fire—quite a score for one relatively short Bill.
I do not want to dwell for too long on the arguments about lack of practicality. We now know that the Prime Minister—when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer—set them out to No. 10 pretty cogently. It is argued by the Government that this year’s Illegal Migration Act has already proved to be an effective deterrent and has reduced the 2023 channel crossings by one-third. However, that assertion is completely unproven. A substantial part of that reduction has in fact resulted from the very welcome agreement with Albania, which enables nationals of that country to be returned as economic migrants. It is nothing to do with the Rwanda scheme.
Another unquantifiable but also substantial part of that reduction is due to the equally welcome intensified Anglo-French police and intelligence co-operation. It must be, or else we are paying an awful lot of money for nothing. Moreover, while the Government refuse to say whether there are any limits on the numbers who could be sent to Rwanda under the scheme, they must fall a long way short of those still being brought across the channel. Therefore, the deterrent effect of the Rwanda scheme is moot, to put it very politely.
As to the constitutional propriety, others have spoken about that issue, and I will not extend my remarks on it.
Then there is the bonfire being made of our international obligations by the present Bill and its predecessors. The refugee convention is first amongst them, as the Supreme Court recognised in its recent ruling. Then there is the convention against torture, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international legal instruments we took pride in signing and ratifying. That is without taking account of the risk that the Bill would empower the Government to step out on to a slippery slope that could lead to our departure from the European Convention on Human Rights and from the jurisdiction of its court, which, as was so rightly said by the previous speaker, is not a foreign court. I am aware that the Government assert that we are doing none of these things, but they assert that unilaterally, in the face of strong views to the contrary by the bodies set up to interpret and safeguard those commitments. On that, a reading of the testimony of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to the Supreme Court, and more recently on this Bill, is really salutary. To do that is to make a mockery of the Government’s otherwise admirable championing of a rules-based international order.
There is a large amount to criticise in the present Bill, and little, if anything, to commend in it. It is surely a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Cures there are, and they are not simple; all require much closer, more effective co-operation with our European neighbours. They could also be helped if we were prepared to process swiftly and offshore claims for asylum. That is the approach which Italy, Germany and Denmark are said to be contemplating, not the Government’s choice of denying migrants who cross the channel any consideration at all of their asylum claims.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I am in favour of the amendment and opposed to this disgraceful and odious Bill. Other speakers have addressed and will address the Bill’s many faults, moral and constitutional. I will try to explain why it is right and necessary for this House to refuse to consider it further. In making the case, I will echo the speech I made on the Second Reading of the equally abhorrent Illegal Migration Bill.
We all agree that the House of Commons has a democratic mandate and is entitled to pass whatever legislation it wishes. The issue before us today is the role of the second Chamber when presented with legislation such as this Bill, which is so dreadful and unacceptable. As my noble friend Lord Grocott reminded us earlier, we are a revising Chamber, but the reality is—and we all know this—that there is no way this Bill can be revised to make it acceptable. At any rate, the Government are opposed to any meaningful amendment. This Bill is not a serious attempt to address the issues raised by immigration; it is a cynical, political fraud.
We are not just a revising Chamber; we have the power, as set out in the provisions of the Parliament Acts, to also act as a delaying Chamber. Ultimately, we cannot veto the proposed laws sent to us by the Commons, but we can delay them either for a year or until after an election. A Government who have a majority in the Commons can overrule this House, but that does not require us to always accept their proposals. In cases like this, I believe we have a constitutional duty to use our powers of delay.
In support of this view, I refer noble Lords to the words of Sir Winston Churchill on 11 November 1947, speaking as Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition in a debate on a fatal amendment during the debate on the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill. His words set out clearly why and when, in accordance with our constitution, this House is entitled—even under an obligation—to refuse to consider a Bill any further, even when it has been passed by the Commons. He argued the case for this House to take such action on the grounds of democracy. He said:
“The spirit of the Parliament Act, and the purpose of that Act, were to secure the intimate, effective and continuous influence of the will of the people upon the conduct and progress of their affairs”.
He also said something that is particularly relevant in our current circumstances:
“Is the party opposite really to be entitled to pass laws affecting the whole character of the country in the closing years of this Parliament without any appeal to the people who have the vote and who placed them where they are?”—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/1947; cols. 204, 214.]
Those words are particularly relevant in the light of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield. In the closing remarks of his contribution to this debate, he said that if this Bill were passed, we would be living in,
“a different land, breathing different air in a significantly diminished kingdom. Is that what any of us really wants?”
Those are exactly the circumstances identified by Sir Winston as to when the House should say no and no further. In other words, the power of this House to delay legislation should be used in the interests of democracy. This Bill does affect the whole character of the country, and this House, to the extent allowed under our constitution, should delay its passage.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, for that speech. He did not pull any punches, which I liked, but I did not like anything else that he said. I find myself with “Sophie’s Choice” here. This is a Bill that I intensely dislike, but I dislike the Opposition’s arguments against the Bill even more.
I am no fan of the Rwanda plan. The absence of a much-promised review of safe routes means that there is no flexibility about who is permanently deported, and there is no ability to appeal. The Bills feels performative, very expensive and unworkable, but mainly I object to a narrow discussion on Rwanda as a substitute for tackling what should be obvious to all by now: the need for a complete overhaul of our current asylum system and a review of often outdated international laws and treaties that are regularly used to limit sovereign law-making.
Here is my dilemma: too often, opposition to any or all government proposals on migration—certainly since I have been in this House—leads to swathes of immovable blocks that effectively tell voters, “You can’t do that”. I am worried when this House plays that role itself, of being one of those blocks. Certainly, treaties and laws internationally made that no one in the UK voted for feel like a slap in the face of the electorate. I am glad to hear that, across the House, there is an understanding that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord German, is potentially improper overreach, a sort of cancel culture applied to the scrutiny of legislation. Despite this, however, when the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, told the House that the Labour Benches would treat the Bill like any other Bill, I am just not convinced that this Bill is being treated like any other Bill. In fact, all migration legislation and debates that I have sat through have felt less like scrutiny and revising in good faith, and more as though they are opposing because of a fundamental disagreement on immigration. Amendments that are being put forward even now, I fear, will gut the original aim of the legislation, and that seems to me to be anti-democratic.
There has been a lot of noise ahead of today’s debate. In fact, I was reading Politico, and one anonymous Labour Peer told that publication that the Lords were preparing for “trench warfare.” He then listed the Bill’s sins: overturning the Supreme Court, being contrary to international law and human rights and so on. He said:
“All these things are likely to put lead in the Lords’ pencil.”
It is interesting that those tools of governance are what excite the juices of noble Lords in this House and get them worked up, whereas they seem rather indifferent to public concerns and rarely reference them, and then only to dismiss with a sneer the “will of the people” phrase.
The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury stressed the important issue of individual dignity and the value of each and every individual, and of course, he is right. However, that was very much with a focus on those seeking asylum. I ask noble Lords to broaden their focus. It insults the dignity of the British public when their concerns about the potential security threat posed by those entering the country illegally in the absence of proper checks are given second-class status versus international treaties. I can also imagine how vulnerable people feel when they discover that, for example, universities are offering visas to overseas students for lower grades than their kids need to get on to a degree course in this country.
Just a few other issues are bothering me. We are trapped here for hours and hours debating the safety of one African country. I feel uncomfortable reading the plethora of briefings sent out by NGOs detailing horror stories from Rwanda full of human misery, even with accusations of torture, but I seriously worry about demonising a country for the purposes of opposing a UK policy and defeating a Bill. Maybe I am being too cynical, but I cannot help but notice that, only recently, many of the same NGOs and commentators were cheering on and lionising another African country for taking Israel to The Hague. Why did they then turn a blind eye to South Africa’s horrendous record of corruption, massacres of its own workers and standing by during pogroms of Zimbabwean immigrants, and so on? It just seems a bit like picking and choosing.
Then there is the focus on whether the Bill will damage our reputation with international institutions. Should such institutions be treated as sacrosanct? Much play has been made of the condemnation of the Bill by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the fact that he denounced any UK lawmaking that wants
“to keep people away from your borders”,
saying that that “will always meet” with the UN’s disapproval. It would mean we would never be able to control our borders. However, I object to taking moral instructions from the UN on refugees after the weekend’s exposé that one of its agencies was implicated in the 7 October anti-Jewish pogrom. I will leave it there.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
My Lords, I do not like the Bill, but, as a number of noble Lords have said, I struggle with the alternative, as absolutely nothing else has been put forward—and certainly nothing has been suggested tonight.
I know that the Government are sincere in their desire to crack down on illegal immigration. We have an absurd situation at play in which criminal gangs and people-smugglers are taking advantage of individuals, facilitating continued violation of our borders, endangering lives and costing the taxpayer significantly. When the people of this country switch on the news, they are rightly horrified to see small boats crammed with people, and clips of small children being held dangerously in them.
The British people have proven throughout history, and indeed more so in recent times, that they are hospitable to the most in need and supportive of genuine refugees. However, their good will has been gravely exploited by the criminal gangs, who rely on an outdated legal practice and loopholes to run a mockery of not only our immigration system but the generosity of the British people. As has been said already, illegal immigration is a danger to race relations and to our society.
On the Bill, I uphold that it is for the British people alone to decide on who comes and who stays in this country. I have no doubt that they wish to see illegal immigration end and that they are fed up with the ping-pong process of legislation being passed in sovereign Parliament only for the courts to then block any attempts on the part of the Government to get on and apply it. In building on the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the Bill will, I hope, allow the Government to get on with the task of not only deterring and stopping small boat crossings but applying some needed morality and fairness to our processes for dealing with illegal immigration.
While I agree that the Bill is a mechanism that is key to stopping the boats and preventing the courts from second-guessing the sovereign will of this Parliament, I am wary that the asylum backlog, marred by the complexity of individual circumstances, could once again see this matter return to the courts on a costly case-by-case basis.
The International Agreements Committee, of which I am a member, raised a number of concerns about the agreement. These concerns will arise when the Bill is challenged in the courts, so they need resolving, and quickly.
I do not think this point has been made tonight: Rwanda itself wants to see these safeguards in place, resolved and operating because it needs them for its own reputation, and indeed because it is presenting itself, and rightly so, as a modern, leading African country. Can my noble friend the Minister provide reassurances and clarify how the provisions of the Bill which provide limited scope for individuals to raise challenges based on their individual circumstances will not be exploited as a delaying tactic rather than being a sound legal provision to protect the rights of individuals?
Further, I am encouraged by the action taken by the Government in recent times to secure agreements such as the UK-Albania joint communiqué, which has been talked about already today. Working bilaterally in that case, the Government have proven that the return of over 5,000 people who have no legal right to be here to their safe country of origin is a powerful deterrent which has seen the number of illegal Albanian arrivals to this country drop by more than 90%.
I have in other addresses to your Lordships’ House called on the Government to direct their efforts to perfecting and creating additional bilateral agreements such as this, which surely must be the most sensible way to curb the flow of illegal immigration. In this ever-destabilised world, we need a pragmatic and diplomatic avenue for the UK to continue working bilaterally with other nations to collaboratively address the growing complexities of illegal migration. I would therefore welcome an update from the Minister on how the Government are seeking to further their work in this area.
That said, the challenges that we face today are impacting the people and security of the country and require us to act swiftly. For that reason, I support the Bill.
Lord Lisvane (CB)
My Lords, were it not for the thousands of human tragedies and broken lives that are part of the problem which this Bill attempts so clumsily to solve, we would be looking at surrealism verging on the point of becoming comic. A scriptwriter suggesting this scenario would be told to go away and come back with something a little more credible. But alas, we are faced with a proposal to put legal fiction into statute.
My learned predecessor John Ley, Clerk of the House of Commons in the middle of the 19th century, once said:
“To hell with precedent! The House can do what it likes”,
and 200 years ago, so it could—perhaps. However, now we have an infinitely more complex and nuanced relationship between Parliament and the courts. Still, a key element of our constitutional settlement and the protection of our freedoms is the rule of law and not what from time to time the Government of the day use a Commons majority to say what that is, whatever the courts may have said or may say.
I fear that over the next few weeks, if there are continuing disagreements between your Lordships and the House of Commons, we shall hear an awful lot of nonsense talked about the Salisbury/Addison convention—I immediately exclude from that possibility the lapidary contribution of the Convenor earlier in this debate. Other noble Lords have spoken and will speak about the legal complexities, but in the short time I have it may be worth taking a moment to look at the relationship between the two Houses.
The Salisbury/Addison Convention, as it became known, was not invented in 1945. If it had a progenitor, it was the third Marquess of Salisbury in the late 1880s. In an age of widening suffrage, he said that your Lordships’ House had an obligation to reject, and so refer back to the electorate, especially contentious Bills, usually involving a revision of the constitutional settlement. We have come a long way since then, of course, enacting the Parliament Act 1911 en route.
There is no doubt that a manifesto Bill has a special significance in the relationship between the two Houses—but this animal has become elusive. The Labour Party manifesto in 1945 was, with Attleian brevity, only eight pages long. It was a clear and specific checklist of intentions. Nowadays, manifestos may be 10 or 20 times that length, and they have taken on the character of a philosophical tract. Distilling legislative intent is not always easy.
In 2006, the Joint Committee on Conventions examined the so-called Salisbury/Addison convention. Its report is well worth reading. The committee did not support any attempt to define a manifesto Bill. It concluded that the 1945 convention, which was, of course, between parties rather than between the Houses, had evolved and it recommended naming the convention “the Government Bill Convention”. The logic of this was that, rather than struggle to find manifesto lineage in a Bill, it was better to treat the endorsement of the elected House as being sufficient democratic authority.
That is a reasonable position to take. I would not support voting against a Bill—even this Bill—on Second Reading. Rejection on Second Reading would be read by many outside this place as a suicide note. However, I counsel care and restraint in seeking to characterise the democratic authority I referred to a moment ago. Phrases such as “the will of the people” are not appropriate—as well as being, in terms, manifestly untrue.
If this Bill is given a Second Reading, I imagine that it will be significantly amended on Report. If so, I expect your Lordships’ views to be widely misrepresented—I hear echoes of “Enemies of the People”. Exchanges between the Houses are not a face-off. They are a constitutionally valuable way of identifying any common ground and of giving the Commons the opportunity to think again. We should not buy into the urban myth that there should be only, let us say, two exchanges. When the Bill for the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 was before Parliament, there were seven exchanges between the Houses—as I have some personal cause to remember. If on this Bill there are continuing disagreements, we should have confidence in the strength of our arguments.
My final point is that, when there are exchanges between the Houses, it is important to see them as disagreements not between the Lords and the Commons but between Government and Parliament. That, I think, puts them in their proper context.
Lord Blackwell (Con)
My Lords, listening to the speeches this evening, I have heard a number of noble Lords state their opposition to the Bill on what they said were moral grounds. I am not qualified to comment on the international legal aspect, but I do not accept that those who oppose this Bill can claim the moral high ground. Let me make just five quick points to explain that.
First, it is not correct to say that those individuals seeking to enter the UK on small boats are coming because they need to seek asylum here. Of course, many may have come originally from countries where they faced persecution, but, once they arrive in France or Belgium, they are already in a safe country. European citizens are not allowed to claim asylum in the UK because of that, so their choice to board a boat and seek to enter the UK is a choice that they would rather live in the UK as a more tolerant country, offering better prospects. That is a very reasonable aspiration, but we have Immigration Rules to control the number of migrants coming to the UK, which they are seeking to evade.
Secondly, it is not right that would-be migrants who bypass our immigration system should be given precedence over others. It is a valid point of view that we should have no limits to immigration—open borders to all—but, as others have said, in the modern world, that is simply impractical. So, if you accept that the UK should have immigration controls to limit the number of people who settle here, you have to accept that those rules should be enforced.
Of course, we always have been and continue to be willing to accept our share of those fleeing persecution, and we should be proud of our record in that regard, as my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton said in his opening remarks. However, it is not fair or reasonable to allow migrants coming from an already safe country, choosing to come here as a matter of preference rather than necessity, to bypass our normal immigration controls and jump the queue by paying people traffickers to smuggle them in.
Thirdly, while many in this House have argued that Rwanda may not be an attractive location compared with remaining in the UK or France, if we pass this Bill, it will be those who choose to get on the boat to be smuggled into the UK who are making their choice to go there. We will not be imposing this outcome on unsuspecting individuals who come to the UK on different terms. Anyone seeking to bypass our immigration system will be making that choice in the full knowledge of where they will end up. It will be their choice about how comfortable they will be in Rwanda, not ours. If they are not comfortable with that, they can safely stay in France and apply to migrate to the UK in the normal way through our normal procedures.
Then there is the numbers argument. Some argue that the policy cannot work because, they say, thousands of migrants cannot be accommodated in Rwanda. That misses the point. If the policy is successful, very few individuals will actually be sent to Rwanda, because the certainty of being removed from the UK will remove the incentive to come here illegally. In fact, the most successful policy would be if no migrants were sent to Rwanda.
Finally, there are those who argue that there is a magic bullet—a better solution. But the only alternative offered to stop the flow of small boats is to crack down on criminal gangs. Well, while it may be possible to do more to disrupt the large criminal gangs, you do not need much organisation to procure a small dinghy and sell it to those who want to make the crossing. We cannot patrol the whole French coastline. So this alternative is simply not credible. As long as the channel crossings remains a viable route into the UK, people will keep coming.
In summary, I simply do not accept that it is the moral high ground to allow a situation to continue where people smugglers will put more lives at risk through dangerous channel crossings and where migrants who bribe their way onto these boats to evade our immigration controls can jump the queue over others who may have a better claim to settle in the UK. That is not moral, but that is what will happen if we block the Bill. So I will support this Bill on the basis that stopping the boats is the moral high ground, and I urge other noble Lords to do the same.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, finally we have it here. We have been waiting quite a long time for this Bill, and it is very irritating that it is so misleadingly named, because of course the Rwanda safety Bill is the opposite of what is: it should really have been called the “Rwanda Not Safe At All Bill”. It amounts to a stupid, messy, inhumane, cruel, immoral and idiotic way of thinking that you can solve the problem of migration like this.
The Government have created this problem by not putting in, for example, better safe, legal routes. There have been lots of answers coming from these Benches about other possibilities.
Sorry, did somebody speak to me? That is not on.
The Government have created this problem. They have thrown together something they call a solution that is not a solution at all.
It is the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who keeps talking. Can the Whips have a word with him, please?
The Government have dishonoured both Houses by tabling the Bill and bringing it to us to debate. It was wrong to bring this Bill to us; it was wrong to develop it at all.
First, there is the title. Rwanda is not a safe country. We have heard that again and again from the courts. The UK has just accepted for asylum Rwandans who were in fear of persecution if they stayed in Rwanda. That does not sound very safe. Just because this Government say that it is safe does not make it safe. I have heard some ridiculous things from that side of the Chamber. I have heard some very good things, by the way, but also some quite ridiculous things about how Rwanda is safe. It really is not. Secondly, we will be in violation of an international treaty. Do we want to be seen as a country that cannot be trusted, that signs an agreement then backs out of it? I would have thought not.
This is an exceptional Bill which needs us here in your Lordships’ House to take exceptional action. Stopping a Government who have a track record for introducing draconian laws overruling our courts is what we are here for. It is our job. Today we are talking about the rights of refugees but, if your Lordships accept this Bill going through, what is to stop a Government with a big majority then disapplying other human rights? The path to a totalitarian state is not just the Government banning strikes and effective protests or restricting the right to vote—all of which have happened—it is Ministers pushing through laws that say, “This group of people deserve no human rights and the courts are banned from helping them seek justice”. Today it is refugees but tomorrow there will be another scapegoat to target. Some of them might be vile people doing horrible things but that is the point of human rights. Human rights are for all of us. They are there to defend everyone’s right to justice, whether they are saint or sinner, whether the Government like them or hate them.
Convention is on the side of rejecting the Bill. The Labour Front Bench does not like the Lords blocking what MPs have voted for, and I understand that we should use this power sparingly, but, as we have heard, Labour has done it. It had its own successful fatal Motion 11 years ago so I think that it could support today’s fatal amendment if Labour Members just held their noses. I am proud to say that last year the opposition parties joined together to beat the Government on the water pollution rules. A year before that, we rejected outright the 18 pages of government amendments restricting the right to protest and forced the Government to come back with new legislation.
The Rwanda Bill was not in the Conservative Party manifesto. Disapplying the Human Rights Act was not in the manifesto. Convention allows us to reject it. Also, as someone said, it will take us hours. We will be sitting here for a very long time and many of us probably do not have that many hours left and should think, “Is that how we want to spend them—fighting this Government, not winning and having all our amendments sent back?”, because that end of Parliament does not understand what we are here for. If the Prime Minister genuinely believes that this is the will of the people, he should call a general election. Please give the public a chance to have their say about this, about the PPE corruption and about the mess that the Government have deliberately made of the NHS.
I have talked to a lot of people outside your Lordships’ House. Some, of course, are concerned about the boats arriving, for all sorts of reasons. But on doorsteps, in streets, offices, shops and pubs, the talk is less of “Stop the boats” and much more of “Stop the Tories”.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and thank my noble and learned friend the Minister for introducing this Bill to deter illegal migrants from making the perilous journey across the high seas.
Despite the law being there, it has not been executed because of successful legal challenge and will not deter. It remains a hollow threat. The new Bill responds to this legal challenge and the Supreme Court judgment by ruling out any generic challenge based on debate about the safety of Rwanda. However, the Bill is not without its own problems, some of which have been referred to today. I will raise two.
Will a successful challenge on individual circumstances become the prototype for other challenges of the same sort? Will there be a successful challenge to the Strasbourg court and what will be the response from a Minister of the Crown to an interim remedy? While I am willing to give the Bill a chance, I am concerned that it is not a satisfactory basis on which to ask the UK Parliament to pass a law. I am concerned about an attempt to have it every way, to be within international law yet disapply certain parts so that that the UK somehow avoids its parameters. I urge my noble and learned friend to ask the Government to exclude, clearly and categorically for the purpose of this Bill, the provisions of those international treaties which make it impossible to honour the mandate to the electorate to control the UK’s borders.
The attempt to run with the hare and run with the hounds is bad for politics, bad for the courts and bad for the constitutional arrangements where Parliament makes the law and the courts interpret it. We have a sea border. We have our own Parliament. We have the finest judiciary in the world. It is time to capitalise on these facts. We need to make our law clear and, if need be, clearly exclude those parts of international law which bind this country and replace them with our own law; otherwise, we shall reap the constitutional and political instability faced by many western countries because we seem to be failing to honour the promise that the electorate sees as its priority.
Across Europe, settled Governments are crumbling, political systems have been undermined, constitutional stability and order have been threatened, and voters have lost confidence in the politics of “business as usual”. The EU is now proposing another measure to control illegal migration which involves quotas and fines on countries that do not take their quota and which is not set to come into law for a year. That is no answer; nor do our neighbouring countries consider it sufficient. In Germany, the left coalition seeks control over migration. France finally passed its own immigration law and, within weeks, the constitutional court of that country has challenged parts of it. Denmark is trying its own scheme and in Holland, Geert Wilders was elected because he promises to combat immigration and undermine the stability of the Rutte Government.
The UK Government should clearly and boldly reject those elements of the existing international treaties which make it impossible for them to act against illegal immigration as the electorate wishes. They should aim to return to the initial proposal of the coalition years to introduce their own Bill of Rights, covering these things with the generosity that we have always shown to asylum and protection claims from people in need. Far from making itself an international pariah, the UK would show itself to be a leader, the one country brave enough to face today’s facts and open the way to solving a problem that concerns almost every developed country.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I start by emphasising that the Bill is unlawful. It contravenes international law, it contravenes our own laws, it is unworkable, it is unaffordable, and it is immoral—because it involves taking incredible risks with human life. Your Lordships will remember that when the judgment from the Supreme Court came down, Lord Sumption was interviewed by the BBC. It was suggested to him that already the Government were saying that they were going to pass this kind of Bill. Quite shocked, he said that it would be “profoundly discreditable” of them to pass a law which flew in the face of a judgment recently given on the fact that Rwanda was unsafe. That is the shameful thing here. Of course, Parliament is entitled to do what it likes, but to say that black is white, or that Rwanda is safe when it clearly is not, is shameful.
The Supreme Court was clear about the facts. It based much of its ruling on the judgment from the Court of Appeal by the distinguished judge Lord Justice Underhill, whose judgment and contribution was as long as War and Peace in the number of words describing the failures of Rwanda in the past in considering applications for asylum; the ways in which it returned people by refoulement; and the climate of fear that exists in Rwanda. There is no independent judiciary because they are captured out of fear of Kagame, who rules with a rod of iron.
People are in fear of speaking out. If you go to Rwanda and ask people about their system, of course they cannot tell you the truth about what takes place. I received an email today from NGOs in the Congo that deal with immigration issues, and I asked if any of them was prepared to give us assistance at the Joint Committee on Human Rights. They said that no one was prepared to speak because they are so in fear of the long arm of Rwanda. They are entitled to feel that. The man who was the subject of the great film “Hotel Rwanda” and managed to evacuate so many Tutsis who were being massacred during the terrible genocide was himself arrested, picked up in Dubai, kidnapped and brought back to Rwanda, because he had criticised Kagame.
In 2018, 12 Congolese asylum seekers who made a peaceful protest about the rotting food they were being asked to eat were shot dead by the Rwandan police. If we are morally content to send people back to these risks, then we should think again.
Let us be clear on the purpose of this. It is because we have an election coming up and the Government want to run up the flag the old subject of immigration and put people in fear of what that might mean. The Government know they cannot fix Rwanda’s legal system in a matter of months or even years, so they have basically struck a deal with Rwanda to take everyone we send—economic migrants as well as asylum seekers. A person will get a place in Rwanda irrespective of whether they are an economic migrant or a refugee. All comers will be fitted in, except that in the treaty—as it was in the memorandum of understanding, although it is never mentioned to the general public—there is a special arrangement that Rwanda can send its vulnerable asylum seekers to Britain. I was glad to hear this mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope.
You may ask yourself, “Who are these vulnerable asylum seekers?” One example is that Rwanda has a problem on issues like homosexuality. It is not that there is a law against homosexuals, but they would have great difficulty getting by and living their life as homosexuals if people were to know it. The persecution of homosexuals is very real. There is a whole issue around the Afghani Hazaras, a minority within the Shia tradition of Islam, who are persecuted by Sunni Afghanis. Is there any risk to them if they were taken there for asylum? What about people with mental illness? There are very few psychiatrists in the whole nation of Rwanda, despite there having been a genocide 30 years ago, and 25% of the population suffer from mental illnesses that cannot be treated. The vulnerable people who will be sent here to make use of our medical treatment will be those poor asylum seekers.
It is costing £400 million for very little, but of course it is all about “performative politics”—to use the term mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—at the expense of human lives. We should be ashamed. We had a proud tradition of the rule of law, which I hold to my heart. Let us not forget it—but we are forgetting it here.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, we have had many excellent speeches today and I will, therefore, speak briefly. I am sure we all support the purpose of the Bill, to prevent and deter unlawful migration. However, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, argued so strongly, the Bill will not achieve that objective.
Our UK immigration policy must not involve breaking international law or human rights—this country has a proud history of upholding both, at all times. As a result, the UK has a priceless reputation enabling us to play a key part in seeking to persuade rogue nations to reform their policies in line with their international obligations.
Only when Rwanda is a safe country, and truly safe, and when the UK Parliament has endorsed this position, can people be removed from the UK to Rwanda in compliance with all our obligations under international law. To satisfy the definition of a “safe country”, all the provisions of the treaty with Rwanda must be implemented by Rwanda, including the establishment of a non-refoulement commitment; strengthening the monitoring arrangements; and strengthening Rwanda’s end-to-end asylum process. All these matters must be bedded in.
If this highly questionable policy is to be pursued—and I have picked up fairly strongly that it is highly questionable—the vital need is for the Bill to be delayed until Rwanda has implemented all the provisions of the treaty and those provisions are bedded in. Only then can the Bill legitimately refer to Rwanda as a safe country for immigration purposes. Delay is the role of your Lordships’ House in this situation, together with a request to the Government to think again.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, we have heard a lot of anger and outrage this afternoon, and a lot of agonising about nebulous concepts such as international influence and reputation. We have heard much effort to side-slip away from our dualist system of international and domestic law, a lot of advocacy of a purist view of separation of powers that has never applied in this country, and a surprising degree of deference by this sovereign Parliament to a Supreme Court that did not exist two decades ago, is not a constitutional court in the US or European sense—much as many people seem to wish it was—and has decided that it is the fount of wisdom not just on law but on complex issues of foreign policy. Indeed, when it comes to the safety of Rwanda, it seems that the Government’s facts are just judgments but the Supreme Court’s judgments are facts.
Maybe it is useful to get back to the essentials. Perhaps it is old fashioned, but I believe it is the job of a national Government to set terms for who may enter the country, and to control the border accordingly. I think that proposition would be widely agreed on in this country, but seemingly not here. Here, it is suggested by many noble Lords that in significant areas the terms of entry must be set by international conventions agreed decades ago by a European court that seems to believe it has the right to define the extent of its own powers, and by the people traffickers and criminals who make it possible for large numbers of people to take advantage of these terms. We are told, in other words, that the British Government should not, in practice, be able to set the terms under which people can come into this country. I put it that starkly because we can then see that this is not a proposition that would command widespread assent in this country.
This current situation cannot be sustained in modern conditions. The Government are right to do what is necessary to re-establish control. Control must mean that the Government define the conditions for entry into the UK; that one of those conditions is that if you arrive illegally, you do not have the right to stay and must therefore go somewhere else; and that we have no obligation to take in just anybody who shows up and can claim asylum, in whatever numbers. It may well also have to mean that if international law, whether the ECHR or any other agreement, says anything different, then so much the worse for international law. All these things may be unpalatable—and I know they are unpalatable to many in this Chamber; it is much easier to avoid thinking about them—but if you do not do these things, you do not have control.
To the extent that I understand the alternatives most widely advocated by noble Lords, they seem to involve establishing so-called safe and legal routes for the many people who currently show up here illegally—in other words, to acquiesce in the reality that we do not control our borders, and to give up trying. The truth is that safe and legal routes will be rapidly overwhelmed by numbers, and that illegal arrivals will continue.
The most reverend Primate, who is in his place, reminds us that all human beings are of great value. Of course I agree with him, and for the same reasons; of course we should welcome the stranger. But, in my very humble view, in this area you cannot get from that undoubted existential truth to a political proposition—a proposition that large numbers of people from many countries around the world, if they can persuade a criminal trafficker to take them, have the de facto right to settle in this country. Those are propositions of a completely different nature and kind.
It follows logically from all this that of course I support the Bill and its deterrent purpose. I admit some doubts as to whether, in its current form, it will be robust enough to achieve the desired end. I think it would certainly have been better if it had been amended to strengthen the exclusion of international law, as proposed in the Commons; in my view, we will one day have to go there. But it is done now; the Commons debated it fully and has spoken. I support the Government in bringing it into force swiftly and I hope noble Lords will do likewise.
Baroness O’Loan (CB)
My Lords, as I have listened to the debate today, I have been very much aware that noble Lords are seized of the fact that our role is to scrutinise legislation, not to rubber-stamp government proposals, as I think we are being asked to do by No. 10. This is our duty and I have no doubt that your Lordships will fulfil that duty with integrity.
Last week, we voted that the Rwanda treaty, on which the Bill relies for legitimacy, should not be implemented until the mechanisms and processes it establishes have been given effect. For the moment, they are aspirational. Anyone who has been involved in the process of establishing new systems and mechanisms knows that these things are not done properly, even in a country such as the UK, which has the advantage of a long-established judicial and criminal justice system and is familiar with accountability mechanisms. Rwanda is not that type of country.
I know that the Bill applies only to those who have come to the UK by unsafe and illegal routes, and that the destruction of the human trafficking business which facilitates access to the UK by these routes is a very necessary and desirable aim. That goes to the heart of the Bill.
Analysis and research led by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law finds, inter alia, that the Bill and treaty would put the UK in breach of its obligations under Article 4 of the ECHR and Article 10 of ECAT: obligations to identify and assist every potential victim of modern slavery and human trafficking, regardless of immigration status or method of entry. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has said that the Bill
“will, deliberately, abdicate responsibility under the 1951 Refugee Convention, threaten the international refugee protection regime and risk the erosion of the UK’s standing and ability to collaborate in the multilateral system”.
We cannot by stating something make it a reality. If Rwanda is not safe for some people—many noble Lords have pointed out why and where it is not safe, and have pointed to the people who have been given asylum here from Rwanda—the question must arise: what does it mean to say that it is a “safe country”? As the Law Society of England and Wales said:
“Simply put, the Supreme Court found Rwanda to not be a safe country; legislating the reverse will not change the situation on the ground”.
We cannot by legislation make the statement in Clause 1(5) a reality. We have not been told what has changed since the Supreme Court judgment, apart from the making of the Rwanda treaty a few weeks ago—which, as I said, contains a range of aspirational measures that will require very significant work to become operational. As the Law Society also said, as the Bill stands, even if the court is presented with overwhelming evidence that Rwanda is not safe, it would have to ignore that evidence and treat Rwanda as a safe country.
Redress, which pursues claims on behalf of survivors of torture, makes a very important point:
“The Bill sends out a dangerous signal that the UK is willing to circumvent the rule of law, and so undermines the international rules-based order. The UK has historically led the way in establishing the rule of law and should not now contribute to the threats it faces internationally”.
But we know, because we have seen it in your Lordships’ House, that this Government are getting into the habit of disapplying their human rights obligations and undermining the rule of law. I point yet again to the legacy Act passed in Northern Ireland, which removes all rights to compensation under the civil law, to inquests and to prosecutions, except in very limited circumstances.
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission advises that refugees and asylum seekers are protected by Article 2 of the Windsor Framework, and that rights particular to refugees and asylum seekers are within the scope of the Good Friday agreement by virtue, in particular, of the commitment to civil rights and to incorporate the European convention into domestic law. It cites many measures which are binding on the UK and which continue to set standards for human rights protection below which the law in Northern Ireland should not fall. Yet this Bill seeks to deprive individuals of that protection. It suggests that the current relationship between the UK courts, the UK Parliament and international law is balanced—but this Bill will create an imbalance.
We have heard so many voices articulating the dangers and, indeed, perils of this Bill. Undoubtedly, we have to find ways to resolve the problem that gave rise to the Bill and to dismantle, if possible, the highly lucrative businesses profiting from the plight of those who seek a safer and better life. I do not think that many of us could live in Syria, Afghanistan or anywhere else on a salary of about £10 a month, which is the average salary there.
This Bill is not the way forward. At the very least, until Parliament can be assured that the mechanisms and institutions of the Rwanda treaty are in place and that there is consideration of each asylum seeker and any particular vulnerabilities they may have, Parliament should exercise its sovereignty and decline to pass this ill thought-out Bill.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, pointed out, the Government have yet to respond to your Lordships’ decision on the Rwanda treaty, which is so fundamental to the Bill. This Bill does not stand alone. We will appear ridiculous if we pass a Bill saying that Rwanda is safe simply to overrule our independent Supreme Court, which said that it could not be considered a safe country.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to the register of interests for support from RAMP. I start by simply noting rather than repeating the concerns I raised in last week’s debate: the incompatibility of the treaty and Bill with our international obligations, the treatment of LGBTQI+ asylum seekers and of children, and the widespread scepticism about claims of a supposed deterrent effect.
Today, I will focus on Clause 3’s disapplication of the interpretive and remedial provisions of the Human Rights Act, in part because of this clause’s contribution to the Bill’s incompatibility with our international obligations, as advised by the UNHCR, with implications for the Good Friday agreement, as the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission points out in its very critical advice on the Bill, and because of what it means for human rights and for how asylum seekers are seen and treated. Here I echo some of the points made by the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Durham.
A briefing paper from the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights warns of the significance of disapplication:
“Human rights are meant to offer a fundamental level of protection for every person on the basis of their humanity alone. As … noted in a previous report, if those protections are disapplied when they cause problems for a policy goal they lose the fundamental and universal quality that characterises them. This is arguably particularly the case when they are disapplied in respect of a particular group”.
While the Government are beginning to make a habit of disapplication to marginalised and unpopular groups, as has just been said, the briefing points out that the disapplication of Section 6, which places
“the obligation on public authorities to act compatibly with human rights, has never before been attempted and represents a significant inroad into human rights protections”.
These concerns are echoed in numerous briefings, including from the EHRC, the Law Society and Amnesty.
Let us stop and think what this breach of the universality of human rights means. In effect, it is saying that asylum seekers are to be treated as less than human—as, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon,
“a lesser form of life”.—[Official Report, 4/12/23; col. 1276.]
Their humanity is not worthy of human rights protection.
“Stop the boats” is the Government’s mantra, but what about the human beings in those boats? Do they somehow stand outside the universality of human rights? The Government have paved the way with the dehumanising language they have used to talk about asylum seekers—the language of “invasion”, “breaking in”, “cannibalise”—language which has helped induce the public concern that the Government cite to justify their policy, a point made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees when speaking to the BBC last week.
Words matter, as the Migrant Rights Network stresses. Their significance is brought home by Erfan, an asylum seeker who writes how he came to realise
“these are not just words. They build a completely new identity, which then justifies how you will be treated, seen and talked about. The language that dehumanises people makes it seem acceptable to place them in inhumane conditions and cut off from society”.
This language now makes it seem acceptable to deny human rights protection.
A statement from MIN Voices, a group of refugees and asylum seekers, some of whom are from Rwanda or neighbouring countries, ends:
“We are human beings, wanting and seeking a safe future”.
By King, a young client of Freedom from Torture who fled persecution, asked in a recent Big Issue piece about the Rwanda plan:
“Why is the UK government refusing to treat refugees like human beings?”
Perhaps the Minister could give her an answer. Instead of an approach which, to quote the British Red Cross’s VOICES Network of those with lived experience,
“disregards the wellbeing and dignity of vulnerable individuals seeking refuge”,
we need, in its words,
“a more humane and compassionate asylum policy”.
I hope we can help achieve such a policy, because if the current Bill passes unamended, I will feel nothing but shame.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, I wish to make three points, which have already been made several times in the context of this debate but will not suffer from repetition and which will also allow me to contribute to later stages of the Bill.
It is unreasonable that the Bill asks parliamentarians to override the rulings of the Supreme Court, thereby touching on the constitutional convention of the separation of powers. It is equally unreasonable that the Bill insists that Rwanda is safe—not “could be safe” or “might be safe” but “is safe”. It is also unreasonable that the Bill asks parliamentarians to vote to undermine very important international conventions and much UK domestic law.
The Bill needs radical scrutiny and amendment, and thereafter it needs a steadfast resistance to the pressure of the Government to accept what is, to my mind, a very bad Bill.
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my interests in the register. I am an immigrant, the daughter of immigrants and the granddaughter of immigrants. My grandfather came to this country in 1938.
However, I support the Government on the Bill, because when we have spent millions of pounds in aid trying to help countries such as Rwanda become more accountable, have greater governance and become safer and more transparent, then to vilify them, like we are doing here today, really does make me quite sad and upset. I work a lot in Africa, and I see the progress that countries in Africa are making. Can noble Lords imagine what they must be thinking of us vilifying them the way we are today, when we spend millions of pounds in aid trying to support them to become more accountable? What is the point, then, of all those billions being spent by the global community?
Of course, we have to be fair. I am not a lawyer; I do not pretend to be a lawyer; I do not have the expertise or experience of good lawyers. But I do know—it is actually what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said—that we cannot be hypocritical here, where we look at one country and it is fine, and yet with another country it is not so fine, just because we happen to want to take asylum seekers, who should not be here in the first place, to a country we deem unsafe.
I have sat here and listened to this debate, and I have watched the debate on the TV. Trust me: I am not a person in the Conservative Party to the far right of anything. I have spent my lifetime fighting for people’s rights, but I also have found myself fighting for the continent that constantly is put down because it is poor. I did not want to say it, but I will say it, because I have sat here listening to most of the debate today. Is it because it is poor, and because it is Africa, that we have this debate where we can vilify a poor country? It is a country that has come through genocide, and is not perfect, but neither are most countries on earth.
Instead of saying that we will work with Rwanda continuously, and will support Rwanda and the people going there, we sit here and constantly call it unsafe. That is unfair on a country that has gone through so much trauma itself. I was looking at the statistics of Rwanda’s economic growth: it had 6.6% GDP growth last year, so it is doing something right. We need to encourage democracies that are trying to become more democratic, not stand here and vilify them as unsafe because we deem it so—because we in the West deem who is safe and who is unsafe. Perhaps it is time we start to have an honest discussion with ourselves about what we really want for our place in the world. Our place in the world should be one where we work with countries to elevate them, and they become safer and more economically viable, so that people do not want to leave those countries and so they are part of the growth.
I heard the word “odious” so many times today; I heard the words “black and white”, and it really does impact on me, as somebody who has worked so hard to be part and parcel of this community, to make sure that fairness runs through all of us. But that fairness has to then translate to countries that genuinely want to be on the path of growth. We sit here and decide through our lens which countries are safe and unsafe without actually saying that we will be part of the solution, to make them even safer.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, there are not many advantages to speaking so late in the debate, but one is that you can experience the feeling of the House. I have listened to all 55 speakers who have preceded me—except for four or five of them, when I was out of the House. Of those, 37 Members of your Lordships’ House have spoken against the Bill, including five Members on the Conservative Benches, who made very powerful speeches. We all remember the powerful speeches of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham. Against that, only 10 speakers have spoken in favour of the Bill.
At this time of night, I think it best that I go straight to giving your Lordships my reasons for being strongly opposed to this Bill. Let us work with the facts. In the official statistics issued for 2022, it is recorded that 8,756 Afghan migrants arriving here applied for asylum status. Of those, 97% were granted asylum. This is hardly surprising given the reports that we still regularly receive of breaches of human rights by the Taliban. On the radio only a few days ago, I heard a report that women were not only banned from education but banned from going out to work, creating serious problems for supporting their families.
I turn to the statistics for 2023. We do not have the official statistics yet, but we have been told that there has been a drop in the overall migration figures in relation to the boat people; that has gone down from about 45,000 to 30,000. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that there are now about 5,000 Afghan migrants eligible for deportation to Rwanda.
Let us look at the journey that those migrants have made. The distance from Kabul to Calais is 4,168 miles, nearly double the journey from one coast of the United States of America to the other. I cannot tell your Lordships their exact route, but the assumption is that they took the land route, and that they would have had to go through Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria, then decide whether to go north-east, to enter Europe via Greece, or west, to enter Europe via Italy. They would not have travelled in any air-conditioned coaches, let alone aeroplanes. Their only means of undertaking this colossally long journey must have been by hitchhiking on lorries.
What will happen to those 5,000 Afghans if they are deported to Rwanda—which will follow from the implementation of this Bill if the Illegal Migration Act is held to be lawful? They will lose their UK asylum rights and will be branded as illegal migrants. If they try to get back here, they will be rejected. Therefore, I ask the whole House, looking around to all Benches and those of us still here: is this remotely fair or right? Can we possibly allow this to happen when we have the constitutional right to stop it by refusing to allow the Bill to pass through this House? The question is whether we attempt to do so now, at Second Reading, or later, at Third Reading.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Government have stuck with the Rwanda scheme despite the Rule 39 decision in Strasbourg in June 2022 and despite the decision of the Supreme Court, which concluded that Rwanda was not safe.
The Strasbourg court’s interim ruling has been described as a ruling by a foreign court delivered by a judge in pyjamas. I do not think that is a helpful way of characterising it. All courts need to have the ability to make interim orders, sometimes at inconvenient times of day, and the court is not foreign to us as long as we remain members.
However, the decision was based on the Strasbourg court’s own rules rather than on what is in the European convention. It was made by a still-anonymous judge. No reasons were given and there was no chance for the Government to come back on a return date. This breaks just about every rule of natural justice and procedural fairness that normally applies in applications for interim relief.
As to the Supreme Court’s decision, it said that Parliament should not legislate to reverse the decision of what is the final court of appeal in this country. But Parliament has done precisely that in relation to three decisions, to my certain knowledge, in the last two years. I was chairman of the Independent Review of Administrative Law and the panel considered carefully whether it was appropriate for Parliament to reverse decisions of the Supreme Court. We concluded that Parliament should think long and hard before doing so, but that it was perfectly orthodox for it to take such a course. Indeed, the submissions we received from all senior judges did not suggest otherwise.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Is there not a difference here—a difference between disagreeing with a view and disagreeing with a finding of fact?
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
I am grateful to the noble Lord; I am coming on to that point. There were certain unusual aspects of the decision of the Supreme Court, which is normally concerned with points of law of general public importance rather than findings of fact. It might be better to describe the decision as rather more of a risk assessment based on the evidence before it rather than a finding of fact but, in any event, the Government have since responded to the court’s concerns, as your Lordships have heard.
I ask the question rhetorically: if the matter were before the Supreme Court today, would the judges come to a different conclusion? One should bear in mind that, even before the new steps taken by our Government and that of Rwanda, this case was finely balanced. The Court of Appeal was not unanimous on the matter and the Divisional Court found in favour of the Government. I also note Lord Sumption’s evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights acknowledging the Government’s response to the Supreme Court.
The Bill tackles some really big legal issues. In the view of the lawyers for the Government, it has gone as far as it can go without infringing international law. We know that there remain opportunities for litigation—lawyers have already announced their intention to take them—but the arguments on the law will have to wait until Committee.
At this stage, it is important to consider what the alternatives to the Rwanda scheme are, and so I turn to Labour’s position, and here I would like to mention Sir Keir Starmer. He has been criticised as being a “lefty lawyer”. I have had the privilege of being against him in court and, if he is a lefty lawyer, he is certainly a good one. I think it inappropriate to criticise him for the fact that some of his clients would not necessarily feature high on everybody’s desired guest list for a dinner party. What is his policy vis-à-vis the boats? There has been some talk of better relationships with France and better safe routes, but at the absolute centre of what is said to be the strategy is apparently Sir Keir himself. He reminds us regularly that he was DPP from 2008 to 2013. He was not in charge of Border Force or the National Crime Agency; he was supervising prosecutions at a very macro level—which is why I am reluctant to blame him for shortcomings in relation to the prosecution of, say, Jimmy Savile, or even the poor victims of the Horizon scandal. But he cannot have it both ways. Is it really suggested that, on the very arrival of Sir Keir, a former DPP, at No. 10, the smugglers will simply roll up their rubber dinghies and give up their promising and profitable business model? Is Labour’s alternative deterrent none other than Sir Keir himself? I am afraid I am unconvinced by that.
It comes to this: Rwanda is, at the moment, the only game in town. We all agree that we must stop the boats. The Government have made progress but need to go further. This Bill will enable the scheme to take effect—courts here and in Strasbourg permitting—and I admit it may deter those who sustain the people smugglers’ business. Other European countries face the same challenges and are actively considering similar schemes. Of course your Lordships’ House will scrutinise this Bill carefully, but we should retain some constitutional modesty. The elected House has passed the Bill. Many people in this country consider that their Government should be able to control our borders against illegal migration, and we should not ignore them. In the absence of any cogent alternative, while we should strive to improve the Bill, we should not wreck it.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. My noble friend Lady Verma has just given an exceptionally powerful speech, and I was very pleased to be in the Chamber to hear it. Like her, I have not heard as many speeches in today’s debate as I would have liked, because I have been attending to other parliamentary business in the Moses Room. However, I am quite sure that there will have been lots of speeches by distinguished noble Lords drawing on their expertise, and particularly their legal expertise. My own perspective paints a bigger picture; while it will, I am sure, go against the majority of opinion expressed in this House so far today, it is a perspective I would like to give.
Earlier this month in a debate about the standing of parliamentary democracy, I said that the Post Office scandal illustrates powerfully what is driving many voters’ disaffection: namely, that those of us in positions of authority do not listen or take seriously what voters are telling us when what they say or want does not correspond with what we have decided is right and want to do. The same is true in how we react to the majority’s demand for lower levels of legal immigration and an end to the large numbers of illegal migrants entering and staying in our country. Instead of working together over the last eight years to address one of the underlying causes of Brexit, we have decided that the real problem is that, at best, the voters do not understand why they are wrong and cannot have what they want, or, at worst, they are bigoted for their views.
As I have said before in other debates, people do not expect simple solutions to complex problems but they do expect people such as us to be motivated by the kinds of simple values that any decent, upstanding citizen instinctively shares. We evidence that to them by how we do our job, which must include listening and showing that we understand their experience of the problem that only we have the power to fix.
The travesty of our collective response to the public’s demand that we—the whole of Parliament—get a grip on illegal immigration is that, time and again, convinced that we know better, we have chosen to stand alongside those who enter our country illegally and about whom we know nothing over our fellow citizens who are affected by our decisions and who we rely on to pay their taxes, abide by the law and generally keep the country afloat. When it comes to immigration, our repeated efforts to thwart what the majority have voted for are the clearest representation of the division between insiders and outsiders that led to Brexit and all the other democratic shocks that have since followed. That a majority of Members of this House persist in obstructing at every and any opportunity all measures to deal with illegal immigration shows voters that we have learned nothing and nothing has changed.
To those who argue that a majority do not support this Bill, I argue that it is hardly surprising that people who want tougher action to prevent illegal immigration are losing faith in our ability to succeed. We have done nothing to show that we want to. To be clear, it is normal for people who are angry and want us to clamp down hard on illegal migration to be at the same time welcoming of those who come to this country via approved schemes. My friends and family in Beeston Rylands, the area where I grew up, and which has recently become home to hundreds of people from Hong Kong, are testimony to that.
Whether or not the Rwanda scheme is implemented, it will likely do little to change the Conservative Party’s prospects come the next general election. That is not why I support the Bill and doing whatever it takes to deter people from attempting to enter our country illegally. For me, this is about our duty to deliver what people voted for, regardless of our own politics. The fact that we are having to consider a Bill that is causing so much angst among noble Lords is, in my view, a result of our collective failure.
People go on about populism and populist politicians and how they need to be counteracted. Perhaps those same people should consider why people are pushed towards populism and populist politicians in the first place. Unless we start listening and taking seriously what the majority of voters want, and work together to improve conditions for them—because they are the people who uphold all that we as a country say we stand for—we should not be surprised if they deliver for us yet more electoral shocks.
Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)
My Lords, I begin with an anecdote that has some tangential connection with what the noble Baroness has just said. In 1988, when I was minuting Baroness Thatcher’s meetings, I minuted a meeting discussing the Immigration Act 1988, which required polygamous immigrants to choose which of their wives they wanted to have with them. She listened and nodded it through, and then said: “Why do we always discuss second-order and third-order issues but never the bigger issues? We in this country have never had a big, real discussion about the level of net immigration, legal and illegal. It’s the biggest change we’ve had over the last 30 years but we’ve never put it to the electorate, heard their views or explained to them the policy that we’ve followed”. I thought today, as I listened to the Minister’s introduction, that that is also true of this Bill. It is an important part of immigration policy but not the biggest. The biggest issue is what is in the 2019 manifesto, which is bringing down the net level of immigration. There is no context for the Bill in that way. It is difficult politically because it takes in issues such as NHS manpower and social care, but none the less it is where the real issues lie. This is a kind of hectic, frantic displacement activity to distract attention from the big issues.
When I was Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, we had a big discussion in 1996 about world trends in migration. It was a disturbing discussion and we agreed that there was a coming storm. This is not a new problem; Governments have had decades to get ready for it. We discussed all sorts of things, some of which are not relevant now, including whether we should continue to have a border control policy rather than something like the French ID cards, and there are big issues there that need public discussion. Someone mentioned third-party safe countries, but that was dismissed pretty rapidly on the grounds that you would never find a safe country now. So I find myself looking at this Bill thinking, “Here we are, experimenting with that conclusion”.
I am opposed to the Bill. We have heard some very powerful speeches, which I support. I hope that, in Committee—I think we will have to go through Committee; I do not think we will pass the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord German—we can pursue some sort of amendment requiring the Government not to activate the Act until the Supreme Court has certified that Rwanda is safe. I think there is scope there for some sort of deal—you can phrase that as you want.
In the meantime, I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First, would he please give a reply to my noble friend Lord Kerr about why exactly the Rwanda option is considered likely to be an effective deterrent? What is going on in the mind of the imaginary immigrant who, at the channel, suddenly changes his mind and stays in France? What is it that is putting him or her off—after they have been through mountain ranges, planes, wars, famine, deserts and goodness knows what—taking one small final risk before they get to their desired objective, the UK? What is it about the Rwanda option that is likely to put them off? We need to get inside the mind of the imaginary immigrant.
Secondly, I am deeply disturbed by the constitutional implications of the Bill, which have been set out far more adequately by others. I would like to know the limits in the Government’s mind of this new power—I think it is new—to declare fact by legislation, even where the facts are untrue. For instance, would it allow the Government to pass or propose a Bill stating that every returning officer in a general election must conclusively treat every vote for the Labour candidate as a vote for the Conservative candidate, or the other way around if you wish? You cannot use legislation to tell lies, and this is a lie in the sense that nobody knows whether or not Rwanda is safe. This is a very worrying innovation.
Finally, does the Minister think that Ministers should be able to instruct civil servants not to comply with international law? I would like answers to those three questions.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, with his vast experience of Whitehall and the formation of policy.
I want to concentrate on Clause 5 and a legal issue at the very heart of the Bill: whether a Minister should be able to refuse to abide by an interim order of the European Court of Human Rights, made under its Rule 39 procedure. The president of the Strasbourg court, in a media interview given only last week, asserted that her court has the power to grant interim relief and that member states have an obligation to comply. However, the contrary position had been powerfully presented only the previous evening by Professor Ekins, giving the 37th Atkin lecture in this city.
The present Rule 39 dates from 2013 and provides that the full court or a single duty judge may
“indicate to the parties any interim measure which it considers should be adopted”.
That does not sound like a legal obligation, and that is for a simple reason. The 1950 convention contains no provision for a single judge, or even the full court, to grant interim relief to any person. That omission was not an oversight. There was an attempt in 1950 to give the court such a power, and that attempt was rejected. On every subsequent attempt to give the court that power, the member states have refused.
That is not to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said, that a power to grant interim orders might not be useful, sensible or desirable, but that is not the question. The question is whether the court has that power, and the member states repeatedly decided that it should not. For a time, the Strasbourg court agreed that it did not have a power to grant interim relief. It so ruled authoritatively in 1991, and ruled to the same effect a decade later, in 2001. However, in 2005, the Strasbourg court performed a jurisdictional U-turn. It held that, by failing to comply with an interim measure ordered under Rule 39 to prevent a deportation, Turkey had breached Article 34—that is the article which provides that member states must not hinder the right of an individual to access the court. Perhaps that case was rightly decided on its own facts, although I doubt it. If the deportation was a breach of Article 34 then whether there was a breach of Rule 39 as well does not really make any difference. That decision became the slender basis for the court to assert, in a later case in 2009, that any non-compliance with a Rule 39 order necessarily also amounted to a breach of the convention.
Why the change of heart by the court in 2005? It appears to be what one might call judicial envy: the International Court of Justice had held a few years earlier, in 2001, that states had to abide by its interim measures, and it seems that the ECHR court considered that what was good enough for The Hague was also good for Strasbourg. But there is a critical difference. Article 41 of the statute establishing the International Court of Justice specifically provides for “provisional measures”. In other words, the ICJ statute contains in terms precisely the power that the member states had consistently refused to agree to give to the Strasbourg court.
As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, explained, there are also severe procedural problems with the approach that the Strasbourg court takes. Those problems are not my concern this evening; I welcome the fact that the Strasbourg court is trying to address those procedural problems. But none of that addresses the underlying jurisprudential issue, which is whether the Strasbourg court has the legal power to issue binding interim relief in the first place.
In the absence of locating that power in the convention itself, it has been suggested that, over the years, state practice has given the court this power. I do not find that argument persuasive. I do not have the time now, but that state practice is neither uniform nor consistent. The details are set out between pages 35 and 41 of Professor Ekins’s paper on this topic for Policy Exchange, which repays reading in any event. I am sure that we will come back to it in Committee.
So far as the UK specifically is concerned, we have said, rightly and for good political reasons, that compliance with Rule 39 orders is our usual policy. All other things being equal, so it should be. But accepting compliance as our usual policy is quite different from accepting a Rule 39 direction as a legal obligation, which we should not do, because it is not.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, my noble friends Lord German and Lord Thomas told us that we have a Bill in front of us, which the Government are asking us to support, which compels decision-makers to treat as fact things that have already been found to be false and to bar courts and tribunals from considering any evidence or arguments to the contrary. I have listened carefully to every contribution in this debate, and they have not been contradicted.
In addition, these Benches cannot support a Bill which states in Clause 1 that both Houses of Parliament consider a country to be safe when, actually, one House of Parliament last week conclusively stated we cannot yet make that judgment and refused to do so. It is not only that we are asked to consider alternative facts for Rwanda; we are now being asked to legislate a false record of our own votes. But we are not alone in saying that we cannot make that judgment about Rwanda: so did the Supreme Court; as we heard, so did the Home Office officials who, since the Government said that Rwanda should only be considered a safe country, have themselves determined that Rwanda is unsafe for four of its nationals to whom we have given asylum, while the Home Office was drafting this Bill to determine Rwanda safe. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is indeed the case.
The Government have said that the treaty addresses the Supreme Court’s concerns but are now asking us to bar the Supreme Court from judging whether it does. These Benches reject that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, said at the start that the Supreme Court used out-of-date information when it came to its judgment, but we know, and he knows, that the Supreme Court gave considerable weight to the UNHCR, which just this month concluded again that the UK-Rwanda arrangements are
“incompatible with the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention”.
The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law told us that, fundamentally,
“Safety is a factual question which cannot be conclusively determined in advance, for all cases, by the legislature. Enacting a conclusive deeming of Rwanda as a safe country is a legislative usurpation of the judicial function”.
We agree.
Some in this debate, such as the noble Lords, Lord Dobbs and Lord Hannan, have said that they have to support the Bill because, alas, Opposition parties are not in power. There is a ready solution to their quandary, of course.
An alternative argument from the Government Benches came from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, who said that the Bill is “the only thing to do”. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, quoted Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll also said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”. I say with great respect to my friend Annabel—the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie—that we are not going to follow her on that road.
Some noble Lords raised the constitutional issue of our voting today, or
“defying the will of the people”,
as the Prime Minister said. Let us deal with the “will of the people” thing first. This is where the Prime Minister has determined that any piece of his legislation emanating from the Government, a government Bill, is “the will of the people” and therefore must be passed. He said it to us about this one, and we have had many Ministers and advisers from the Commons at the Bar just to make sure that we were aware of it. However, there is a wee flaw in this argument as, according to the Hansard Society, in the last Session of Parliament the Government themselves defied the will of the people by withdrawing a whopping 10% of their own legislative programme, or six Bills, four of which had actually been in the 2022 Queen’s Speech. So, if the Government themselves are defiant of the will of the people to such an extent, we are being modest in suggesting that just this one should be withdrawn.
The second argument concerns voting on Second Reading. This is unusual, of course, as my noble friend Lord German said, but it is not unheard of. In 2000, the Criminal Justice Bill was rejected at Second Reading in this House. On that occasion, my noble friends joined the Conservatives and some Cross-Bench Peers in voting the Bill down at Second Reading in this House. Then, as my noble friend indicated, in 2011 on the Health and Social Care Bill, Labour voted against a Bill that had just passed Second Reading in the House of Commons. I respect him greatly—I am not sure whether he is in his place—but the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, intervened on my noble friend to complain about that process, forgetting that he voted in that Division, as did five of his colleagues on the Labour Benches who have spoken this evening. All three parties and many on the Cross Benches—including 20 on that Bill, I say to my friend the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull—have sincerely made a decision to vote on Second Reading, so that really is not an issue for this evening.
Others have referred to the Salisbury/Addison convention. I am not an expert like the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, but even if the Bill got close to being anything like what was in the 2019 Government manifesto, these Benches have never adhered to that convention. Since the Bill was not in the 2019 Conservative manifesto, it might be worth reminding ourselves briefly, regarding immigration, what was. Page 20 had an
“Australian-style points-based immigration system”,
with the commitment that
“There will be fewer lower-skilled migrants and overall numbers will come down”.
The result? The ONS estimates that net migration to the UK was 745,000 in 2022, up from 184,000 in 2019, with overall numbers at a record high. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, was in Cabinet then, and I and others feel his pain and regret for failure—we felt that in his contribution, but he admitted it, so that is to be welcomed. Also on page 20 was the brightest-and-best visa. Remember that? That was when the UK was going to be catnip for the world’s global talent through the global talent visa. The result? Three applications in two years.
Page 21 is where it gets very worrying:
“We are committed to the Windrush compensation scheme”.
It has taken my noble friend Lady Benjamin and others in this House to be tireless campaigners on this, given the delays and inaction from the Government. The tragic result has been that, four years on, over 50 people have died before receiving recompense.
The overall record on the wider management of immigration is not much better. Actually, it is worse. According to Home Office figures, in 2013 the then Government returned 21,000 migrants voluntarily, but this fell to 4,000 in 2021. For those who had no right to be in the UK, the Government in 2012 returned 15,000 people, but in 2021 that had shrunk to 2,700.
The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, “We need this Bill because we cannot wait”. Well, on these Benches we have been impatient for action on this for years, and the Government have not acted.
It was not just us complaining: the independent review by the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration in 2019 warned of consequences of poor data sharing and low morale among Home Office staff. The warnings were unheeded. I make a personal plea this evening: if we heard a contribution this evening with a warning we should heed, it was that from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who is a moral and intellectual guardian of our constitution.
But the Government now seek to present the whole issue as being just for those seeking asylum. We know that there is a much lower share of failed asylum seekers as part of returnees: 8% in 2021, compared with 2010, when it was 23%. So we know that those arriving here, no matter how they arrive, have a higher cause, and the Government have considered that cause and given refuge to them—not under 1951 rules but under 2020 rules.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said, “The Government have been blocked all along from having this solution”. The Government have had every single migration measure that they wanted passed. It is that side’s issue, not ours.
The Home Office itself shows us that those seeking refuge are a smaller part of the problem than over a decade ago, but we know that returns are a much bigger problem because of the Government’s own mismanagement. Now, £290 million was spent, with a further £78 million on a notice for tender, last autumn—for nothing, as the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, said.
We now have a policy that is meant to be a deterrent, but the noble Lord, Lord Green, was right: how successful will it be if a Government issues a press release in the morning saying that their migration policies are a deterrent but then admit in the afternoon that, without a face-to-face interview, they gave 12,000 refugees right to remain, and potentially right to work, for five years? How that will that be successful?
A perfectly legal and acceptable returns agreement with Albania is working, but the Government have failed to agree other legal return and resettlement agreements. These are the very agreements that the noble Lord, Lord Bellamy, said in the Illegal Migration Bill proceedings would be necessary, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, said would be desirable. But the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, told me they were not a silver bullet, and we have not seen any progress since.
We are not alone in highlighting the issues. The National Audit Office report on immigration enforcement ended with these words:
“The Department’s success in meeting its mission to prevent illegal immigration through greater compliance with immigration laws is unclear”.
On the Bill,
“the government’s position depends on the treaty to sufficiently conclude there is no risk of Rwanda deviating from its terms”,
but the Supreme Court found that
“obligations which Rwanda has previously breached”
were already contained in its agreements and “in binding international law”. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, said, we do not then set aside the ability to question this in any other treaty that we have signed, including a trade treaty, as we said. Not only that, but we have not made any concerns unchallengeable.
Parliament is being asked to judge Rwanda safe in primary legislation in perpetuity, but the Government’s own admission is that it will be in that situation only when the treaty is fully operational. But the Minister opening this debate was not able to answer the simplest question from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile: when will it be operational? The Minister told us that we must have “no doubt Rwanda is to be a safe country”—but he had plenty of doubt in answering when.
So how will we in Parliament know? We have been told time and time again that treaty making and treaty keeping are prerogative powers, not parliamentary ones. Now, apparently, those are our powers. Given that a key part of the Supreme Court’s ruling was that Rwanda had agreements already in place but did not adhere to them, how will we know?
The Government say it will be through a monitoring committee, but the committee in Article 15 of the treaty has no powers of enforcement: it can simply report to the Joint Committee, which has only advisory powers itself.
Before I close, I will pick up the point about trafficking made by my noble friend Lady Northover and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. In 2022, 2,658 people who arrived via irregular routes were successfully referred through the national referral mechanism for report. However, the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons 2023 report on Rwanda, which the Home Office cites as a gold standard and operates on the basis of, said that the Government of Rwanda
“did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas. The government continued to lack specialized SOPs to adequately screen for trafficking among vulnerable populations and did not refer any victims to services. The government provided support to and coordinated with the March 23 Movement … armed group, which forcibly recruited and used children … Scarce resources, lack of training, limited capacity, and conflation of human trafficking with other crimes hindered law enforcement efforts”.
So we are now expected to send a woman trafficked by a British gang, who arrived undocumented and cannot even claim that she has been trafficked here in the UK, to another country which will somehow operate a system which the TIP report has said does not even meet minimum standards.
Before I close, I will pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, about the UK’s characterisation of Rwanda and how we are seeing our relationship through the lens of vilification and ignoring development partnership. Well, it is the Government who say that being sent to Rwanda is a deterrent, not the Opposition. Even before the MoU was agreed, I raised my alarm in this Chamber that the Government had slashed development partnership support from £85 million in 2018 to less than £16 million. Now the financial partnership relationship with the Government of Rwanda is almost exclusively around migration. This relationship with Rwanda is being seen through the Government’s lens, not ours, and I regret that.
I will close by quoting Lord Williams of Mostyn, who opened a debate in 2000 when the House decided to defeat a Government at Second Reading:
“I recognise that most of those who will speak tonight are my personal and professional friends and that they will feel unable to support the Bill … I recognise that their motives are entirely honourable. It is not their motives I question but their conclusions”.—[Official Report, 28/9/2000; col. 961.]
Equally, I do not question any noble Lord’s motives for voting this evening, but these Benches have concluded, for all the reasons that my noble friends and colleagues have given, that this Bill should go no further.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and join the debate that has been going on through most of the afternoon and well into the evening. I will start with the context of this particular debate. For the avoidance of any doubt, this is not a debate between those who think we should control our borders, have an immigration policy and stop the small boats and all the rest of us who do not think we should have a policy on any of those things. Everyone accepts that there is an issue around all those challenges. The context of this debate is: what is the right way to go about dealing with that particular problem? That is what is before us today. Getting to a point where you are either in favour of stopping the small boats or not will do nothing for the legislative progress that we all wish to make.
I want to say from the outset that we opposed this Bill at every stage in the other place and that we continue to oppose the Bill and the measures contained within it. We do not think they will work, we think they are unaffordable and we think they raise real questions about the rule of law. But let me also say that we as His Majesty’s Opposition also believe that it is not appropriate for us to support and pass a fatal amendment at this stage, so we will not do that. We do not think that is the appropriate way for us to act.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has laid it out, as he is entitled to do, and said that he respects everybody’s opinion. We also respect everybody’s opinion. However, we do not believe that, at this stage, it is appropriate for the House of Lords to do that. We believe that the revision and scrutiny of legislation—the traditional role of the House—is the way forward for us.
I gently say to noble Lords opposite who remind me of the constitutional proprieties with respect to this, that if there is to be a change of Government, I look forward to them failing to block or get in the way of or unnecessarily delay a number of Labour Bills that will be brought before your Lordships, including the re-establishment of employment rights from day one. I look forward to noble Lords welcoming that with open arms, and not wishing to delay it at all, and to voting for votes at 16. However, the serious point is that there is a proper role for this House, and we believe that that is to scrutinise and amend but not to block.
The point of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is one that we take on board. The opinion we want to change, and the battle and vote we want to win, is at a general election, where we can vote for a change of Government. We will do whatever we can to win that battle.
Here we are again. Some noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, have pointed out that this House seems to be getting in the way of immigration legislation, preventing the Government tackling a very real problem. I did not notice that with the Nationality and Borders Act, which passed two years ago. That was supposed to solve the problem and nobody blocked that. We made suggestions, but nobody in this House blocked it. Only last year we had the Illegal Migration Act, and that was supposed to solve all the problems. Nobody blocked that, but we passed amendments, gave opinions and said that things needed to be done. As I have said from this Front Bench for His Majesty’s Opposition, we do not intend to block this particular Bill; that is not our proposition.
However, former Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries, perhaps the current Home Secretary and the current Minister, and certainly the previous Immigration Minister, have all questioned whether the Bill is workable. Robert Jenrick MP said that it is both “legally flawed” and “operationally flawed”. That is not just anybody; that is a senior member of the governing party, who has got other aspirations, should it work out for him.
This raises a number of questions. Some £400 million has been spent and not a single asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda. What is really remarkable is that the Rwandan Government say that they will take a couple of hundred asylum seekers. What on earth are we doing spending all this time debating Rwanda when it will be dealing with a couple of hundred of asylum seekers? Perhaps the Minister could tell us what will happen to the other 27,700 that came in small boats in 2023. Where are they going? How does the Rwanda policy work in respect of that? That is if they can find them—we now understand that the Government have lost thousands of them and do not know where they are. The Rwanda Bill we have here really beggars belief.
The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and other noble Lords made the point that it is quite astonishing to read in Clause 2 that:
“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, in questioning the noble Lord, Lord Faulks—who may be right; I am not a lawyer—if the Supreme Court makes a finding of fact, seeking to change that by legislation does not seem to be constitutionally the right way forward. As other noble Lords have said, what else could be changed because a finding of fact by the Supreme Court was found not to be consistent with what you wanted it to say?
It is made even more worrying and troubling—and this is a Conservative Government; the party of law and order—by Clause 2(3), which tells us that that any court must ignore any appeal that is brought forward
“on the grounds that the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country”.
That is quite astonishing; our own courts cannot determine the rights and wrongs of legislation under this Bill. Even a Government under Margaret Thatcher might have found it difficult to believe that some of this was actually happening.
Various clauses disapply the rule of international law and provide for the disapplication of the European Court of Human rights and various other international bodies. There are some who say that it does not matter that we stand accused of breaking international law, or that the UNHCR says that the Rwanda Bill and the treaty are inconsistent with the refugee convention, the European Court of Human Rights and international law. We are told by some that this is of no consequence. However, many noble Lords have talked about the importance of our global standing and international reputation. I think that matters. If the Government are saying that it does not matter, and that the public do not care, I am quite happy to go to the country and argue that Britain’s place in the world matters, that our global reputation matters, and that our abidance by and adherence to international law matters.
If we do not think international law matters, what are we doing in Ukraine? What are we doing in the Red Sea with respect to the Houthis? What are we doing with respect to China and its policies on Taiwan and the South Pacific? If international law and conventions do not matter, and you can disregard them when you want, what does that say for the international rules-based order? Our country, of which we are all proud, is a country that should be and is right at the forefront of standing up for that, as a senior member of the United Nations, NATO and so on. I say that that does matter. Some say that that is irrelevant to the British people and to public opinion; I say that it is not.
There will be amendments. We read that the Government have included in Clause 1(3) many of the obligations that they expect the Government of Rwanda to take up to ensure that it is a safe country. However, it says that Rwanda has
“agreed to fulfil the following obligations.”
As noble Lord and noble Baroness after noble Lord and noble Baroness have said in this debate, we have no way of knowing whether these obligations are actually going to be fulfilled. The Bill says that they will be but we do not know. It will be an act of faith; it will be a belief that it is going to happen. We hope it will happen, but there is no mechanism in the Bill by which we can ensure that we hold the Rwandan Government to account and know that the things that we want to happen will happen. I suspect that the amendments will seek to address that particular point and ask whether there is some way to make a reality of the various things that have been put in the Bill.
As I said, there is no difference between any of us in wanting to deal with this problem. The Labour Party is continually goaded on the basis that, if His Majesty’s Government continually say that we have no plan, then sooner or later people will think there is no plan. It may be that noble Lords do not agree with what we are saying, but time after time my noble friend Lady Smith and I, and many others, have said that there should be tough measures to tackle the criminal gangs and that we should establish new agreements with other countries. We believe in the establishment of safe and legal routes. We believe that the asylum system and process should be speeded up, so that applications are dealt with speedily and effectively. We also believe that it is necessary, as the most reverend Primate continually points out, for problems to be dealt with at source, through a new way of looking at this together, so that there is a sharing of the problem.
That is the plan. If people do not agree with it, they should argue about it and say it will not work, in the same way that we say the Government’s plan will not work. But I am quite happy to go and put before people that five-point plan as a better way of dealing with those problems than what the Government have laid before us.
We need to ensure that, above all, we have a system that is built on our traditions of fairness, openness and recognising that this issue needs co-operation and sharing, not the offloading of responsibility to others. It also needs to be a system rooted in a system of international law and respect—a system our great country helped to establish. The Bill deserves to be amended to protect those principles as far as possible.
The Government will get their Bill, as I say, even if amended. But the reward will be not only an unworkable system but one that comes with a cost to our international standing and reputation. Now is not the time for us to panic or ditch our principles but to put forward an asylum system and an immigration and asylum law that will work and be based on the principles of which this country has always been proud.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken today and shared their thoughts on this legislation. We have heard many thoughtful speeches from many noble Lords, but I welcome particularly the valued insights of my noble friends Lady Goldie, Lady Verma, Lord Wolfson, Lord Dobbs, Lord Horam and Lord Murray. It is clear from across the Benches that there is common ground in needing to find a solution to the challenges we face. Just for the record, of course I agree with the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on the worth of individuals.
Stopping illegal migration is an important issue for both the public and the Government. Parliament and the British people want an end to illegal migration, as my noble friend Lady Stowell powerfully argued; therefore, we need a deterrent. As noble Lords will have heard me say last week, we made progress towards stopping the boats but we must do more to break the business model of the criminal gangs and deter illegal migrants. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that there is evidence of deterrence—and that it works. I am also grateful to my noble friends Lord Udny-Lister and Lord Horam for reminding us of Albania and the Australian example.
The dangerous channel crossings are often made by young, fit men in search of better life opportunities. Many of those have travelled through safe countries to reach the UK, as my noble friend Lord Hannan set out, and they have paid substantial amounts of money to the criminal gangs to facilitate their journey. As my noble friend Lady Goldie highlighted, these criminal gangs could not care less about the safety of migrants; they care only about the money. I think noble Lords are in agreement that we cannot let this continue.
The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and other noble Lords were right to place the Bill in its moral context, but proceeding with it is the moral course, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell powerfully noted. We must put a stop to the dangerous channel crossings that are putting lives at risk and to this mass trafficking of people in order to save lives. That is the humane thing to do, and it is the fair thing to do, as my noble friend Lady Verma argued.
By delivering our key partnership, relocating those with no right to be in the UK to Rwanda and not allowing them to stay in the UK, we will deter people from making these journeys and we will save those lives. We also need to ensure that we are meeting our international obligations, so the treaty the Home Secretary signed in December last year sets out to Parliament and the courts why Rwanda is, and will remain, safe for those relocated there. The Bill makes it unambiguously clear that Rwanda is safe and will prevent the courts second-guessing Parliament’s assessments.
The Prime Minister has been clear that he will not let a foreign court block flights. We simply cannot let Strasbourg dictate our border security and stop us establishing a deterrent.
I turn to the matters raised in the debate, including the points addressed in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord German. A number of noble Lords asked why the legislation seeks to confirm that Rwanda is safe when the treaty simply sets out the aspirations of what should happen, and the measures are not in place. The Supreme Court recognised that changes may be delivered in future which could address the conclusions it came to. We have been working closely with Rwanda on these changes. The partnership with Rwanda is now set out in a new treaty, binding in international law, with specific provisions to address the court’s findings.
Since the evidential position considered by the UK domestic courts in summer 2022, we have obtained further specific information, evidence and assurances from the Government of Rwanda explicitly to address the challenges raised by the claimants and the UNHCR in the litigation, and the findings of the Supreme Court, following its judgment in November. This primarily takes the form of detailed standard operating procedures, reviews of contracts for services that the Government of Rwanda have procured—for example, with accommodation, facilities and medical insurance companies—and new and revised training programmes.
The noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Coaker, mentioned this all in the context of the UNHCR. Rwanda has successfully hosted over 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers in collaboration with the UNHCR and other organisations. That is not including the nearly 2,000 supported in Rwanda by the emergency transit mechanism to evacuate to safety refugees and asylum seekers trapped in or fleeing civil war in Libya. That is also supported by the EU, which will support the operation of the ETM until 2026, and the EU announced a further €22 million support package for it. As recently as December 2023, the UNHCR evacuated 153 asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda, and the European ambassador to Rwanda described the scheme as:
“A crucial life-saving initiative to evacuate people facing major threats and inhumane conditions in Libya to safety in Rwanda, It is a significant example of African solidarity and of partnership with the European Union. We are grateful to the Government of Rwanda for hosting these men, women and children”.
Regarding our agreement with Rwanda, we have taken crucial steps forward to respond to the Supreme Court findings, which recognise that changes could be delivered to address its conclusions. Both the Court of Appeal and the High Court found that the principle of relocating individuals to safer countries for their protection claims to be assessed was consistent with the UK’s obligations under the refugee convention, and the Supreme Court did not disturb this.
It is imperative that we continue to work at pace to stop the boats, save lives and break the business models of the evil criminal gangs. The fundamental accusation that Rwanda is incapable of making good decisions and is somehow not committed to this partnership is wrong, as my noble friend Lady Verma pointed out. I disagree with that. Rwandans, perhaps more than most, understand the importance of providing protection to those needing it. At this point, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that the monitoring of all this is of course dealt with by the treaty, which we debated at some length last week.
I turn to the early intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on the Motion set down by this House not to ratify the treaty. Your Lordships will be aware that a resolution made in this House on the treaty does not necessarily stop its progress. The International Agreements Committee report did not fundamentally find anything objectionable in the treaty itself. The report was about implementation, not any flaws in the treaty. The treaty will therefore follow the usual process with regard to scrutiny and ratification. Ultimately, the Minister responsible can decide to issue a statement declaring that the treaty should be ratified in any event, and the Home Secretary will confirm the Government’s position in due course.
The noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Purvis, also asked about the timings of the Bill. This reflects an answer I also gave last week. Both the treaty and the Bill need to progress their respective paths through Parliament in the usual way before they can be ratified or receive royal assent respectively. Rwanda will also need to adjust its legislation and ratify the treaty on its side. Once these things have happened, the Bill and the treaty will be operable.
The noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and Lord German, asked about the Government’s safe and legal routes. The UK is a generous country. We are proud of that fact, and we are proud of the fact that we have helped so many refugees to safety. The Government have made it clear that we will continue to provide sanctuary to those most in need, but we can act only within our capabilities. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that it is not about “I’m all right, Jack”; it is about capability and capacity. While the compassion of the UK is unlimited, our capacity is not. Local authorities have played a vital role in delivery of our safe and legal routes, but they are feeling the pressures caused by both legal and illegal migration. We can bring people over on safe and legal routes only when local authorities are able to receive them. We remain committed to looking at new or expanded safe and legal routes to the UK for those most vulnerable, but only once we have drastically reduced the unacceptable number of illegal, dangerous and simply unnecessary small boat crossings, which are putting a huge amount of pressure on our public services.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
Perhaps the Minister can answer the simple question which I put early in this debate. If that is true, why do the Government not accept that those who are accorded refugee status through the process that this Government wish to apply in Rwanda should be allowed back into the United Kingdom?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I will come back to that.
On 20 October 2023, the Home Office launched the consultation on the cap on safe and legal routes, to understand local authority capacity. This consultation closed on 9 January 2024. Home Office officials are currently reviewing those responses and are planning further engagement with the respondents through a series of regional dialogues to validate responses and to determine a capacity estimate. We will produce a summary of the consultation by the spring and, in summer 2024, the Government will lay a statutory instrument in Parliament which will then need to be debated and voted on, before the cap comes into force in 2025. Therefore, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, we have to wait for all those things to take effect. I have no doubt that this matter will be up for debate again after 2025.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Brinton, asked how we can deem Rwanda to be safe if we are granting Rwandan nationals refugee status in the UK. Rwanda is a safe country, which is what this Bill asserts. The meaning of a “safe country” is set out in Clause 1(5). However, our obligation when an asylum claim is lawfully lodged and admitted to the UK asylum process for consideration is to carry out an individualised assessment of a person’s particular circumstances. If, after that assessment, there is found to be a reason why a person, based on these individual circumstances, cannot be returned to their country of origin, then it is correct that we grant them protection. It is important to stress that people from many different nationalities apply for asylum in the UK and this includes—
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, where, under Clause 4, an individual is seeking the court’s ruling on whether their individual circumstances might give them a reason to not be sent to Rwanda, might that be because they are able to argue that “It may generally be safe but it is not safe for me”? Will they be able to argue that, because they are homosexual or ill, it is not safe for them?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, quoting from the Bill in answer to the noble Baroness, it is
“the person in question, based on compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s particular individual circumstances (rather than on the grounds that the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country in general)”.
That is pretty straightforward. It is important to stress that people from many—
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I asked what the grounds were for people from Rwanda being given asylum here. What was their well-grounded fear of persecution about?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, each individual case is different. I do not know the particular circumstances.
It is important to stress that people from many different nationalities apply for asylum in the UK. This includes nationals from some of our closest European neighbours and other safe countries around the world. That is why there are a small number of cases where we have granted asylum to individuals from countries that we would otherwise consider safe. This is a reflection of our system working. An individual claim is not a reflection of the country as a whole. This process also reflects the safeguards which the Bill provides to individuals in Clause 4, which I have just read out. Each case will be considered on its individual merits by caseworkers who receive extensive training. All available evidence is carefully and sensitively considered in the light of published country information, but I cannot comment on the specifics of individual cases.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, asked what support will be available for those who are particularly vulnerable. Rwandan officials will have due regard to the psychological and physical signs of vulnerability of all relocated persons at any stage of the application and integration process. Screening interviews to identify vulnerabilities will be conducted by protection officers in Rwanda who have received the relevant training and are equipped to handle competently safeguarding referrals. Interpreters will be available as required to ensure that relocated individuals can make their needs known. All interviews will be conducted with sensitivity for the individual’s well-being.
The Government of Rwanda have processes in place to safeguard relocated individuals with a range of vulnerabilities, including those concerning mental health, gender-based violence and addiction. All relocated individuals will receive appropriate protection and assistance according to their needs, including referral to specialist services, as appropriate, to protect their welfare.
Article 13 of the treaty makes specific provision that Rwanda will have regard to information provided about a relocated individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking and shall take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
How will they know? The Illegal Migration Act prevents someone who may well have been trafficked from even starting the process of claiming that they have been trafficked here, so how will the Rwandans know? We are not collecting that information.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, as I have just said, the treaty makes specific provision that Rwanda will have regard to information provided about a relocated individual by the United Kingdom.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I am grateful, but that is prohibited in the Illegal Migration Act.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I will have to write to the noble Lord on that very specific point.
These are also detailed in the standard operating procedures as part of the evidence pack released on 11 January in support of the Bill. Furthermore, the UK is providing additional expertise to support the development of Rwanda’s capacity to safeguard vulnerable persons.
The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, asked about the treatment of LGBT persons, if sent to Rwanda. Rwandan legal protection for LGBT rights is generally considered more progressive than that of neighbouring countries. The constitution of Rwanda includes a broad prohibition of discrimination and does not criminalise or discriminate against sexual orientation in law or policy. As set out in paragraph 36 of the Government’s published policy statement, the constitution of Rwanda prohibits, at article 16, discrimination of any kind based on, among other things, ethnic origin, family or ancestry, clan, skin colour or race, sex, region, economic categories, religion or faith, opinion, fortune, cultural differences, language, economic status, and physical or mental disability.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about unaccompanied children deemed to be adults being relocated to Rwanda. As the treaty sets out in Article 3(4), we will not seek to relocate unaccompanied individuals who are deemed to be under 18 to Rwanda. Any unaccompanied individual who, subsequent to relocation, is deemed by a court or tribunal in the UK to either be under 18 or to be treated temporarily as being under 18, shall be returned to the UK.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I am sure the Minister wants to be accurate. Is it not the case that he should recognise that homosexuality is illegal in Rwanda? The penal code criminalises same-sex sexual activity and individuals found guilty of engaging in such activity can face imprisonment. If that is right, is Rwanda really a safe country?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid I am not familiar with that part. However, I have just read out the relevant clause in the Bill that deals with specific individual circumstances.
Any person who has been relocated to Rwanda but who subsequently receives a court or tribunal order from the UK that they must be treated as a minor, and are therefore a child who is in Rwanda without a parent or guardian, shall be provided with suitable accommodation and support that meets all the requirements for families with children set out within the treaty under paragraphs 1.1 and 1.2.2 of Part 1 of Annex A to the treaty until the child is returned to the UK.
With regard to concerns about the impacts of the policy on children treated as adults, I reassure noble Lords that there are safeguards in place to prevent that happening. The Home Office will treat an individual claiming to be a child as an adult without conducting further inquiries only if two officers—one of at least chief immigration officer grade or equivalent—have separately determined that the individual’s physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are “significantly over 18 years” of age. If doubt remains about whether the claimant is an adult or a child, they are treated as a child for immigration purposes until a further assessment of their age by a local authority or the National Age Assessment Board. This will usually entail a careful, holistic age assessment, known as a Merton-compliant age assessment. Only once this assessment is complete could the individual then be treated as an adult if found to be so.
Many noble Lords have asked whether this Bill will comply with international law. Its provisions are consistent with our international law obligations. They retain rights challenge based on compelling evidence of serious and irreversible harm in specific individual circumstances, which will arise in narrow circumstances.
In response to the points made by the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Howarth, I say that the Bill makes it clear that it is only for a Minister of the Crown to determine whether to comply with an interim measure of the Strasbourg court. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Wolfson and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for their comments on this.
I will not get drawn into speculation about hypothetical scenarios, but the internationally binding treaty agreed between the UK and Rwanda contains binding commitments to ensure that the scheme is compliant with international law, including the ECHR. It also makes it clear that domestic courts may not have regard to the existence of any interim measures when considering any domestic application flowing from a decision to relocate a person to Rwanda in accordance with the treaty.
The Permanent Secretary for the Home Office has confirmed that if we receive a Rule 39, instead of deferring removal immediately—as the guidance currently indicates—officials will refer the Rule 39 to the Minister for an immediate decision. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, I say that the Cabinet Office has confirmed that it is the responsibility of civil servants under the Civil Service Code to deliver that decision. Consideration will be on a case-by-case basis depending on the facts. I also remind noble Lords that, as the Government have set out, both the UK and Rwanda are committed to making this partnership work.
As my noble friend Lord Murray set out, the Section 19(1)(b) statement is not specific to one provision; it applies to the Bill as a whole. A statement under Section 19(1)(b) makes it clear, in this instance, that the Home Secretary is not able to state now that the Bill’s provisions are more likely than not compatible with convention rights. There is nothing improper or unprecedented about pursuing Bills with a Section 19(1)(b) statement. It does not mean that the Bill is unlawful or that the Government will necessarily lose any legal challenges on human rights grounds. Parliament clearly intended Section 19(1)(b) to be used as it is included in the Human Rights Act 1998. It is an important measure to safeguard parliamentary sovereignty. Section 19(1)(b) statements have been used by Governments of all stripes before. For example, the Bill that became the Communications Act 2003 included a provision banning paid political advertising on TV. The use in this case recognises the novel and ambitious approach taken by this Bill, and the fact there is room for argument both ways. We are testing the limits but remain satisfied that this Bill is compatible with international law.
The Bill allows decision-makers and the courts to consider claims that Rwanda is unsafe for a person due to their particular individual circumstances, as we have discussed. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London noted, the Bill does not disapply Section 4 on declaration of incompatibility, as this is the only substantive remedy against the conclusive presumption that Rwanda is safe. Retaining DOIs allows the courts to respond to changing circumstances and for this question to be brought back for parliamentary consideration. Of course, the final say on the matter will remain with Parliament and the Government because Section 4(6) of the Human Rights Act makes it clear that a declaration cannot affect the operation or validity of domestic legislation.
The effect of retaining this Section 4 is therefore beneficial in limiting domestic and international legal challenge and, crucially, does not undermine the operation of the Bill, and in doing so reaffirms parliamentary sovereignty. The court could not grant interim relief on the basis of a DOI having been granted because of the clear and unambiguous language of Section 4(6) of the Human Rights Act.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, asked about the impact of the Bill in Northern Ireland. The Bill will apply fully in Northern Ireland in the same way as it does in the rest of the United Kingdom. This is explicit in the Bill and will always be the case, reflecting that immigration policy is a UK-wide matter. Nothing in the Windsor Framework, including Article 2, or the trade continuity agreement affects this. The Bill’s provisions do not diminish the rights and commitments we have made on the convention on human rights in the Belfast agreement. The Government remain fully committed to that agreement in all its parts. The Government are unshakable in their commitment to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and the Bill does not undermine this.
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
Has the noble Lord actually read the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s advice on this matter? Has he taken cognisance of the number of measures he lists which are affected, and the fact it is an obligation under Article 2 of the Windsor Framework?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I have just set out to the noble Baroness, the Government takes a different view to those opinions.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, asked about the costs of this partnership. The spend on the MEDP with Rwanda so far is £240 million. Further funding will be provided to Rwanda once the partnership is operational. Costs and payments will depend on the number of people relocated, the timing of when this happens and the outcomes of individual cases. Spending will continue to be reported as part of annual Home Office reports and accounts in the usual way. Those focusing solely on the costs of this partnership are missing the point. It is incredibly frustrating for the British people and the taxpayer to spend billions to house illegal migrants in hotels. The daily cost of hotels for migrants is £8 million and the cost of the UK’s asylum system has roughly doubled in the last year; it now stands at nearly £4 billion. Criminal smuggling gangs are continuing to turn a profit using small boats. We must bring an end to this.
The Government recognise the extraordinary level of interest in this partnership, and we take our responsibility to be transparent seriously. However, that must be balanced with the nuances of managing our international relationships and respecting commercial sensitivities. We have said we will do what it takes to curb illegal migration and stop the boats. As we explore avenues of doing this, it would be against our direct interests to release all financial information. Costs and payments of course will depend on the number of people relocated, the timing of when this happens, and the outcomes of individual cases. Every individual’s needs are different, and funding will only be provided while an individual remains in Rwanda. Spending will be reported as part of the annual Home Office reports and accounts in the usual way.
I am getting to the end. Noble Lords have asked whether this Bill will, by disapplying international law, have a knock-on impact on wider international treaties and potentially worsen the UK’s relationship with the ECHR. We have a long and diverse history of freedoms in this country, and we are proud of the UK’s heritage and culture on human rights and democracy. But no country has all the answers to global human rights challenges. We continue to engage others about our ongoing journey on these issues—a point made by many noble Lords and emphasised by my noble friend the Foreign Secretary on 16 January.
I am again thankful for all the contributions made to today’s debate. It is absolutely essential that we tackle illegal migration, bring an end to such dangerous channel crossings and save lives. To the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I say that the integrity of our border also matters. I therefore urge noble Lords to support the Government in delivering the partnership with Rwanda, and our wider plans to take control of our borders and stop the boats. These are difficult choices to make with regards to tackling this issue. That is what this Government are doing, and we will continue to do so. The Bill will enable us to stop the boats, and I commend it to the House. I invite noble Lords to reject the amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I have just read a report of the debate from a senior broadcast journalist. He says that the majority of Peers in this House regard this Bill as an “unholy abomination”. Therefore, in order to sort this matter out, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Monday 12th February 2024
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 41-II Second marshalled list for Committee - (12 Feb 2024)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be taking part remotely. I remind the Committee that unless they are leading a group, remote speakers speak after the mover of the lead amendment in a group and may therefore speak to other amendments in the group ahead of Members who tabled them.
Clause 1: Introduction
Amendment 1
Baroness Chakrabarti
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and others in the name of Baroness Chakrabarti to Clause 1, add the purpose of compliance with the rule of law to that of deterrence. The amendments require positive UNHCR advice on the safety of Rwanda to be laid before Parliament before claims for asylum in the UK may be processed in Rwanda.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, we commence the vital work of this Committee with amendments that address a fundamental dispute of fact: that the Government’s attitude to checks, balances and the rule of law now threatens our unwritten constitutional settlement. Having failed to convince our highest court that the Republic of Rwanda is currently safe for asylum seekers and refugees, the Executive seek to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent factual determination, ousting the jurisdiction of domestic courts to reconsider those facts in the light of further developments, including the Rwanda treaty on which the Government rely. The Government further purport to take powers to ignore interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights. Thus, they threaten both the domestic rule of law, especially the separation of powers, and the international rules-based order.
I remind noble Lords not just of the Supreme Court’s decision of 15 November last year but of subsequent reports of your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee, endorsed by an overwhelming vote in your Lordships’ House; of the Constitution Committee, including three former Conservative Ministers and a former No. 10 chief of staff; and now the majority report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I will assume that some members of those committees will speak, so I will leave them fully to outline the clear results of their deliberations.
None the less, as your Lordships overwhelmingly decided to give this Bill a Second Reading, I will approach the task of amendment in the spirit of constitutional compromise, seeking to amend the Bill in line with the Government’s desired policy of offshoring asylum decisions while also seeking to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision and the unequivocal advice of your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee and Constitution Committee—this notwithstanding my personal objection to transporting human beings for processing, which will no doubt be subject to further political and legal scrutiny in the months and years ahead.
For present purposes, I take the Government at their word—even if that word has been put rather belligerently to the Supreme Court and your Lordships’ House. I will assume that the Government do not want to put the Executive of the United Kingdom on a collision course with our Supreme Court or our international legal obligations, so amendments in this group seek to offer a way through the stalemate for people of good will from all sides of your Lordships’ House. Amendments 1, 2, 5 and 34 in my name are supported by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. I have signed Amendments 3 and 7 tabled by the noble Viscount. The noble Lord, Lord German, has Amendments 11 and 12.
Your Lordships’ Constitution Committee warned of a number of concerning trends in the present Government’s approach to our constitution and our courts, which seeks, for example, to disapply the Human Rights Act for particular unpopular groups rather than repeal it wholesale for everyone. I observe another new fashion in adding a lengthy introduction to a relatively short Bill that deems facts changed, making its purposes so clear that the courts should be wary of interpreting the legislation as they might otherwise do. However, since the arrival of this Bill in your Lordships’ House, the Prime Minister has stated—by a press conference, but stated—that his Rwanda Bill was designed to assuage the concerns of the Supreme Court.
Therefore, Amendments 1 and 2 add a secondary but essential purpose to the primary purpose of preventing and deterring what the Government see as unlawful migration. This purpose is to
“ensure compliance with the domestic and international rule of law by providing that no person will be removed to the Republic of Rwanda by or under such provision”
unless two conditions are met. The first condition is that there is advice from the UNHCR that Rwanda is now safe; for example, as a result of the successful implementation of promised reforms and safeguards to the asylum system there. The second condition is that this advice has been laid before both Houses of Parliament.
Now, some may balk at what they regard as a foreign body having any role whatever in the assessment of facts on the ground in Rwanda. However, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights noted, our Supreme Court’s concerns about the lack of safety there were in no small part in the light of unequivocal expert evidence from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with its special expertise and role under the refugee convention.
If the Executive is now asking Parliament to become complicit in overturning findings of fact by our Supreme Court—this is made explicit by Amendments 3 and 4 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—it should at the very least allow Parliament to hear advice from the expert body that the Supreme Court found so authoritative before allowing facts to be deemed as having changed. Accordingly, Amendment 5 replaces the edict that Rwanda “is” safe with that belief that it “may become” so, because it should be our unanimous aspiration that the whole world becomes a safer place for persecuted and displaced people.
Further, as even an independent expert body should never usurp the fact-finding jurisdiction of our courts, especially in dangerous and fast-changing times, Amendment 34 makes it clear that even clear and positive advice from the UNHCR would create only a “rebuttable presumption” that Rwanda is safe. In keeping with earlier legislation, as observed by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, it would not hobble our courts with an absolute conclusion. Yet, if the Government are really so confident that that Rwanda treaty, unlike the refugee convention so long before it, will be implemented so as convincingly to render that country safe, they have nothing to fear from either these amendments or our courts. I beg to move.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, I must begin by apologising for the fact that I was abroad at the time of Second Reading and was therefore not in my place at that time. Much was made at Second Reading of the notion that the Bill in some way contravenes our constitutional principles, is an affront to the separation of powers, and infringes on the power of the judiciary. Those allegations are thoroughly misconceived but they are highly relevant to this amendment.
The plain fact is that we are a parliamentary democracy. That means that Parliament is sovereign and the reason why so many of us cherish that overarching principle is that we attach high importance to something called accountability. Accountability was not a word which featured very large in your Lordships’ debate at Second Reading. The courts are accountable to no one; they proudly proclaim that fact. Many of the bodies to which Parliament has in recent years outsourced some of its responsibilities have little, if any, accountability. But Parliament itself, or at least the other place—the House of Commons, in which I was privileged to serve for 27 years—is truly accountable. It is answerable to the British people at regular intervals and its Members can be summarily dismissed.
There are those who seem uncomfortable with our system and it is indeed true that there has been something of a whittling away at it in recent years. The courts have extended their power. Parliament itself has contributed to it by the outsourcing to which I referred. I often think it is a pity that those who praise these developments failed to come up with some suggested alternatives to parliamentary democracy, but there it is.
These amendments, if passed, would mark a new jump in this process. I ask those who support them to address the question of accountability. To whom is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees accountable? They might say to the General Assembly of the United Nations, perhaps. To whom is that body accountable? Neither the high commissioner nor the General Assembly have any responsibility for securing our borders. They have no responsibility for the safety of those who make the perilous channel crossing. They have no duty to take into account the resentment felt by so many against the sheer unfairness of illegal immigration and the way in which it gives preference not to the most deserving, but merely to those who can afford to pay the people smugglers.
Our elected Government and this Parliament bear those responsibilities, and the House of Commons is directly accountable to the electorate for the way in which those responsibilities are discharged. These amendments would prevent our Government and Parliament discharging those responsibilities. They seek to outsource those responsibilities to an unelected body with no accountability. The acceptance of these amendments would constitute nothing less than an abdication of the responsibilities of government. I note without surprise—
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I do not understand the argument that the noble Lord is making. As I understand the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the responsibility laid on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees would be to advise the Secretary of State. I do not see how that makes him accountable; it would remain the Secretary of State, surely, who was accountable to this Parliament for the decisions that he decided to take in the light of the advice he received.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
I fear not. The easiest way of replying to the noble Lord is to read from the Member’s explanatory statement on the amendment:
“The amendments require positive UNHCR advice on the safety of Rwanda to be laid before Parliament before claims for asylum in the UK may be processed in Rwanda”.
If there is no positive advice from the UNHCR, those claims cannot be processed in Rwanda. I think that will aid the noble Lord’s understanding of what I am saying.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
I think it is perfectly reasonable, if one wants to know the intention of the amendment, to look at the Member’s explanatory statement. That is, indeed, the purpose of the explanatory statement.
I note with interest, but not with surprise, that none of these amendments is signed by any member of the Opposition Front Bench. I am not surprised because no party that aspires to government could support the abdication of the responsibilities of government, which these amendments would achieve.
I will just say a word about Amendment 7 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham and others. It asserts that the decision of the Supreme Court was a “finding of fact”. But it was not; it was a finding of opinion—the Supreme Court’s opinion that the removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda would expose them to the risk of refoulement. It is an opinion on which men of good faith and true can disagree. Indeed, it is an opinion on which distinguished judges disagreed.
The Divisional Court, one of whose two members was a Lord Justice of Appeal, came to the conclusion that what the Government were proposing was entirely lawful. The Court of Appeal, by majority, disagreed, but the then Lord Chief Justice dissented. In my view, when the Supreme Court reaches a conclusion on a matter of opinion, it is entirely legitimate and proper constitutionally for Parliament—the House of Commons is democratically accountable to the people, and the Supreme Court is not—to substitute its own opinion. That is what the Bill does, and that is why I support it.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I want to put on record for this Committee that the Bar Council has a real concern about the apparent incompatibility of the European Convention on Human Rights and this Bill. The Supreme Court, as we know, made a decision—in my view, on the basis of facts—that Rwanda is not a safe country. It put forward a whole series of points to support that view. The Bill has not in any way countered any of the points made by the Supreme Court in its judgment. The Bar Council is concerned about that.
The Bar Council is also concerned that the Government are standing down the judges from their role overseeing the work of the Government in operating this Bill. The Bar Council sees this as a clear infringement of the fundamental principles of the rule of law. It seems that, in disapplying in this context the convention on human—
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
Is it not right that Clause 4 of the Bill provides exclusively that members of the judiciary will have the opportunity to consider challenges brought of an individual nature in relation to a particular claimant?
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, that may be so, but I think that the point I have made stands—and I think that perhaps I have said enough to point out that the Bar Council has very real concerns about this Bill.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I will speak mainly to Amendments 11 and 12 in the name of my noble friend Lord German. I cannot stop myself saying that it really goes against the grain to do anything that suggests that Liberal Democrats regard the Bill as requiring only some tweaking to be acceptable.
First, I would like to make a general comment about Clause 1. For many years, Governments have opposed amendments setting out the general purpose of a Bill on the basis of such a clause having no effect and being rather confusing. I used to find that understandable, although I signed such amendments; they have tended to be narratives describing hopes, rather than expectations or anything firmer. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has commented on the changing fashion—of such measures being there to make the courts wary of the direction in which they might like to go. This problem applies to Clause 1.
There is a notable omission from the exposition of the Government’s policy—and that is tackling people smuggling, which is abhorrent in itself, not only because of the smugglers’ role in bringing asylum seekers to the UK. The Illegal Migration Act has a similar introductory section. Specifically, Section 1(3) says:
“Accordingly, and so far as it is possible to do so, provision made by or by virtue of this Act must be read and given effect so as to achieve the purpose mentioned in subsection (1)”.
It is important to be clear about the legal effect of Clause 1. If it is intended that the clause is to be relied on, it needs to be sharpened up—for instance, in the case of terminology such as
“the system for the processing of … claims … is to be improved”,
an objective of the treaty, which is a pretty low bar. But my central point is that we need to be very clear about the legal effect and status of this clause, because there will be little point in amending the clause on Report unless the amendment has an effect, either as a stand-alone or by subsequent reference, such as the Act not coming into force unless a provision in Clause 1 is met. This may seem a rather technical point but, looking ahead, I do not want to be tripped up on it.
Amendment 12—I am aware that it is an amendment to the clause whose effect I have been querying—therefore probes the definition of “safe country”. The Bill refers, in Clause 1(5)(b)(ii), to a person having
“their claim determined and … treated in accordance with that country’s obligations under international law”—
that is, Rwanda’s obligations. The amendment would leave out “that country’s” and insert “the United Kingdom’s”, changing it to being the UK’s “obligations under international law”.
The treaty is predicated on Rwanda being under the same obligations, and as observant of them, as is the UK, so that the transfer to Rwanda, as I understand it, means really only a change of venue. Dr Google did not really help me yesterday in finding what conventions Rwanda has signed up to and, importantly, ratified and observed. But we are proceeding with this on the basis that everything that we would do in this country will apply under the new regime, and I will be interested in the Minister’s comments.
Amendment 11 is related to this. Clause 1(5)(a) also defines a safe country for the purposes of the Bill. It refers to the UK’s obligations
“that are relevant to the treatment in that country of persons who are removed there”.
Surely, all our obligations are relevant to the treatment of persons removed there, not just in that country. So both amendments go to the issue of safety—that is, the Bill’s compatibility with the UK’s human rights obligations, which are the obligations that are crucial as part of this whole regime.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, it is a hard act to follow so many lawyers here: I hope that my compassion and conviction might help me where I am missing legal expertise. I support the amendments to Clause 1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which introduce an additional purpose of compliance with the rule of law and a role for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I apologise that I was unable to join your Lordships for Second Reading, as I was overseas. I have read the Hansard record of the debate, during which many noble Lords raised what I see as the fundamental issue at stake with the Bill and the Rwanda scheme more broadly: how it is squared with the rule of law and with the international agreements and obligations that are the bedrock and defence of our freedom and prosperity.
I come to this with a conviction that our best chance of solving the global challenges we face, illegal migration among them, is not through unilateral action but through international co-operation and standing up for the rule of law. Other noble Lords have explained how these amendments would help ensure that refugees really are safe, and the importance of this as a matter of humanity as well as of law. I suggest that recognising a role for the UNHCR is also important from an international perspective, and as a route towards the lasting solution the Government seek. It is right to want to reduce people smuggling, but, if the Bill is to have a positive impact, it will be only as part of a wider approach.
The preamble of the 1951 refugee convention is surely correct when it states that a “satisfactory solution” to the problem of supporting refugees in a fair and humane manner, without placing an undue burden on any one state,
“cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation … the effective co-ordination of measures taken to deal with this problem will depend upon the co-operation of States with the High Commissioner”.
As I have argued in your Lordships’ House before, a lack of respect for international law and the weakness of international institutions lie behind the large number of people forcibly displaced around the world. While not the only cause, wars of aggression, indiscriminate or deliberate targeting of civilians, war crimes and crimes against humanity drive displacement. We will not reduce the number of displaced persons globally while wars and atrocities continue unchecked, and while international law is applied unevenly. At a time when we and the wider West are struggling to maintain any credibility when it comes to the rule of law and international co-operation, recognising in law a place for UNHCR in determining the safety of the Rwanda scheme would be a small step towards demonstrating our ongoing commitment to international institutions and agreements that are critical for global security.
It has become a bit of a trope to say that the refugee convention and UNHCR itself are outdated and unable to rise to the magnitude of the task at hand. In supporting a role for UNHCR in this legislation, I challenge that view. It is worth putting the scale of the refugee situation in some context. As a recent book, How Migration Really Works by Professor Hein de Haas, one of the world’s leading experts on migration, sets out very clearly, current refugee numbers are not in fact exceptional or unprecedented. There are 30 million refugees globally, but this is 0.3% of the global population, only marginally above the proportion of refugees in 1992. The vast majority of the displaced stay either in their country of origin or their immediate region; it is a small minority who come to Europe and to the United Kingdom.
We should be able to rise to this challenge. The refugee crisis is one of protection and political will, not only of sheer numbers. This Bill is all about signalling. The Government hope to signal that they are tough on illegal migration and to deter small boat crossings, but we are at risk of signalling that we are uninterested in the rule of law and in our international agreements and co-operation. That would be a very serious mistake for our ability to co-operate on refugees and other global issues, as well as for the international rules-based order.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I support Amendment 1, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Amendments 2, 5 and 34, tabled by the same noble Lords and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. I also offer supportive comments on Amendment 7 to Clause 1, tabled by the noble Viscount, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. The most reverend Primate is present but cannot attend the entirety of this debate and the right reverend Prelate cannot be with us this afternoon.
It will be a very slight augmentation of the wisdom of this House to know that we on these Benches do not favour the outsourcing of asylum claims to other countries or territories—which is rather different from what the noble Lord, Lord Howard, was saying about the outsourcing of power. We recognise, however, that the courts have deemed this lawful in certain circumstances and that we have a Bill from the other place which is designed to deal with a particular designation that the Supreme Court deemed to fall outside our obligations under the law.
I accept that the recent treaty between His Majesty’s Government and the Republic of Rwanda makes legally binding, with additional enhancements, the 2022 memorandum of understanding between the two Governments—for example, the commitment under the new asylum procedure that no person relocated to Rwanda under the treaty will be sent to any country other than the UK, if the UK so requests. However, as the House knows, the International Agreements Committee of this House recommends not ratifying until further evidence is available.
None the less, there remain very significant concerns about the contents of the Bill, not least about using legislation to make a declaration of fact in order to correct a court that has heard evidence. It is clear that the Government have gone to a great deal of effort to provide evidence to persuade critics of the feasibility of removal to Rwanda as a safe and properly functioning process while at the same time trying to satisfy their policy aim, and critics of a different stamp, that the limited capacity of the scheme will be a deterrent to those who make long and dangerous journeys to cross the channel.
The purpose of these amendments is to match the Bill more closely to the requirements of the Supreme Court judgment, so that it is more just and less open to challenge. For the sake of the people whose lives will be affected by yet more upheaval, who as it stands will not even have the opportunity to have their claim heard in this country, we cannot afford to get this wrong. Courts and tribunals must be able to make a judgment about the safety of Rwanda based on a consideration of the facts. We are not primarily discussing the suitability of Rwanda; we are discussing its safety for people who, by definition, have highly complex lives and circumstances.
The treaty introduces safeguards and checks, as it should, but these are not yet in force. I share the view that more is needed. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an agency the Government have worked with in a highly effective way over many years, should provide that positive judgment of safety. Until then, the Government are taking an unreasonable risk by sending anyone to Rwanda.
These amendments offer practical steps which strike the kind of balance we are wise to pursue in this revising Chamber. They do not wreck the Bill, nor remove the objective of deterrence from it—and we can debate in due course the degree of inhibition that brings to the process. Rather, these amendments would provide an adequate mechanism for addressing concerns about the UK’s compliance with international law, and, appropriately, given the name of the Bill, the safety of Rwanda as a destination for the processing of asylum claims intended originally for the UK. These amendments are important for the preservation of judicial oversight and for the maintenance of the separation of powers, which is a fundamental component of our constitution. It is for Parliament to make laws and it is for the judiciary to judge cases, including the lawfulness of government decisions, and to make findings grounded on the basis of evidence.
Amendment 7 seeks to make it plain that the Bill replaces the Supreme Court’s finding of fact. A Bill cannot change the actual situation on the ground in another country; it can only mandate that evidence to the contrary is disregarded. We have a duty of care in international law towards asylum seekers who arrive in this country. Legislating that Rwanda is a safe country does not necessarily make it so for the potentially vulnerable people who might be sent there. However, the Bill’s primary purpose is to disregard the UK’s own Supreme Court’s finding that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers.
Let us be clear what we are doing. The Law Society has said, unequivocally, that it is inappropriate for the Government to undermine the judiciary in this way and that the Bill threatens the balance of powers in the United Kingdom. The amendment would put in the Bill that a judicial finding of fact is being replaced. I hope that we give these amendments a fair wind.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
I give my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale. In doing so, I express slight puzzlement that the Government seem to have difficulty in accepting the amendments. The Government tell us again and again that nothing in the Bill is contrary to our international obligations. Okay, they should then just accept the amendments and make it clearer than it was before. One may have one’s doubts as to the reasons the Government are not going to accept the amendments, but, basically, their position is that of the Red Queen in Alice: “It is so because I say it is so”.
I will address some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, because they were extremely far-reaching, damaging and disruptive of our ability to support a rules-based international order. He seemed to not take into account that it was this sovereign Parliament that ratified our membership of the United Nations in 1945. The Charter of the United Nations contains the charter for the General Assembly, and the General Assembly appoints the High Commissioner for Refugees. Therefore, I do not think his argument about lack of accountability stands up. If you think about it, contradicting any role for the High Commissioner for Refugees to give advice to us about whether Rwanda is a safe place is an extraordinarily far-reaching and damaging claim to make.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
As I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, it is not simply a question of seeking advice from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The amendments clearly state that, unless positive advice is obtained, no one can be removed to Rwanda. So the decision will no longer be the decision of the Secretary of State; it will be the decision of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. That is the point. It is not just advice; it is advice which would be binding, according to these amendments, on the Government.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
I thank the noble Lord for that point. He interrupted me before I got to the answer to his question—but that is fine. I had been going to say that the doctrine, according to the noble Lord, Lord Howard, is that every member that has signed the refugee convention—well over 150, I think—and ratified it, including our sovereign Parliament, has the right to reinterpret the convention as it wishes. You have only to stop and think for one minute what that implies to realise that it implies complete chaos and the law of the jungle. If all 150-plus members of the United Nations refugee convention are able to stand up and say, “Well, actually, this is what I think the convention means, and I don’t care a damn what the High Commissioner for Refugees says”, then we are living in chaos. It is to avoid that that these amendments are being put forward.
I strongly support the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, who expressed extremely eloquently the reason this country has a real interest in paying attention to these matters.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I thought it might help the Committee, before this debate with the noble Lord, Lord Howard, rumbles on, for me to clarify that he is quite right. This amendment, as currently drafted, requires positive advice from the UNHCR, and not just advice, positive or negative. In the current iteration of the amendment, the reason for that is that the Prime Minister expressly said that the Bill is designed to assuage the concerns of the Supreme Court, which were based predominantly on the negative advice from the UNHCR about the situation in Rwanda—such was the nature of the evidence of the UNHCR and the credence that our Supreme Court gave to it.
However, if that formulation is too rich for their blood, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, or the Government, are welcome to amend the amendment or offer their own, which requires only advice positive or negative by the UNHCR before either the Secretary of State or Parliament can look again at whether Rwanda has changed subsequent to the treaty and is now, or in the future, a safe place for asylum seekers and refugees.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I do not wish to pursue that course at all. I am not one of the proposers of this amendment; I am merely supporting it.
The arguments that I am adducing relate to the state that this country would be in if it issues forth into the world and says it has an absolute right to interpret a United Nations convention which it ratified many years ago, and which it has supported through thick and thin ever since, and now wishes to contradict. That is a serious matter and I do not believe that the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, ought to carry weight, because the implications of them for our position in the world and our support for a rules-based international order would be extremely damaging.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I want simply to say a few words in support of Amendments 3 and 7 in my name, and to express more general support for the position adopted by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.
On Amendment 3, it is simply untrue to state that it is the judgment of Parliament that Rwanda is a safe country. That may be the opinion of the House of Commons—I was a Whip there for many years, so I know the forces that are put in place to assure the opinion of that House; the “elective dictatorship” of which my father spoke—but what is absolutely certain is that it is not the opinion of this House. We know that to be a fact because of the vote that took place here on 22 January.
In my opinion, we should not put into a Bill a statement that is manifestly untrue. Hence, I put down amendments that state the truth: that the safety of Rwanda is the opinion of the Government. That is the truth, so why on earth should we not enact that simple truth, rather than commit what, in other circumstances, would be described as a lie?
On Amendment 7, we should state in clear terms what we are doing. We are, in fact, using a statutory and untrue pronouncement to reverse a recent finding by the Supreme Court. I have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Howard; we were colleagues for very many years, and he was in the House of Commons for 27 years. I beat him, as I was there for 30 years, but he was a lot more distinguished than me. However, to try to say that the Supreme Court did not make a finding of fact is to turn the situation on its head. It expressed an opinion as to fact, as juries do in criminal cases—and an opinion as to fact is a finding of fact.
I will take a slightly broader view. I happen to share the view—I suspect it is pretty general in this House—that both legal and illegal migration are far too high and should be reduced. I share the very correct intention of the Government to deter illegal migration, which we need to do. My objection is not to the purpose but to the means being advocated, which is wrong in principle and will not succeed. However, it is clear to me, as it is to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that the Government have decided to push ahead and will doubtless reverse our amendments in ping-pong.
In the spirit of compromise, I will make some positive suggestions, as the noble Baroness did. Leaving aside the issue of principle, I am concerned that the Government are seeking to enact, without any proper assessment, their judgment as to whether Rwanda is safe. That means not just whether the treaty is put in place in Rwanda, but whether its provisions are implemented over a period of time—and whether we can for other reasons say that Rwanda is safe. That, we are entitled to do. To be clear: that is not a one-off assessment; it has to be a continuing assessment, because things can change.
The other thing we need to be absolutely clear about is whether the policy objective is working. We are told that the purpose of the Bill is to reduce illegal migration across the channel. That is a judgment—I do not happen to think it will work—but one thing is certain: we do not know now whether it will work, but in the course of time, we may be able to form a view.
My concern is that the Bill provides no mechanism for a continuing assessment of both the safety of Rwanda and the success of the policy, and I believe that Parliament is entitled to demand a continuous and authoritative assessment. We can argue whether it should be based on the European body; or, as Amendment 81 suggests, it should be done by the Joint Committee on Human Rights; or, as I have in the past suggested, by a special Select Committee appointed for the purpose. However, there is a way forward. The Bill does not come into operation without both Houses of Parliament triggering it by an affirmative resolution, and they can do so only once a report has been received from whatever assessment monitoring board we put into place.
That is not enough because, as I say, we need continuing assessment. Therefore, I contemplate something like this. The initial trigger should be, say, for two years. It could then be renewed for two years by another statutory process—affirmative resolution—on the basis of a further report; and then again, if the Secretary of State thinks he will get away with it. That way, we will have a continuing process of assessment, which would give this House and Parliament in general something on which it could honourably proceed.
I would like to think that my noble friends on the Front Bench will show a certain degree of flexibility. If they do not, it may be quite difficult to persuade their critics to be flexible.
Lord Garnier (Con)
My Lords, I briefly want to follow my noble friend Lord Hailsham in his remarks. Had he been the presider in a three-person court, I would have been very happy to say that, having heard his speech, I had nothing else to add. However, since we are here, your Lordships have the disadvantage of hearing what I have to say. Like my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne and my noble friend Lady Helic, I regret not being present at Second Reading and apologise, but I have read the Hansard of the debate.
I am always reluctant to disagree with my noble friend Lord Howard, but he took too narrow an approach to the questions before us. I use Clause 1(2)(b), which is the subject my noble friend Lord Hailsham attacks, as a hanger on which to make a few remarks. I think, if I understood him correctly, that my noble friend Lord Howard said that Parliament can essentially do what it likes, and of course he is perfectly right. Parliament can be as foolish as it likes. It can pass a law saying that all dogs are cats, but that does not make all dogs cats. It can pass a law saying that Rwanda is a safe country, but that does not make it a safe country. In addition—this is where I agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham—it is for the Executive to advance their policy, whether it is a good policy or a bad one. It is for the Government to say that it is their policy that Rwanda is a safe country to which to send failed asylum seekers. If the Government then wish to have their view tested by Parliament, again, they can go ahead and do it.
Therefore, what the Government are proposing as a matter of policy is not a constitutional outrage, but the way in which they are writing it down in Clause 1(2)(b) is, if I may respectfully say so, just plain silly. It is worse to be silly than it is to be guilty of a constitutional outrage, and this is not a constitutional outrage but just plain silly.
Ridicule is a more powerful weapon than the constitutional and legal arguments of any number of lawyers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, advances in one of her amendments, it would be helpful to have a UNHCR opinion on the safety or otherwise of Rwanda. However, I have a feeling that exporting government policy to the UNHCR is not a good idea. It would be helpful to have that opinion, but it is not essential. The Government must stand on their own feet, bring their policy to Parliament and have it tested. It will survive or not on the merits of the facts. The assessment of whether Rwanda is a safe country must be for the Government to consider and for Parliament to agree; we as a bicameral parliamentary body are not equipped to reach those sorts of conclusions. We can agree or disagree with the Government, but we are not equipped in a presidium to reach a conclusion on whether the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country as a matter of fact.
I do not wish to undermine or underestimate the hugely difficult political problem that the Government face with illegal immigration and the making of unsound asylum applications. Nor do I wish to undermine their genuine and very proper decision and policy to stop the boats. However, if we are to stop the boats, and if we are to reduce the amount of illegal immigration and bogus asylum applications, the Government would go a long way if they had the confidence of their own convictions and allowed Clause 1(2)(b) to say that that the Bill gives effect to the politically expedient policy of the Government that the Republic of Rwanda is safe, rather than trying to shift the responsibility for that opinion on to Parliament. Parliament may come to agree with it, but the initial policy is one for government. To that extent I wholly agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
I am another supporter of Amendment 3. Clause 1 is an example of the current vogue for starting Bills not with operative provisions but with preambular statements of the obvious, a custom which is always irritating but normally harmless. However, there is harm, not just silliness, in Clause 1(2)(b) with its rather grand invocation of
“the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”,
a judgment for all time, apparently, that there is no provision to revisit or change. That invocation is unnecessary and contrary to principle. It is unnecessary because there are other ways for Rwanda to be declared or deemed safe. The Secretary of State could be entrusted with the decision or, if it really is necessary for Parliament to take it, there could at least be a power for the Secretary of State to amend it in the light of changed conditions, as was the case with Section 75 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023.
It is contrary to principle because it requires us to come to a judgment on a fact-specific life-and-death matter on which, frankly, we are ill equipped to adjudicate. Of course, this is not the first time that such a thing has happen. It was tried in the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, when the countries of the European Economic Area—all signatories to the ECHR—were deemed, beyond rebuttal, to be safe. That experiment, a requirement of European Union law, was not a successful one. Its unwieldiness was demonstrated in the case of Nasseri. The Judicial Committee of the House of Lords dismissed a challenge to the safety of Greece but, through the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, whom I am delighted to see in his place, indicated that the courts might have to issue a declaration of incompatibility if the deeming provision was contradicted by the evidence. The issue was sensibly addressed in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 by transforming the irrebuttable presumption into a rebuttable one.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I was unable to be present for Second Reading two weeks ago, but I cannot allow the Bill to pass through the House without making my deep concern about it evident in public. I am speaking on this group of amendments because they go to the heart of my concern.
I have been a Member of Parliament for a very long time, on and off, and a member of the Conservative Party for some 66 years, when I counted it up. I find it quite extraordinary that the party of Margaret Thatcher should introduce a Bill of this kind. Like some other noble Lords, I have a clear memory of the great battle that Margaret Thatcher fought with the European Union—the European Community in those days—over the British budget contribution. From time to time, it was suggested that she should cut the cackle, put the continentals in their place and cut off the British contribution. That would have been very dramatic, and very popular in some circles, but she did not countenance the idea because she believed that it would be contrary to the law. There were those who warned that it might even run into trouble in the British courts. How different that is from this Bill and the way in which we are now asked to behave towards the Supreme Court and the European Convention on Human Rights.
This is no esoteric matter that concerns only the subject under discussion and is of interest only to lawyers. We in this country frequently boast that Britain is such a marvellous place to do business because of our great respect for the rule of law and because the Government, unlike some Governments of the world, can be relied on not to make arbitrary and unreasonable acts. It is very difficult to sustain that argument in the light of the Bill now before us. I do not know whether those who envisage doing business in this country will draw that conclusion or not, but we are going against a fundamental interest, not just on this issue but for our wider reputation.
What we are asked to do represents the sort of behaviour that the world associates with despots and autocracies, not with an established democracy nor with the mother of Parliaments. It is a Bill we should not even be asked to confront, let alone pass.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
It is a privilege to follow what the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said, and I strongly agree with it. I will focus on two things in relation to what the Government are asking us to do. Before that, I apologise for not having been here at Second Reading—I, too, was abroad. I declare an interest as a member of the Constitution Committee of this House, which published a report unanimously expressing very considerable concerns about the Bill.
I have two concerns about the Bill. As a nation, we have accepted for the last 70 years that we will not deport asylum seekers to a place where they may face death, torture or inhuman treatment, and that, if asylum seekers feel that that is a risk, they can seek protection from the courts. The courts may well give an applicant short shrift if they do not think there is anything in it, but we have stood by that protection for 70 years and incorporated it into our domestic law in the Human Rights Act 1998. The Bill envisages the possibility—or indeed it being the more-likely-than-not result, according to those who have looked at it independently—that people will be sent to Rwanda, where they will be at substantial risk of being refouled, which means sent back to a place where they could be tortured or killed.
The claim made by the Government is that we have entered into an agreement with Rwanda that says it will not send anybody who comes from here to anywhere except the UK, to which the answer is that given by the international treaties committee: that the reason there was a risk of refoulement was that Rwanda did not even have the most basic system of properly assessing asylum claims. The idea that the Bill envisages—that the moment the new treaty comes into force, it will provide that protection—is absolute nonsense. Everybody appreciates that except, as far as I can see, the right honourable Mr James Cleverly, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs. If we look at the conclusions that the Supreme Court introduced, we see that, factually, it is just a non-starter.
The Government say, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, will confirm it on their behalf, that they stand by the commitment we have made for the last 70 years that asylum seekers will not be exported to a place where they might be refouled. If that is their true position, how on earth can they allow this? The international treaties committee also said that, quite separately from the fact that we would need to reform completely Rwanda’s asylum system, we would have to enter into a number of other detailed provisions before it could be seen whether the provision in the new agreement prevented refoulement. Those agreements have not yet been entered into with Rwanda, and there is no requirement for them to be so before the Bill becomes law.
My first big objection to the Bill is that it goes against commitments we have made as a nation and stood by for the past 70 years. If we are looking for solutions to the problems of immigration in the world, turning our backs on all the international agreements that we have made seems a very bad start indeed.
My second big objection to the Bill is that it fundamentally crosses over the separation of powers. The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, whom I greatly admire—he was a member of our Constitution Committee—said, “Oh, don’t worry. We’re just taking the opinion of the former Lord Chief Justice, who is the dissenting voice in the Court of Appeal”. No, that is not what the Government say they are doing. They are saying, “We’ve taken account of the Supreme Court judgment. We respect that judgment. We’re not going with the former Lord Chief Justice’s judgment; we’re dealing with the points that have been made—and, by the way, dealing with them while not letting anybody question us about that”. That is absolutely not the role of this House or the courts.
What this Bill leads to is Parliament delivering what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, described as silly, but is so much more profound than silly. I quite agree with him that the beginning of the Bill is very silly in the way that it reads—it is a cack-handed attempt to deliver a judgment, like a court would read—but it is not silly; it is dangerous.
Think of three examples. First, Parliament can say, “Even though we see Rwanda refouling people we are sending, and it is sending Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis back to death or torture, we will do nothing”. We will say that that is okay because we made our judgment that it was a safe country.
That is one example. Let us take another. Suppose the Prime Minister has a friend or a crony in the House of Commons who is convicted in a court of corruption of some sort. The Prime Minister then presents a Bill to Parliament, saying, “It is the judgment of Parliament that Snooks MP actually wasn’t able to present this new evidence to the criminal court that convicted him, so it is the judgment of Parliament that Snooks MP is innocent”. That is the route this Bill takes Parliament down.
Take a third example: the Electoral Commission decides that it will not investigate some problem of, say, not complying with expenses and the courts then say, in relation to that decision, “The Electoral Commission was overinfluenced by party-political considerations”—for example, the governing party was very unkeen for there to be a proper investigation of some expenses fraud in an election, and on judicial review the Electoral Commission’s refusal to investigate was set aside on the basis there was no basis not to investigate. Once again, relying on this precedent, the Government of the day, assuming they have a big majority, can produce a Bill that says, “It is the judgment of Parliament that the courts have got that opinion wrong”—as the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, introducing a whole new concept in the law, said is the position.
That is the danger of this Bill. I am not sure that I support all my noble friend Baroness Chakrabarti’s solutions—in particular, I am not sure the reference to the United Nations commissioner on refugees is the right source—but, my goodness, if we start letting Parliament make such judgments, we open a door that will be incredibly difficult to close. We in this House surely should not give effect to it.
I have one final point. The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, said, “Don’t worry, it’s all Clause 4”. It is not. Clause 4 allows appeals to be made only by people who say something different from “the country is not safe generally”; it is only if there is something specific about them. If, for example, I am a voluble member of the Rwandan opposition and I am then sent to Rwanda, where I may get tortured or killed, then I have a ground, but if I am from Syria or Afghanistan and Rwanda is refouling regularly, I have no basis for appealing.
My first point is that we should stand by our commitments to asylum seekers. My second is: do not listen to this siren song that this is not a fundamental change in our constitution. It is, and it will be the foundation of very bad things to come.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I was at Second Reading. I do not know if that makes me less interesting to listen to than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and all the rest. I have heard some of these remarks before, of course, but it is always a pleasure to hear them again, if I agree with them. I will say something quite similar to what noble Lords have just heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I will obviously say it less competently, because I do not have legal training, but what I do have is common sense. I am not suggesting that they are mutually exclusive, but they are two completely different things.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I had the privilege of serving as a Cross-Bench member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in her remarks. Indeed, she referred to the 50-page report that was finally agreed by a majority in the committee—it is a majority, not a unanimous, report—on 7 February. It was published today, as others have said, and is available in the Printed Paper Office.
In my remarks, I will say something about what the report has to say about safety. Before doing that, I will agree in particular with the tone of many of the contributions that have been made so far on this group of amendments. As always, my noble friend Lord Hannay put his finger on our international obligations, not least among which is the 1951 convention on refugees. It may well be that this is not written in stone and that there should be attempts to try to change and reform this in the climate of today’s demands—I am happy to give way.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for giving way. He has just referred to international agreements. Would he agree with me, therefore, that this Bill contravenes international agreements such as the UDHR and also the ECHR? I am reminded of the fact that the provisions of this Bill extend to Northern Ireland. Hence, this provision and this Bill undermine the very basis of the Good Friday agreement.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness; I was not intending to touch on Northern Ireland, but she is right that this does touch on the Windsor agreement and on our obligations to Northern Ireland, which are separate from those of the rest of the United Kingdom. I commend that section of the report. These are not my opinions; the report does touch on that question.
The noble Baroness also asked about our other obligations. We have many obligations, not just under the refugee convention but under the ECHR, to which she has just referred. The Government on this Bill, as on the Illegal Migration Bill, decline to give a compatibility statement because they cannot say that it will be compatible—although I know Ministers take a contrary view that there is uncertainty around that. However, if there is uncertainty, we must be very careful where we tread.
On the issue of our international reputation, I was very struck by the statement made by the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, which is referred to in the JCHR report. He justified what he was intending to do and has done in sending back 430,000 Afghan refugees to Pakistan. He said it was modelled on what we were seeking to do in the British Parliament. So, even though we know that is casuistry and extreme, nevertheless we can see where this argument can lead and the way in which it be used. So, yes, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, our international reputation can easily suffer.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark got to the heart of this when he said that legislating that Rwanda is safe does not make it so. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, touched on that point. Just saying an apple is a pear does not make it such. Saying that a dog is a cat does not make it such. It may be your opinion, but it is not true—and that is surely what we have a duty to try to do in this place.
On process, procedure and governance, during our debates on the Illegal Migration Bill and the treaty, I complained that we had not been treated properly as a Select Committee in the way you would expect Select Committees to be treated. Suella Braverman, the then Home Secretary, declined to appear before the Select Committee. We did not see James Cleverly in the context of this Bill. However, we did see the Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, and I pay tribute to him for the way he delivered his evidence and took the questions we put to him. As the noble and learned Lord has just said, it is the duty of the Home Secretary of the day to explain the intentions of legislation. If there is anxiety about something as important as a compatibility statement, they should explain why they feel unable to give it.
My noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich rightly said that we are ill-equipped to make these decisions in Parliament. I did not serve as long as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, although we have the distinction of contesting the same parliamentary seat in the heart of Liverpool on separate occasions, or as long as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, but I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said about the way in which legislation has traditionally been dealt with in another place and here. I cannot remember Select Committees being treated by Secretaries of State in the way that I have just described. Thinking all the way back to the British Nationality Bill 1981, on which I spoke many times, there were opportunities to hear the arguments, to discuss the implications and to make appropriate amendments. I have not felt that about this legislation or that which preceded it. I think it has been pushed through in a pell-mell way, bringing to mind the thought that, if you enact legislation in a hurry, you will end up repenting at some leisure.
Let me take noble Lords to page 15 of the report, which comes down to the role of the UNHCR and safety. “As of January 2024”, therefore as recently as last month,
“UNHCR has not observed changes in the practice of asylum adjudication that would overcome the concerns set out in its 2022 analysis and in the detailed evidence presented to the Supreme Court”.
The Supreme Court, not the House of Commons or the House of Lords, relied on the UNHCR when it came to a decision about questions of fact. The report states:
“UNHCR notes the detailed, legally-binding commitments now set out in the treaty, which if enacted in law and fully implemented in practice, would address certain key deficiencies in the Rwandan asylum system identified by the Supreme Court. This would however require sustained, long term efforts, the results of which may only be assessed over time”.
Well, clearly, we have not had the time to make those assessments, and again we are being urged to rush pell-mell. I will not detain the Committee much longer. One witness, Professor Tom Hickman KC, said:
“Parliament is effectively being asked to exercise a judicial function, to assess evidence, to look at detailed facts and, effectively, to distinguish the Supreme Court’s judgment, to say that things have moved on and it is not binding on Parliament—I do not mean in a non-legal way—in making its judgment. In my view, that is an inappropriate exercise for Parliament to conduct. It is a judicial function”.
This view was echoed by Professor Sarah Singer, who is quoted in paragraph 57 as saying:
“To contradict the Supreme Court in this way is, perhaps, not showing the respect to the court that should be owed as a constitutional principle”.
I conclude with the summary on page 35, which says:
“We have considered the Government’s evidence that Rwanda is now safe, but have also heard from witnesses and bodies including the UNHCR that Rwanda remains unsafe, or at least that there is not enough evidence available at this point to be sure of its safety. Overall, we cannot be clear that the position reached on Rwanda’s safety by the country’s most senior court is no longer correct. In any event, the courts remain the most appropriate branch of the state to resolve contested issues of fact, so the question of Rwanda’s safety would best be determined not by legislation but by allowing the courts to consider the new treaty and the latest developments on the ground”.
For all those reasons, I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has done noble Lords a great favour in bringing these amendments to us in Committee. She has already shown her willingness to think further about whether they might be applied in other ways. That surely is what Committee stage is all about. The tone that has been struck in the course of this debate behoves noble Lords to think very deeply. I commend this report to the Committee.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the tone of this debate, particularly in relation to the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I warmly welcome her obvious desire to find some way forward in this difficult area, which we certainly need to do, but I am afraid there is a rock—a difficulty—in the way of her amendment. It makes a classic mistake: taking two separate organisations with different objectives and obligations, and placing one with a veto over the other.
According to my reading of the amendment, the UNHCR would in practice have a veto over what the UK Government can do; this is the difficulty. The noble Baroness used the word “stalemate”, but her proposals would also lead to a stalemate while the UNHCR went on for ever, we know not when, saying whether Rwanda was safe. There would be debates, hostilities and probably no eventual consensus as to whether it was safe. Surely a more sensible way forward would be to take existing circumstances and practice, and for each side to engage properly and responsibly with the other.
We have obligations to the UNHCR; we are obliged under the refugee convention to engage with the UNHCR, and so we should. We are obliged to take account of the social and humanitarian consequences for refugees, and so we should. But, equally, the UNHCR should take into account the real responsibility of Governments to defend their borders in the sensible way that their own democracies would expect. If we can get the two working together, something sensible may emerge from that.
It already has in Australia. I wish we would not always be quite so insular. For 10 years now, Australia has been operating an outsourcing policy of the kind to which the UK aspires. It started off in precisely the same way—with precisely the advocates on each side—that we did. In the end, the Australian Government invited in the UNHCR at three different levels: the prime ministerial level, the ministerial level and the ordinary regional level of civil servants and so forth. They came to an agreement on how it should work.
Not only that but the UNHCR, as a consequence of its willingness to get involved, had leverage. It got out of the Australian Government more legal routes for genuine asylum seekers, and the same should happen here. Our legal routes for asylum seekers are at present wholly unsatisfactory, because they are confined to a small number of countries and most countries are excluded.
My view of a proper immigration policy has always been that there should be a settled cap on how many we should bring in, which we put publicly to the people every year in Parliament. Within that cap, the priority should be genuine asylum seekers and only thereafter economic migrants or people joining their families here. That is the right way to approach a total immigration policy, of which this is numerically only a very small part.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, this has been a long debate and I shall therefore be extremely brief. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark spoke powerfully, as have many extremely well-qualified lawyers, so I will not talk about the law. I found myself very much in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne. He put important points that I hope will be reflected later in our debates.
We also need to take account of what one might call the real world. I am glad to see that the Opposition Front Bench is being cautious at this point; perhaps that is one of the reasons. The reality is that the Government have lost control of our borders, and even the backlog of asylum seekers is enough to fill the largest stadium in the UK. I regret to say that there is deep public anger, but there is, and we have to take it into account—I am sure that the Commons will—when we take this forward. It is therefore for the Government to take action to bring all this under control and for us to give some advice as to how that could best be done. But let us not lose sight of the fact that this is a very difficult and widely resented situation, and we need to be careful ourselves.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak to this group of amendments; I apologise to the Committee that I could not be here for Second Reading. Even though I was on the estate, I had a bad chest infection. I was coughing and sputtering, which I did not think would add to the debate, so I listened to it in my office and have subsequently read the Hansard. I was also very proud to vote for my noble friend Lord German’s fatal amendment to the Second Reading Motion. I draw the Committee’s attention to my interests in the register on this issue. I will try not to do a Second Reading speech but to keep my comments to this clause and the amendments.
These amendments are quite important, based on what I would call this candyfloss clause. It is a bit like candyfloss because the Government are trying to make it big, enticing and sweet but, the moment you touch it, it starts to disintegrate as you realise that it is built on nothing. Clause 1(3) says:
“The Government of the Republic of Rwanda has, in accordance with the Rwanda Treaty”—
these are the important words—
“agreed to fulfil the following obligations”.
They have not yet done that, nor given an indication of how they will. It is therefore important, before any person is sent to Rwanda, that those obligations are fulfilled. There also needs to be some form of independent assessment of how that is done.
In the normal course of the rule of law, the courts of this land would make an assessment. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is trying to put in at least some form of independent assessment. People may argue about whether it is independent, but the UNHCR and its role in the legal understanding of refugees and safe countries is well understood. I have a slight problem with the amendment from the noble Baroness, as it involves just one set of evidence and, clearly, courts would normally look at a wider range of evidence. However, it is important that, in Amendment 34, there is a rebuttable presumption. I assume that it would, at some point, give some leeway and a doorway to the courts to test that, so the legality of the decision made by the Executive can be reviewed by the independent judiciary. It will be interesting to see that. That is the aim of the amendment from the noble Baroness.
I ask the Minister, when responding to these amendments, to pick up what my noble friend Lady Hamwee said regarding the incompatibility at times between Rwanda and the laws of this land, and the obligations and treaties that have been signed. Particularly, how will refugees’ claims be assessed in Rwanda? Where there is incompatibility between the laws or obligations of Rwanda and the UK, exactly how will those contradictions be dealt with?
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I think the majority of those who have spoken have apologised for not being here at Second Reading. I am worried; I think I ought to apologise for having been here at Second Reading and for having spoken then and a week earlier on the treaty. I have spoken about the apples and pears, the rule of law and our international reputation, and I do not want to bore the Committee on that anymore.
I think the aim shared by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, of making the Bill, if not pointless, harmless—or harmless though still pointless—is impossible in Clause 1. We are dealing with a Bill that is very hard to make acceptable.
I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is hoping to do in her amendments and I share that. We need to take account of the fact that we voted in this House, on the report from the International Agreements Committee, that Rwanda is not yet safe. We did that not in an off-the-cuff way but on the basis of a reasoned report, which was written on the basis of a stack of evidence submitted to the International Agreements Committee, of which I am a member. The House voted that it is not safe; therefore, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is completely correct: how can we possibly now stand on our heads and say that it is the judgment of Parliament that Rwanda is safe—as if we could do that anyway? We cannot legislate that apples are pears, or cats are dogs. We need to have some sort of triggering or commencement mechanism, which means that the Bill, when an Act, does not come into force until Rwanda can be seen to be safe. The International Agreements Committee set out the 10 areas in which change is required.
I am uneasy about conferring the role on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, although I think that the Government have now accepted that one of his roles is supervising and monitoring the operation of the refugee convention. I am not sure that it is right to ask UNHCR to undertake this task; we are only one of the signatories of the convention, and so is Rwanda. He said in the memorandum that he submitted in relation to the treaty:
“UNHCR has continued to engage bilaterally with the Government of Rwanda on specific incidents of concern, and will continue to offer technical advice and support to the Government of Rwanda to strengthen its asylum system and the protection of all refugees, as part of its mandated responsibilities”.
For us to ask it to act as advisers to us might seem to UNHCR to be difficult—I do not know. I note that UNHCR did not want to give evidence to the International Agreements Committee. It seems to me that it may well feel, “This is something you have to sort out for yourselves—don’t drag me in”. But we need to have someone.
In later groupings, we can consider the proposals for an independent reviewer, or the proposal in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for using the monitoring committee set up in the treaty for that purpose. I am not sure about that—I am for an independent reviewer myself—but that is for later groupings. But for now I utter a word of caution as to whether this is really appropriate, and whether we would not be talking about a forced marriage. The Government certainly do not want to involve the UNHCR, and I am not 100% sure that the UNHCR wants to get involved either.
For me, the important amendments in this group are Amendments 5 and 6, which say that, instead of having the Bill say that Rwanda is safe, the Bill would say that Rwanda will become safe when the conditions for safety, such as those listed by the International Agreements Committee, are met. That would change the tense from “is” to “will be”—it would be forward-looking. That is where I feel most strongly about the amendments in this group.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, in that I am supported by the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project. We have strayed very widely across the whole of Clause 1 in this debate. Of course, what we are here to do is to discuss the specific amendments before us. However, I start with the assertion that this Parliament finds Rwanda safe. I looked up in the Companion to see what the role is of resolutions of this House, and it is the resolution of this House that is the determination of this House—and the determination of this House at the moment is that Rwanda is not safe. That is the view on which the Government are trying to make us change our minds, so we need to bear that in mind first of all.
The second, broader point that has been drawn out, largely by the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was the issue of offshoring versus offloading. We had that debate at Second Reading, and I think what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was talking about was offshoring, when you make the determination about whether people are right to come here, and then they come here. But this is not offshoring; this is offloading, whereby the Government hand over the responsibility to another country to be able to accept them, there is no way back, and it is a permanent situation.
Lord Horam (Con)
I think the noble Lord means “outsourcing”, and it is precisely what the Australians do.
Lord German (LD)
Indeed: what the Australians did was to check whether people were ready to come to Australia.
Lord Horam (Con)
They handed that responsibility over to the Government of Nauru and the Solomon Islands.
Lord German (LD)
No, they did not. I am sorry, but the facts are otherwise. The essential point is that they were doing this work—whatever the noble Lord thinks the situation was, it is not what I think, but we can check the facts—in order that people could be admitted to Australia. That was the point; they were doing it somewhere else in order that they could come to Australia.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to wind up on this group for His Majesty’s Opposition. The quality of the contributions has been truly outstanding. I start by saying to the noble Lords, Lord Green and Lord Howard, that whatever our views on the various amendments in this and the other groups, we are fundamentally and totally opposed to the whole Bill and have voted against it at all stages. That lays out our position fairly clearly.
It was helpful for the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, to lay out as we start Committee that this debate is not about whether to stop illegal migration or reduce immigration, but how we do it. This Bill is not the way to do it, so he was right to remind us of that.
We support the thrust of Amendments 3 and 7, as did many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti—I will come back to her lead amendment in a moment—because they go to the heart of the Bill. Clause 1(2)(b) replaces a judicial finding of fact with Parliament simply declaring that Rwanda is safe, irrespective of the Supreme Court judgment. I will not go into the legal niceties we have heard, but it seems remarkable to me that Parliament should make a judgment that the court has got it wrong and just change it without reference to the court.
There is a missing word in that paragraph which gives great credibility to many of the contributions made this afternoon:
“this Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.
As many noble Lords and the committees that have reported on this Bill have said, this paragraph says that Rwanda is safe now, not that it will become safe. The Supreme Court said that that is the point of difference between them. It has not said that the Government cannot act in this way—I would have thought they would be pleased and say, “Look, the Supreme Court says that what we’re doing conforms with international law”—but that they cannot say that Rwanda is safe now. The Government are saying: “Don’t worry about that; we’ll just pass a law saying that it is”. That is the point of conflict, as it flies in the face of the Supreme Court, the International Agreements Committee and many others.
The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, was remarkable in its honesty and openness. He said that, as a member of the Conservative Party for decades—I apologise if I get his wording wrong—he was disappointed by the Government coming forward with legislation such as this, which he felt flew in the face of the party’s traditions. He said that Margaret Thatcher herself would have refused it because it flies in the face of her belief that Governments have to act in accordance with the law, or the constitution would be at stake. Many of these amendments seek to reassert the principle that this country has always operated on—that this Parliament operates according to the law. Parliamentary sovereignty is paramount and Parliament can pass what it wants, but as part of that, under our unwritten constitution, there is a belief that it will always operate according to the law even while recognising its sovereign power.
We broadly support much of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti’s lead amendment. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Howard, my noble friend, in the spirit of Committee, said that if she has not got the amendment completely right, it might need to be changed. That is the whole point of Committee; she accepted that he might have a point and that making the UNHCR the sole body advising the Government or preventing them from acting might not be the best way forward.
Many noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, drew attention to a point in Amendments 1 and 2. This may be flowery language that Governments put at the front of Bills—I am sure that we did it in government and may well do it again when, I hope, we are in government in future—but Amendment 1 would add
“the purpose of compliance with the rule of law to that of deterrence”,
and Amendment 2 says:
“The second purpose is to ensure compliance with the domestic and international rule of law”.
That is the fundamental point. Any Bill we pass into law should be compliant with international law. That is why our country has such standing across the world. What on earth are we doing? The UNHCR has said that the Bill is not compliant with the refugee convention, and that is why Amendments 1 and 2 are so important. Do we not care that the UNHCR has said that? Is it of no consequence to us? Have we gone beyond caring? Are we not bothered? Are we saying it is simply an irrelevance? If that is so, I honestly cannot believe that that is the way we want our country to go.
What are we doing? Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and said, with respect to Putin and Ukraine, that we are not going to stand for someone driving a coach and horses through the international rules-based order. That is what the country has always stood for and what we are proud of. Therefore, we are going to continue that tradition. We are right to do so. Why are we taking action against the Houthis in the Red Sea? Last week, I heard the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, say that it was because are not going to allow a group of terrorists to hold the world’s trading system to ransom and break every single rule of the international rules-based order.
These are the rules we adhere to and conventions we have signed. As a sovereign Parliament, we took the decision that, in certain areas of international life, it is better to pool sovereignty and stand together; that is the way to overcome common problems, not to retreat into your own country. That is why the compliance with international law is important. The amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and others, seek to say—as a point of principle—that a Bill dealing with migration, refugees, asylum or whatever should comply with international law.
I am astonished and astounded and find it unbelievable that His Majesty’s Government have to be reminded that we want our Government to comply with international law. I would have thought that was a statement of the obvious. I would have thought it was something around which we could unite, no matter our party or faith. We could have stood together and said that is why we are proud of our country.
What are we going to say when we go to the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth, the EU—if we still have talks with it—NATO or any other part of the world where there is an international organisation? How on earth can we lecture those people about conforming to the international rules-based order when we are prepared to drive a coach and horses through it ourselves? That is why much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and many others have said in their amendments is so important. The Government may dismiss it, but they will not win the argument on this one.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. The overriding purpose of the Bill is to ensure that Parliament’s sovereign view that Rwanda is a safe country is accepted and interpreted by the courts to prevent legal challenges which seek to delay removals and prevent us from taking control of our borders.
Amendments 3 and 7, in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham, suggest that the legislation is replacing a judicial finding of fact. The Government respect the decision of the Supreme Court in its judgment. However, the judgment was based on information provided to the court on Rwanda up until summer 2022. Their Lordships recognised, explicitly and in terms, that those deficiencies could be addressed in future.
In response, the Home Secretary signed a new, internationally binding treaty between the United Kingdom and the Government of Rwanda, which responds to and resolves the concerns raised by the court. Alongside the treaty, the Government have also introduced the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which buttresses the treaty, and supports the relocation of a person to Rwanda under the Immigration Acts.
It is our view that Parliament and the Government are appropriately equipped to address the sensitive policy issues involved in this legislation and, ultimately, tackle the major global challenge of illegal migration.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
On that point, would my noble friend consider a domestic assessor—for example, the Joint Committee on Human Rights? If it were to advise, would he accept that?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, one of the groups that we are coming on to looks at the organisations and committees that are set up under the treaty. We will return to that discussion about the provisions of the treaty in respect of what my noble friend has just asked. As I say, it would not be right for the delivery of our policy, which is key to our commitment to stop the boats, to be left solely dependent on this.
Amendments 11 and 12 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord German, seek to ensure that individuals relocated to Rwanda must have any asylum claim determined and be treated in accordance with the UK’s international obligations. This is unnecessary in view of the comprehensive arrangements that we have in place with the Government of Rwanda. It is important to remember that Rwanda is a country that cares deeply about supporting refugees. It works already with the UNHCR and hosts more than 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers and stands ready to relocate people and help them to rebuild their lives.
We will get on to this again in a later group, but I remind the Committee that the UNHCR has signed an agreement with the Government of Rwanda and the African Union to continue the operations of the emergency transit mechanism centre in Rwanda, which the EU financially supports, having recently announced a further €22 million support package for it. Indeed, as recently as late December, the UNHCR evacuated 153 asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the international agreements that Rwanda has signed. That is dealt with at paragraph 25 of the policy statement. I will read it for convenience:
“Rwanda is a signatory to key international agreements protecting the rights of refugees and those in need of international protection. It acceded to the Refugee Convention, as well as the 1967 Protocol, in 1980. In 2006 it acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Conventions on the Reduction of Statelessness. Regionally, it is a signatory of the Organisation of African Unity Convention on Refugees in Africa and the 2012 Kampala Convention”.
Paragraph 26 goes on to say that:
“Rwanda’s obligations under these international agreements are embedded in its domestic legal provisions. The Rwandan constitution ensures that international agreements Rwanda has ratified become domestic law in Rwanda. Article 28 of the constitution recognises the right of refugees to seek asylum in Rwanda”.
The presumption which appears to underpin this amendment is that Rwanda is not capable of making good decisions and is somehow not committed to this partnership. I disagree. Rwandans, perhaps more than those in most countries, understand the importance of providing protection to those who need it. I remind the Committee that my noble friend Lady Verma spoke very powerfully on that subject at Second Reading.
The core of this Bill, and the Government’s priority, is to break the business model of the people smugglers. That will not happen if we undermine the central tenet of the Bill, which is the effect of these amendments, and a point that was well addressed by my noble friend Lord Howard. We are a parliamentary democracy, and that means that Parliament is sovereign. Parliament itself is truly accountable, and I therefore invite the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
Clause 1(2)(b) says that Rwanda is a safe country, so why is Clause 1(3) necessary?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Clause 1(3) is just a simple restatement of the various facts of the Bill.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord has rather disappointed me, because he declined totally to address any of the points that your Lordships’ House voted for a few weeks ago—in particular, the 10 criteria by which it would be possible to judge whether the Government’s statement that Rwanda was a safe place was actually true or not. Could he now stand up and deal with those 10 criteria? It would be quite interesting for the Committee to have his account of the Government’s view of those criteria and whether they have been met; if they have not, when they will be met; and what tests they will put them to.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, this is Committee, and I am speaking to the various amendments in this group. As I have just reminded my noble friend Lord Hailsham, we will get to another group which debates the clauses in the treaty—as regards the various committees and so on that are in place—later in the day.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I know it is very boring, but could the Minister respond to my question about the legal status and the effect of Clause 1? I am still not clear what attention we should pay to it, were we to be in very formal proceedings rather than debating the situation broadly. In other words, if there is a breach of Clause 1—I do not know whether it can be called a breach; if there is no compliance with Clause 1—then what, in formal legal terms?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, it is simply the introduction to the Bill, so I am not entirely sure I get the drift of the question of the noble Baroness.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, before the noble Lord concludes, can he say whether he will be formally responding to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, especially before we reach Report?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I have not yet had a chance to read the report, which I believe was published only today, but I will of course read it in due course and respond accordingly.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister seems to rely on the emergency transit mechanism on which Rwanda works with the UNHCR. Can he confirm that this mechanism—which has a maximum capacity of 700—is a temporary processing point for asylum seekers from Libya, and that none of the 1,453 evacuated to Rwanda has actually opted to stay in the country?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I do not rely on that at all. As I tried to explain, a variety of aspects of the UNHCR’s work are included in our safety assessment—and that is just one of them.
Lord Garnier (Con)
I apologise for interrupting, because I know that my noble friend the Minister wants to sit down for good. When he spoke to Clause 1(2)(b), was he speaking for Parliament or the Government?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As my noble and learned friend is aware, I speak for the Government.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Can the Minister indicate when the Government will respond to the report on the Bill by the Constitution Committee of this House?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am afraid that I do not know; I will find out.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to all Members of the Committee from around the Chamber for the constructive manner and tone with which these proceedings on the first group have been conducted. Noble Lords will forgive me if I do not mention every excellent contribution; they will understand that is not a discourtesy to Members of the Committee, but, I hope, a bit of kindness to those who have amendments to follow this evening.
I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, for following immediately, because he was able to crystallise some key issues between us, on my suite of amendments as well as on all the others in the first group. In essence, he had two points: one that I can embrace to some extent, and another that I cannot. I think that he was the first to point out that, in the way that I have formulated my suite of amendments, I have given perhaps too determinative a role for the UNHCR. I explained the reason for that: it was because the Prime Minister said that he was going to assuage the concerns of the Supreme Court. None the less, I take the noble Lord’s point—which was echoed by subsequent speakers, if less robustly—so I hope not to create a determinative role for the UNHCR in the next stage of proceedings, although I also note that many Members of the Committee, including the Minister, referred to the important part that the UNHCR plays in the world on refugees and the convention.
However, the second crucial point—
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
Before the noble Baroness goes to the point where she disagrees with me, I thank her for her response to the first point I made. Of course, I do not speak for the Government, but no doubt we will consider the matter further when we get to Report.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am again grateful to the noble Lord. However, his second central point was the big constitutional one: that Parliament is sovereign—that is pretty much it—and that the Supreme Court’s decision on 15 November was mere opinion rather than a determinative finding of fact in our system. I am afraid that I must disagree with him on that, in essence for the reasons outlined later in the debate by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. He in turn echoed some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, at Second Reading about the dangers that lie in the future should it be possible, in our country, for Governments with large majorities, of whatever stripe, to use legislation to change not only any old finding of fact but a finding of fact that was made recently by our highest court. That is not only silly, to echo the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, but very dangerous in a democracy that is built, fundamentally and first, on the rule of law. Parliamentary sovereignty follows, but Parliament, and the Executive in particular, must have a little respect for the independent referees of our democratic system.
I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for making the international point that follows from that: that the domestic rule of law is the bedrock of our system, but a quarter of the way into the 21st century, so is the international rule of law. All sorts of terrible consequences come when we do not respect that. She cited wars of aggression and war crimes that, in turn, drive a displacement of people that is leading to the refugee crisis that Governments around the world are trying to respond to. Therefore, she is a great proponent of the international rules-based order, as we know from her other work.
Lord German
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, along with Lord German’s amendments to Clause 2, page 2, line 33; Clause 2, page 2, line, 39; Clause 2, page 3, line 3; and Clause 9, page 6, line 38 provide that it is the Secretary of State’s judgement that Rwanda is a safe country and for this judgement to be linked to commencement of the Act. This suite of amendments provides criteria for how that judgement may be made, including compliance by the UK and Rwanda of their obligations under the Treaty in furtherance of the rule of law.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 4, I will speak also to a suite of amendments which go throughout the Bill. Perhaps that indicates the way in which all these things are interconnected, because this suite of amendments will deal with a lot of the concerns that were raised in the Committee in the course of group 1 and will be relevant to any changes that we might pursue on Report.
In summary, these amendments remove the absolute nature of the declaration that Rwanda is safe; enable the courts to consider the safety issue; require the Secretary of State, not Parliament, to judge when Rwanda is safe; and ensure that all the measures this House has considered in its resolution of the treaty are operational and functioning according to our international obligations before the Secretary of State can lay a commencement order before Parliament.
As we have heard, the Bill deems Rwanda to be safe regardless of whether it is in fact safe, and this House has already determined that it is not yet safe. Unlike the use of deeming clauses in domestic legislation, this deeming subclause is being used alongside an international obligation. However, as the Bar Council, among others, points out in its evidence to the JCHR, deeming Rwanda to be safe in order to meet the UK’s international obligations under the ECHR and the refugee convention steps outside the domestic use of deeming clauses. This is particularly so when you take into account the conclusions reached by the UNHCR that the Bill, as well as the treaty,
“does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible with international refugee law”.
If the arguments which the Government put forward about it being in the context of international laws are true, why do they not let the courts have their say, finally, about this matter?
Some on the government side are comfortable about overriding our international obligations, maintaining that it is perfectly acceptable to be incompatible with international rules, laws, commitments and obligations of which we are part. I am not a lawyer, but, having read all the evidence given to committees of this House and the other House, and from all the people who have put evidence before us, it seems they represent a minority of legal opinion, and we have witnessed incredible displays of legal acrobatics, most of it on the head of a pin.
Fundamentally, based on Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, no rule of a state’s internal law can be used to justify a breach of an international obligation. Further, as our own Constitution Committee states, to legislate in this way could undermine our constitutional principle of the rule of law. Back in 2020 and again recently it said that
“respect for the rule of law requires respect for international law”.
Today we have that view expressed by the report of the JCHR.
We will hear much more on the rule of law and the words of Dicey. However, this suite of amendments, taken as a whole, will ensure adherence to the rule of law, reinstate the role of the courts, protect human rights, and meet our international obligations. Fundamentally, these amendments seek to safeguard and uphold the UK’s constitution and the rule of law. It is deeply problematic that the terms of the UK-Rwanda agreement have not yet been met, especially as the Government have deemed it as the basis for the declaration in the Bill that Rwanda is in fact safe. In fact, in their own policy statement the Government refer to “assurances and commitments”—those are not things that are happening at this moment.
Through these amendments we seek to ensure that the final arbitration on the safety of Rwanda lies ultimately with the judiciary and not with Parliament. The Secretary of State would come to a decision on the safety of Rwanda but the legality of this decision can be reviewed by the judiciary. This would enable the proper role of the independent judiciary—our domestic courts and tribunals—to review the legality of the Secretary of State’s actions and decisions. The amendments in this suite would mean that the Secretary of State should deem Rwanda safe only if it is safe for every person of every description: women, people of all ethnic minorities and religions, LGBTQI+ people, those in power, those whose political opinion differs from those in power, and every nationality. In coming to their conclusion, the laws of Rwanda and how they are applied should be scrutinised, together with evidence from international bodies and civil society organisations.
The Act could come into force only when the steps set out in Amendment 84 had been met—the Minister spoke of that amendment earlier; we have reached it already. In replying, can the Minister tell the Committee— I think this was a question from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, as well—which of the matters listed in Amendment 84(1A)(c) are currently in place, which of them will be in place soon, and which will be operational on the date the Government think the Bill will be enacted? For those who have Amendment 84(1A)(c) in front of them, it is the 10 issues raised by the committee which reported to this House on the treaty.
As this House has determined in its resolution on the treaty, it is critically important for the safety of those concerned that any assessment of safety is completed before this Bill comes into force. The judgment on whether Rwanda is safe could be one of life and death. The Supreme Court has already made a factual assessment. Parliament should not be legislating to reverse the Supreme Court’s factual assessment while tying the hands of the judiciary and requiring them to ignore facts placed before them.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He has said repeatedly that the Supreme Court has held as a fact that Rwanda is an unsafe country. If one looks at the judgment of the Supreme Court, in paragraph 105 the noble Lord will see that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed, the president of the Supreme Court, said that Rwanda was unsafe at the time that the Divisional Court was considering the evidence. As my noble friend the Minister said on the last group, the short point is that the question which this Parliament is determining as to the safety of Rwanda is in light of the new arrangements.
Lord German (LD)
As the noble Lord will know, the other clause in the Supreme Court judgment, which he did not refer to, said that it will take a considerable time for those matters to take place. That is why I have asked the Minister in this Chamber, having heard the views of the treaties committee of this House and the matters which it raised after taking evidence last month, whether the provisions in Amendment 84 which are proposed for new Clause 84(1)(c) are in place now. Are they operational? Which ones will be in place, and by when? If we follow the noble Lord’s remarks, that is the judgment that we are trying to make now.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
It is not only a question of whether they are in place but whether Rwanda is compliant and remains compliant, and whether there are any other reasons to doubt the safety of Rwanda.
Lord German (LD)
Indeed. That is why, in this suite of amendments, the Secretary of State has to take the advice of a number of organisations—not one in particular but a number of organisations. The Secretary of State must produce the evidence to show that the requirements are in place, operational and working according to the decisions that were originally in place as wanting to see this thing through.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Is it right that what the noble Lord perhaps had in mind when referring to the Supreme Court judgment was its words that the problems in Rwanda were not a lack of good faith on the part of Rwanda but
“its practical ability to fulfil its assurances, at least in the short term, in the light of the present deficiencies of the Rwandan asylum system, the past and continuing practice of refoulement … and the scale of the changes in procedure, understanding and culture which are required”?
The noble Lord, Lord German, might also have had in mind that the Supreme Court identified
“a culture within Rwanda of, at best, inadequate understanding of Rwanda’s obligations under the refugee convention”.
Would it be the case that the noble Lord, Lord German, might also have been rather worried that simply having to agree that “We won’t refoule” from a date which I assume would be about a month or two from today sits rather unkindly against that assessment by the Supreme Court? Am I also right in saying that the noble Lord, Lord German, would have been very heartened by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, who said that he accepted all that the Supreme Court had said?
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I am loath to say “yes” to a leading question from a leading lawyer, but he is absolutely right, of course. For those words added to what I said earlier and paragraph 104, which we have already had referred to, the
“necessary changes may not be straightforward, as they require an appreciation that the current approach is inadequate, a change of attitudes, and effective training and monitoring”.
If you read the Supreme Court judgment, you will know what we have to test in order to prove Rwanda’s safety. That is what the committees of this House have been trying to do.
This suite of amendments turns it all around. It says that it is the judgment of the Government, which they would have to bring forward in an order for the House to accept, but before that they would have to address all the issues in Amendment 84 which are proposed for new Clause 84(1)(c). They would also have to consult and be certain that they had made the case. If, at the end, Parliament approved the order that the Government had put before it, the courts could intervene and test it on the basis of fact. That is our current procedure for dealing with issues of this sort. I am loath to say that this is back to the future, but it is keeping in track where we stand as a Parliament—how we make decisions, where they are tested and whether they can be tested in the courts.
We cannot allow a dangerous precedent to be set with this overreach of Parliament’s role. The courts need to remain as the check and balance on the exercising of the Secretary of State’s power. Parliament cannot be allowed to overturn the evidence-based findings of fact made by the highest court in the UK, given that this Bill is there for ever and does not look at what happens in the future. We need to stand firm against the Government’s attempt to subvert the separation of powers in this country. Today, this is about asylum seekers; tomorrow, this precedent will be applied to the next group who find themselves as the latest scapegoats of the Government.
I end with the words of the late Lord Judge in this Chamber. I sat here listening to him and I hear those words echoing in my head now. He said:
“the rule of law is a bulwark against authoritarian incursion, and even the smallest incursion threatens it”.—[Official Report, 19/10/20; col. 1286.].
Those are wise words. This suite of amendments seeks to uphold the principle that he espoused so powerfully. I beg to move.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I regret that I was not able to take part in discussion on the previous group because I was on the train as it began.
The point that has been made here is an important one, which I did not hear elaborated on during the debate on the first group. Without wishing to disparage Rwanda in any way, countries in that part of the world do have a habit from time to time of changing their regimes, and those regimes often have very different characteristics. If you are approaching this problem, which seems to me entirely reasonable in normal circumstances, that the country where the asylum seekers end up should be safe, it does not follow that once it has been ruled to be safe it then continues to be safe. The problem with Clause 1(2)(b) is that, if the wording remains as it is now, even if you go through the procedures that the noble Lord, Lord German, is discussing, once there has been a ruling that the country is safe then there is no means to return to the question if circumstances fundamentally and damagingly change.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I commend to my noble friend the concept of the rolling sunset, which he will find in Amendments 81 and 82.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I am very interested in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord German. On one view, it is saying that the Secretary of State makes his or her decision only after properly considering all the relevant factors. It may be that what he has in mind is that, thereafter, there can be appropriate review of that by the courts. I assume that he has in mind judicial review. Therefore, it would be the decision of the Secretary of State that was judicially reviewable. It is worth thinking about whether, once that decision had been made and then upheld by the courts because there was a proper basis on which a Secretary of State could reach that decision, in general terms the question of whether the country was safe would not thereafter be open to consideration by the immigration office.
I would not be in favour of that as a matter of principle, but if one is looking for a compromise—this is something that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, touched upon, and it may be dealt with in later amendments—I would be very interested to hear what the view of the Government is in relation to a situation where, in effect, the Secretary of State had to make a proper decision addressing the proper considerations and that decision was then open to judicial review. Could that be a compromise?
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this group, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has just raised an extremely interesting point. He suggested that a decision by the Secretary of State, having considered the factors referred to by the noble Lord, Lord German, should be subject to judicial review. The principles of judicial review are clear: the court does not substitute its own view of matters; it assesses whether the Secretary of State came to a reasonable decision.
Departing somewhat from the Government’s view, one of the problems that I have with the Supreme Court decision is that it was not based on the principles of judicial review. The Divisional Court did approach it on that basis and the Supreme Court said that that was wrong. The Supreme Court, relying on precedents that had never received the authority of Parliament or statute, decided that it should not apply the principles of judicial review, but should decide these matters for itself. That is a very important distinction between what happened in this case, which gave rise to this legislation, and the procedure now being proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I rise with some hesitancy, in the middle of a rather technical debate, but I would like to make a couple of points on this group. The Committee has already heard from my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb who, in her inimitable way, made it very clear that the Green Party remains utterly opposed to the entire Bill and greatly regrets that we gave it a Second Reading—but we are where we are.
From listening to the debate on the first group, a word that came up again and again, which might be surprising to people listening from outside the Committee, was “silly”. Of course, what we are talking about is deadly serious, but the definitions of “silly” are interesting, if you look them up. One is “showing a lack of common sense or judgment”. Common sense and judgment are two things that this group of amendments seeks to introduce to the Bill, so I commend the noble Lord, Lord German, for introducing it so clearly and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for his excellent assistance in presenting the argument.
It is a statement of the obvious that Parliament, and certainly your Lordships’ House after our vote on the Rwanda treaty, does not believe that what the Bill states is common sense. It is not based on the evidence and has been disproved. More than that, these amendments are making a person, the Secretary of State, responsible for making a judgment. If we are to have the rule of law, a person has to be identified and held responsible for making that judgment. We are introducing a sense of responsibility and evidence here, which would at least be a step forward.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord German. It has been a short debate, in comparison to that on the first group, presumably because some have now given their Second Reading speeches on this Bill and that is sufficient for them. We will just have to go through the grind. It has, nevertheless, been an interesting debate.
I will pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard. Of course, members of the Supreme Court are not here to answer questions, but I understand that they considered whether the Divisional Court was correct in deciding whether Ministers had followed an incorrect process, under law. The Supreme Court’s view was that the question to answer was whether issues of fact on refoulement, which was the origin of the appeal, were to be determined. That is why the Supreme Court made the decision that it did, and that is the relevant part of judicial review. I do not think that the relevant part of judicial review for the Bill is the Supreme Court’s judgment, but that judicial reviews of the process that decision-makers had followed in deciding to relocate anybody to Rwanda can no longer be carried out. That will now be prohibited which, if I may say so, is a major constitutional step, which the Bingham Centre and many others have warned against. I suspect we will hear that in other groups of amendments and, for me, that is the important part of judicial review.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I know I am going slightly outside the ordering of clauses, but Amendments 81 and 82 to Clause 9 address the very difficulty that the noble Lord has identified. Circumstances can, and almost certainly will, change. We need to put rolling sunsets in place so that the Bill is never in force for more than, let us say, two years, and that each time it is extended there is a proper assessment of the safety of Rwanda, its compliance with treaties and, incidentally, whether the policy itself is succeeding.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I am grateful to the noble Viscount. I listened carefully to what he said, including at Second Reading, and when he comes to make the case I will also listen carefully for that. If he will forgive me for saying so, we will be into the categories of plan C, D, E and F to try to make the Bill a bit better. I refer to the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on the first group. These are all silk purse amendments, are they not? We are desperately trying to make something better that, in our hearts, we know cannot be better. We are trying to just take the rough edges off it slightly.
Our approach in this group is to revert the Bill to long-standing common practice for asylum laws that Ministers on those Benches have regularly said is the proper procedure, because it includes executive decision-making, parliamentary approval and then judicial review. That is what we are saying should be the case, because that is what, for years, Ministers have said is the case. We are seeking to restore that. Amendment 84 requires Ministers to report on these areas.
I wrote to the Foreign Secretary in December asking a whole series of questions regarding the treaty. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, gave me the courtesy of a substantive reply, and I am grateful for it. I asked specifically about when some of the mechanisms of the treaty would be in operation—for example, on the capacity for decision-making processes in Rwanda, for us to determine whether it would have the capacity and therefore be able to be safe. The noble Lord replied: “Some of the newer mechanisms will be finalised before operationalisation”. I want to know when. The Government are clearly working on it. They must have a working assumption of when they will be in place—so tell us. If the Government are saying that we are the determining body, tell us when those procedures will be in place. They cannot have it both ways and say that we are the determining body but they have the information—that does not cut it any more. If we are the determining body, we must have the information.
This is why I asked about when the judges will be in place. Under the treaty, judges who are not Rwandan nationals will have to be trained on Rwandan law, not UK law. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, who is not in his place, was completely wrong in the debate on the first group about this being similar to the Australian processes. The people who will be relocated will be processed under Rwandan law, not British law, so the judges will have to be trained on it. I asked when that will be complete, because we are obviously not going to relocate an individual where there will be a panel of judges to process them who are not sufficiently trained in Rwandan law. I am sure everybody will agree with that.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, replied: “The proper procedures, facilities and support for relocated individuals, with regard to the judges’ training, will be in place before they are relocated to Rwanda”. The Prime Minister, who bet Piers Morgan that the flights will leave, obviously knows when the judges will be trained—so what is the working assumption of when they will be trained?
I am desperately trying not to make this a silk purse exercise. We are fully in an Alice in Wonderland situation here. In the debate on the earlier group, the Minister said that because things have changed, we should now look at the new country note. The new country policy and information note version 2—and version 2.1 in January, which he was referring to—supersedes the summer 2022 country note. The Minister is saying that the old note should not be taken into consideration because there is a new note—and, if we want to refer to the UNHCR’s up-to-date position we should, as we heard him say, look at annexe 2 of that report. Not only have I read the country policy notes front to end, I also clicked on the annexe 2 links—anybody can do it now on their smartphone. A box comes up with a note that the publication was withdrawn on 11 December 2023. The publication the Minister referred to, which was withdrawn, was from May 2022, which the Supreme Court used as its evidence for the UNHCR.
If we are to be the decision-making body, how on earth are we going to be making decisions when the Government do not tell us even the basic information of when they—not us—think Rwanda will be a safe country?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord German, said, there is a suite of amendments in this group that, in many ways, cover the same ground as the first group. It is clear from this short debate, as well as the first, that this debate—approaching the Bill by ensuring that the terms of the treaty are being properly adhered to; essentially, we are debating the mechanism for how best to do this—will dominate the whole Committee stage. I hope colleagues can work together to return the best possible solution on this issue.
In the same way that the Opposition do not wish to delay the Bill’s passage, we do not want to create barriers for the scheme to start. Our focus should be on how we monitor and judge the safety of Rwanda, who monitors it, and what should happen if Rwanda is judged not to be a safe country for those being removed to it.
The noble Lord, Lord German, introducing Amendments 4 and 17, said there should no commencement of the Act until Rwanda is deemed a safe country. A number of noble Lords spoke at length on proposed new subsection (1A)(c) in Amendment 84, which are the 10 issues raised by the committee of this House about how that might be achieved. The noble Lord looked at how that might be done, how many of those elements are in place, which are operational and—perhaps more fundamentally—whether Rwanda has the practical ability to fulfil the undertakings in a more long-term way. That is really the point that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, made in his brief contribution to this group.
My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer speculated that the Secretary of State could, after making a decision, be open to judicial review. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, said that the Supreme Court did not use the principles of judicial review when it made its decision, but decided the case on first principles. Both my noble and learned friend and the noble Lord are well above my grade in legal matters, but it seems to me that this is another example of possible compromise as we move forward—as there were possible areas of compromise discussed in the debate on the first group.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, gave his customarily extremely articulate speech on the various provisions in proposed new subsection (1A)(c) in Amendment 84. He spoke of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and went through various ways in which that might be achieved—although he made his reluctance to do so very clear. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, spoke about his Amendments 81 and 82, on the rolling sunsets, as he described them, which we will get to on a subsequent group.
So, really, this whole group is trying to make sure that the Government are properly held to account. As I said in my introduction, our focus will be on how to monitor and judge the safety of Rwanda, who monitors it, and what Parliament’s role is in that, rather than putting up a barrier against the Bill itself.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to this debate, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord German, for opening. I acknowledge the spirit across the Committee of approaching this matter by looking to see what can be amended and not setting out to wreck the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said on the first group.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I would like to wreck the Bill—just so the Minister knows.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I accept that and I did hear the noble Baroness make that point from the Benches opposite.
Since summer 2022, when judicial review proceedings in relation to the migration and economic development partnership began, the United Kingdom and the Government of Rwanda have worked to refine and improve that partnership. This has strengthened not only the operational readiness of Rwanda to receive and support migrants relocated under the partnership but the legal footing of the agreement and the commitments both sides undertake to ensure that national and international obligations and standards are met, having scrutinised closely and carefully all the circumstances of the country and information from appropriate sources.
Rwanda has a long history of supporting and integrating asylum seekers and refugees in the region. It has also been recognised internationally for its general safety and stability, strong government, low corruption and gender equality. I quote from what the Kigali-based comprehensive refugee response officer, Nayana Bose, of the UNHCR said in December 2021—mark the date:
“Rwanda has done an excellent job integrating refugees in the national education system, including urban refugees in the national community-based health insurance plan, providing them with national ID cards and offering them livelihood opportunities”.
As the Committee is aware, the Bill is underpinned by the treaty, Article 10 of which in particular sets out the assurances for the treatment of relocated individuals in Rwanda, including abiding by the refugee convention in relation to those seeking asylum. Furthermore, pursuant to Article 3 of the treaty, the parties agree that the obligations therein
“shall be met in respect of all Relocated Individuals, regardless of their nationality, and without discrimination”.
Under this commitment, Rwanda will treat all groups of people fairly. We have assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of measures within the treaty will be expedited. The treaty will follow the usual process with regard to scrutiny and ratification. I note that amendments tabled by noble Lords on this topic will be debated in the group to follow.
Amendment 17 would also oblige the Secretary of State to consider Rwanda safe only if it was deemed so for every descriptor of person as set out in Section 7(3) of the Illegal Migration Act. In relocating individuals to Rwanda, decision-makers will make a case-by-case decision about whether there is compelling evidence that the particular circumstances of each case would mean an individual would be at risk of serious and irreversible harm were they to be relocated to Rwanda. This means that each person’s circumstances are considered before relocation. We therefore consider the amendment unnecessary.
Amendments 24 and 27 relate to the roles of courts and tribunals. It is important that we recognise that these are considered decision-makers in relation to relocating individuals to Rwanda, and they may have a say in it.
Amendment 27 in particular would place an obligation on courts and tribunals to consider any claim that Rwanda may breach its international obligations by removing an individual to a country that was unsafe for them; that an individual may not receive fair and proper consideration of their asylum claim; and that Rwanda will not act in accordance with the terms of the treaty. This obligation is unnecessary. Rwanda is as committed to this partnership as we are. We have worked closely together to build this partnership and have trust that the commitments in the treaty will be upheld. That is why we have introduced the Bill, which reflects the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments given in the treaty, allowing Parliament to confirm the status of the Republic of Rwanda as a safe third country.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton—I speak to his later contribution, rather than when he was assisting the noble Lord, Lord German, with legal analysis—posed the question of whether judicial review might be applicable. My noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne took up that point as well. On that aspect, I refer noble Lords to the terms of Article 22 of the treaty, which provides:
“In the event of a dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement, including any question regarding its existence, validity, termination, interpretation or implementation, the Parties shall refer the dispute to the Joint Committee which shall meet within 14 … Working Days to discuss and seek resolution to the dispute by consultation”.
Therefore, the process by which matters will be addressed, if there is some shock to the operation of the system once it is operational, is set out in the terms of the treaty and operates on the level between the two countries.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I thank the noble and learned Lord for answering the question, but I am not sure that answers the point. Suppose the position were that the UK said, “You haven’t implemented it properly”; the effect of this Act would be nevertheless that a Minister and every single deciding body would have to decide that Rwanda was a safe country. I am not quite sure how Article 22 responds to the suggestion that I think the noble Lord, Lord German, makes in his amendment that judicial review should be available—albeit, as the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, said, it would be the decision of the Secretary of State as to whether it was a safe country. Could the noble and learned Lord address that suggestion?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, in relation to the operation of the treaty during its currency, we should bear in mind that a monitoring committee is in place, which examines these things on a going-forward basis, keeps them under supervision and reports back.
Annexe B of the treaty also sets out the claims process for relocated individuals and how they will be treated. It sets out clearly that members of the first instance body, who will make decisions on asylum and humanitarian protection claims, shall make such decisions
“impartially, solely on the basis of evidence before them and by reference to the provisions and principles of the Refugee Convention and humanitarian protection law”.
In preparation for the potential relocation of individuals, officials in the United Kingdom have worked together with Rwandan officials to develop and commence operational training for Rwandan asylum decision-makers. Most recently, Home Office technical experts, in collaboration with the Institute of Legal Practice and Development, delivered a training course aimed at asylum decision-makers in Rwanda.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I wonder if the Minister might tell us how long the course was, how many people were training and where they were from.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I do not think the noble Lord will be especially surprised to hear that I do not have those facts to hand, but I will undertake on behalf of the relevant department to communicate with him in writing on that topic.
The course focused on applying refugee law in asylum interviews and decision making—
Lord Scriven (LD)
The UN has reported on the treaty and the deficiencies that the Supreme Court referred to. In January, it noted in paragraph 20 of its report that training, based on its historical review of what is required in such circumstances, is normally of limited use. Over and above the training, what else has been put in place for those decision-makers to ensure that they fully abide by and understand their obligations, not just within Rwandan law but international agreements?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, as I said when I was responding to a point from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the presence of British officials and foreign judges in Rwanda, looking at these matters and collaborating to resolve them, will clearly inculcate an atmosphere and a spirit of proper observance.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, the Minister speaks in the future tense—that the presence of British judges and the training “will” have that effect. I guess he is right; it may very well have that effect. But the point is that we are asked to declare Rwanda safe now. I hope the Minister is going to answer the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about timing: when do we expect Rwanda to produce the new asylum law? When do we expect the judges to be appointed? When do we expect the system that is to be devised to ensure that there is no refoulement? When will that system be created? When are the Government going to see it? When will the House see it? If we are asked to say that Rwanda is safe, then we have already voted that we cannot ratify the treaty until the measures set out in Amendment 84, which were in the International Agreements Committee report, have come into effect. It is all very well the Minister speaking in the future tense; he has to tell us now when things are going to happen.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, I may have missed it, but could the Minister say whether Rwanda has drafted a refugee law?
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, can I add to the Minister’s list the number of judges who have agreed to go to Rwanda and work there, and indeed the number of officials, and for how long?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, it is a matter of working towards having the safeguards in place. We have received assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of all measures in the treaty will be expedited. The point is that we are working with them to accomplish that end. We have already developed and commenced operational training—
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister. That is the closest we have got to an answer: “working towards”. Can we pursue that a wee bit more? If the Rwandan Government are “working towards” putting safeguards in place, that means they are not currently in place. Is that correct?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
Just before the noble Lord stands up or resumes his position, I have specific information on the point he raised earlier on information available electronically. I am told that the page on the GOV.UK site to which he was referring was in fact withdrawn on 11 September 2023 and has been superseded by one dated 11 January 2024.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I am grateful. I clicked on it half an hour ago. Maybe they can do some clicking in the Box, because the information the Minister has just provided is false. He needs to correct the record, but he can do it in writing to me if he so wishes.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I think a discussion on this point would be taking up too much of the Committee’s time.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
As the Minister confirmed to me, by definition, the safeguards that would make Rwanda safe are not in place, because the Rwandan Government are “working towards” having them in place. Why then are we asked to determine that Rwanda is currently safe when the Minister has said it is not?
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, might I add to that question? Is the noble and learned Lord the Minister not embarrassed by the word “is” in the clause, which I will address in the next group? It is the language of that particular provision that causes embarrassment to the Government. They really need to face up to the significance of using the word “is”.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, taking the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, together with that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, I think that brings us to considering where we are with the decision of the Supreme Court, and how that sits with what we, as a Government, are inviting the House to do at this stage.
The point is—and it is one which has been anticipated by noble Lords contributing on this and the previous group—that the factual basis on which the Supreme Court reached its decision has changed. The factual basis on which the Supreme Court reached its decision was frozen in time, as it were, by the court of first instance. Since then, considerable development has taken place. The facts have changed; we are entitled to move forward. I also do not consider that that there is anything—
Lord Scriven (LD)
I thank the Minister for giving way. In January, the UN gave an assessment of where the Rwandan immigration system is. Paragraph 18 of that report states:
“As of January 2024, UNHCR has not observed changes in the practice of asylum adjudication that would overcome the concerns set out in its 2022 analysis and in the detailed evidence presented to the Supreme Court”.
What the UNHCR is saying is that, as of January this year, it has seen no evidence that the issues that the Supreme Court had in its evidence have been addressed to make Rwanda a safe country.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, we disagree with the views of the UNHCR on that point. As noble Lords were reminded at an earlier stage, the UNHCR is not the sovereign Parliament of this country.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
Will the Minister give way? Just a moment ago, he said that Rwanda was “working towards”—that is not the same as “is”. I hate to say it, but it would appear that he is contradicting himself.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I do not think that that is the case. I think that by saying that Rwanda is continuing to work on a process is to say that it is working on making things safer—not that they are not safe already.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. We have not received any evidence as to how this change has taken place in this short period. Rather than an assertion, what evidence is being placed before this House as to what is taking place and what has taken place to totally change the assessment of safety? I really would like to hear what the evidence is.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, could I assist the noble and learned Lord in relation to this? There is a document called Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, and what this rather excellent document reveals—no doubt the noble and learned Lord will correct me if I am wrong—is that, since the Supreme Court decided, there has been the agreement that has been entered into, which is really just making legal and international law commitments they had already given, and that just before the Supreme Court gave its judgment, two courses were held, one from 18 to 22 September 2023 and the second from 20 to 24 November 2023, in which a number of Rwandan officials were trained, as the document says, to have a better understanding of the refugee convention.
Apart from those two courses and the entering into of the agreement the Minister referred to, will he tell us what else has happened since the rendering of the Supreme Court’s judgment, which I think was a few weeks ago?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
More than a few weeks ago, I think, but what we have is an internationally binding treaty between two sovereign states. That—if the noble and learned Lord will bear with me—is of the utmost significance in considering such matters.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Am I right in saying that the legally binding commitment commits Rwanda to do the things, particularly in relation to refoulement, which it had already promised—although not in an agreement—to do? Am I right in saying that the very judgment which the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said an hour ago the Government respect, would take considerable time to take effect because of cultural understanding and the need for very substantial change? I am looking for something other than simply signing an agreement to do with that which it had already promised to do, which the Supreme Court said it was not in a practical position to deliver. Will the Minister tell the Committee what has happened that gives one confidence that that which the Supreme Court says will take time will in fact be ready in an instant?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
It is not a matter of being ready in an instant. The work is being undertaken. The point is that we have a specific treaty commitment not to refoul. As the noble and learned Lord knows, but just to remind the Committee, that is not to send people from Rwanda anywhere other than back to the United Kingdom; and, specifically, not to send them to places where they might be subject to torture or mistreatment; and, further, not to send them back to the countries from which they emerged if those countries are deemed dangerous.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
Have we bought through financial consideration special treatment for the people we send for asylum, as distinct from anyone else being considered for asylum; or is the asylum system as a whole being reformed? If we are buying them business class, as distinct from sitting at the back of the bus, does that really conform to our high standards of the rule of law and the protection of human rights? Or are we just buying something a bit special for the folk we are intending to put on a plane?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, the Government enter into diplomatic arrangements such as treaties with other countries on behalf of the Government, the people and the country of the United Kingdom. Decisions on how to approach handling immigration or asylum claims elsewhere are surely matters for other countries. We would not trespass upon their independence and privileges in order to negotiate on behalf of them with a separate sovereign country.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
Is their whole system to be reformed in order that we can be confident of the quality of decision-making?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I think the noble Baroness has my answer, but the point is this: we do not impose or seek to impose upon anyone; nor, when the noble Baroness talks about buying privileged status, would I go along with that. What I am talking about and what the Government are seeking to enact in this measure is a commitment with a forward-looking, democratic country which is signatory to the same treaties and international obligations as we are.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is about to stand up to intervene. I am aware she has not been here for the whole of this debate.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I am sorry to intervene again, but I have been here for the whole debate. May I take the Committee back to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, quoting from the UNHCR? The Minister said that we do not agree with the UNHCR, but it points out that its conclusions are based on
“UNHCR’s own extensive experience in capacity development of national asylum systems”.
Is the Minister saying that this Government have more experience than the UNHCR of the capacity of countries to change? It makes it very clear that training is not enough and that there needs to be systemic change and a change of culture.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
As I say, this is now a matter of a treaty commitment by that country. We surely accept the possibility that countries have changed. We know the trauma Rwanda has gone through in the comparatively recent past, and we support and acknowledge the work it is attempting to do as a forward-looking African country, looking to provide solutions as opposed to exporting problems.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
These questions have ranged far and wide, but was not the one issue, as I understand it, on which the Supreme Court came to its decision the risk of refoulement? That is covered in the treaty, and anybody would be able to see and know whether anyone was refouled in breach of international law and the concern expressed by the Supreme Court.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend. The matter is entirely patent on the Supreme Court’s decision. It is about refoulement. We now have a treaty commitment preventing that happening.
Lord German (LD)
I have a straightforward and simpler question for the Minister. Paragraph 20 of the policy statement states:
“in order to implement the treaty, the GoR will pass a Rwandan asylum law in the coming months”.
When will that law be produced? Has it already been passed? If not, when will it be passed? If it is going to be passed after we pass this Bill, obviously, the treaty cannot be enabled.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I do not have information specific to the questions the noble Lord raises.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I have listened very carefully to this debate. I was particularly interested in the comments from my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer about training people in Rwanda. I think he said there were two weeks of training. For any treaty to work, it must be between countries that are equal. My impression is that we are telling the Rwandan Government and people what to do, putting pens in their hands and making them sign without properly training them and giving them the experience to act equally to what we are looking to do ourselves. I may be wrong—perhaps the Minister can put me right.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I think the noble Lord overstates the matter. Advice and assistance are being provided to assist a country to shape its laws and culture in a way which is consistent with ours. The work Rwanda has undertaken is substantial. Work has been done in response to the decision of the Supreme Court, albeit, as my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne pointed out, that that decision ultimately related to refoulement, which is expressly covered in the treaty.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Howard, is correct when he says that the fundamental reason why the Supreme Court said no to this was the risk of refoulment. But it said that the risk of refoulement was caused by Rwanda’s asylum system, which was totally defective across the board. Rwanda could not prevent refoulement because its system was so bad. The judgment refers to
“its practical ability to fulfil its assurances, at least in the short term, in the light of the present deficiencies of the Rwandan asylum system, the past and continuing practice of refoulement … and the scale of the changes in procedure, understanding and culture which are required”.
That is what the Supreme Court identified as being required. So it is both accurate but rather misleading to say it was only refoulement. There was the risk of refoulement because of the failures. Would that be the Government’s understanding of the position?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
People cannot be refouled to a different country under this treaty. They can be sent back to the United Kingdom; that is as far as it goes.
Lord McDonald of Salford (CB)
The Minister rests a great deal on a signature on a treaty with a country that—with the current Government—has in the last decade refouled over 4,000 refugees sent by Israel to Rwanda. That was the current Government of Rwanda behaving badly with refoulement. Why is the Minister so confident that the same Government are so fundamentally different and reformed?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
Well, my Lords, the treaty is governed by our laws, by the Government of Rwanda and by international law. For a former diplomat, the noble Lord seems to have very little confidence in the ability of treaties to regulate the conduct of Governments between one another.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
For the Minister to be persuasive in response to that question, he would not have said that they are working towards putting safeguards in place—safeguards which have to be in place, in respect of the point about refoulement made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard. The Minister said that they were working towards putting safeguards in place. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said no relocation would take place before these safeguards were in place. So can the Minister at the Dispatch Box reconfirm that position: that no individual will be relocated before the safeguards—including the appeals mechanism, the training and the capacity-building—are in place? And when will the date be for when relocations of individuals can happen? I ask because we will be informed in Parliament that all of those safeguards are in place; not that they will be in place or are being worked towards, but that they are in place.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I can answer the first part of the noble Lord’s question in the affirmative. On the second part, I cannot give a date.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
As I understand it, my noble and learned friend is effectively saying that, because the treaty is going to be in place, Rwanda can be presumed to comply with its obligations. However, Clause 1(4) of this Bill says:
“It is recognised that … the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign, and … the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law”.
“International law” is very widely defined in subsection (6). If that is true of this country, is it not also true of Rwanda, and why should we necessarily believe in its commitments to the treaty?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
Another noble Lord is perhaps too ready to disparage the activities and views of the Rwandan Government. As to the first point, paragraph 54 of the Constitution Committee’s report, which was published recently and quoted by the noble Lord, Lord German, towards the beginning of this debate, says:
“It is the case that United Kingdom Parliament is sovereign, and therefore may enact legislation which breaches international law. It is also true that the validity of an Act of Parliament, in domestic law, is not affected by international law. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom is still subject to the provisions of international law”.
I do not disagree with anything that the Constitution Committee says in that document. The United Kingdom and this Government take their international commitments extremely seriously, but this measure, this treaty and this Bill are drawn up in response to a considerable problem. People are dying, and a huge amount of money is being spent by the United Kingdom in accommodating people, many of whom have no business being here in the first place. This Bill is an attempt to drive the matter forward.
As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said when winding up for the Opposition Front Bench at Second Reading, a number of things are being done already. He endorsed them on behalf of his party. He spoke about the directions against criminal groups to try to break their business model. He spoke about the enhanced levels of co-operation with our partners on the continent of Europe. Patently, however, while this is a complex and multilayered problem, these things are not working of themselves and the Government have taken a view that we must take further measures to try to stop the boats.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
The noble Lord, Lord Howard, is quite right that the crux of the Supreme Court judgment is the question of refoulement. Ex-diplomats tend to take treaties very seriously. They read Article 10.3 of the treaty with Rwanda, which says:
“The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring”
that refoulement does not occur. I repeat:
“The parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system”.
That is the crux of it. Where is that system? Can we see it? If we could see that system, it might help us to determine whether Rwanda is safe.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
The noble Lord is aware that, as I explained a moment ago, the provisions of the treaty will send people to the United Kingdom only. They will not and cannot be refouled under the treaty and the arrangements we have with Rwanda.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
Why then does the second sentence of Article 10.3 exist? Why is there? Why does it say:
“The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation”
which the Minister refers to “does not occur”?
Why do we need a system? If the Minister is completely confident, why have this Government signed a treaty that has a fallback to say what should happen if refoulement does occur? When will we see that system to ensure the fallback—the safety net? When are we going to see that? It is not good enough for the Minister to say that refoulement cannot happen because we have signed a treaty. The Government have also signed a treaty containing a provision for what happens if refoulement nevertheless occurs.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, it is entirely prudent and appropriate to anticipate contingencies in the terms of a document such as a treaty.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
The noble and learned Lord is taking a much tighter and more defensive position than the Government themselves are taking. They accept the proposition of the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. They do not say that Article 10 is enough on its own. They say the following:
“The Supreme Court concluded that changes needed to be made to Rwanda’s asylum procedures in order to ensure compliance with the principle of non-refoulement”.
They accept the proposition. That is paragraph 76 of the Government’s own statement. So tell us what changes and where we have got to. It is not enough—and the Government accept that it is not enough—just to rely on Article 10.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, I have adverted at some length already to the Monitoring Committee that is in place and to the work currently under way by judicial and bureaucratic civil servant staff assisting the Rwandans in working through these matters.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am feeling slightly confused at this point. Am I correct in saying that the Government accept that, at present, Rwanda has not fully adhered to the commitments that it has given and that it follows that, by reference to those tests, it would be unsafe? As I understand it, even if the Government did nothing, if this Bill goes on the statute book as currently drafted, no changes will take place in the wider world and, suddenly, Rwanda becomes a safe country. Is that the reality of what we are looking at?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, the intention of the Bill is to provide that Rwanda is a safe country. As I have explained to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, in discussing Article 22 of the treaty, in the event of some disturbance to that situation the matter will be approached on a Government-to-Government basis by the convening of the relevant committee within 14 days.
Returning to a text which was prepared earlier for me, I ask the Committee to bear in mind that Article 10 of the treaty sets out particular assurances for the treatment of relocated individuals in Rwanda, including abiding by the refugee convention in relation to those seeking asylum. Furthermore, pursuant to Article 3 of the treaty, the parties agree that the obligations therein shall be met in respect of all relocated individuals, regardless of their nationality and without discrimination. Under this commitment, Rwanda will treat all groups of people fairly. Furthermore, Article 10(3) in the treaty sets out clearly that the only place to which Rwanda can remove individuals—we have covered this ad longam—is the United Kingdom, which ensures that there is no risk of refoulement.
For noble Lords who remain concerned as to whether the Rwandan Government will abide by the treaty, the independent monitoring committee will be in place to ensure that obligations in the treaty are adhered to. For an initial period of at least three months, there will be enhanced monitoring; that shall take place daily to ensure rapid identification of, and response to, any shortcomings. I refer the Committee in that regard to Article 15(7) of the treaty. This enhanced phase will ensure that monitoring and reporting take place in real time. Individuals who are relocated to Rwanda will be able to raise any issues of concern, should they arise, with the committee. It should also be remembered, as I have said on a number of occasions, that this is a legally binding treaty that will become part of Rwandan domestic law.
Taking all of this into consideration, I submit that these amendments are unnecessary. Further, they undermine the objective of the Bill, unnecessarily delaying, potentially, the relocation of individuals to Rwanda. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, if the Committee will forgive me, slid into an earlier part of the Minister’s response was a reference to some glowing statements about the progress within Rwanda on gender equality. Those statements should not be allowed to be left standing, because although we have been very much focused in this debate on refoulement, we are assuming that if refugees—in particular, women refugees—are given status in Rwanda they will remain and have to live in Rwanda. On those glowing statements made about gender equality there, yes, it is well known that Rwanda has made considerable progress in terms of parliamentary representation and ministerial representation—indeed, more progress than our own Parliament has.
None the less, is the Minister aware that in Rwanda, 83% of women work in the informal sector or are in low-wage occupations, earning on average 60% of men’s incomes? Its National Gender Statistics Report 2021 revealed that physical violence affected 36.7% of women and girls aged 15-49 in Rwanda. Will the Minister acknowledge, with regard to his earlier remarks, that making claims about gender equality progress in Rwanda needs to be done with caution?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I respectfully agree with the noble Baroness that it is important to look at such matters with caution. In relation to the figures which she cites, the statistics concerning domestic violence would be primarily, one presumes, a matter for Rwandan society itself.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I am sorry: those were not domestic figures but general violence against women and girls figures.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I am very aware of the noble Baroness’s campaigning work on the topic, and she will be aware that the bulk of violence visited upon women criminally is within the domestic setting.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
Given that, what is the basis for the Minister’s assertion about gender equality, which was also made in the letter of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to Peers? Can he give us some references, since the noble Baroness has?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
With respect to the important point which the noble Baroness tables, I have a feeling that this matter is dealt with in a later group. I do not have the figures to hand at the moment. If we do not touch upon that in a later group, with which I may not be concerned—I have not had a look at that, as a result of the division of labour on these Benches—then on the point which the noble Baroness makes, which reflects the original question, I will make sure that those figures are either brought out in the scope of the debate or are the subject of correspondence.
Lord Scriven (LD)
To be helpful, as the Minister finds his place, what is clearly becoming a bone of contention between the Government Front Bench and the Committee is the progress that has been made. To help us before we get to Report, can the Minister write to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate to show the significant progress—that is the phrase he used—that Rwanda has made to deal with the concerns of the Supreme Court? We would then have some evidence before we get to Report to see the exact content of those significant reforms.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
I am happy to take up the noble Lord’s suggestion. We will correspond with him and other noble Lords who have participated in this debate.
I touched on the role of the independent monitoring committee. We have heard about the presence of persons from outwith Rwanda offering their expertise and skills, bolstering the system that will rule in these situations.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, made a point in relation to the situation in Rwanda. Of course, the Committee ought to be reminded that it is not the intention of the Government that this be a means of sending people to Rwanda; our intention is that people who want to come to Britain will be deterred from following illegal routes travelling to Britain. We intend to use Rwanda as a deterrent for those people. Rwanda itself is safe. The point is that the people who want to travel to Britain will be deterred from travelling if they know that they will be taken instead to Rwanda. This is expressed in a legally binding treaty, which will become part of Rwandan domestic law.
Taking all of what has been said, including the extensive extemporary interventions from Members on all sides, I submit to the Committee that these amendments are unnecessary. They undermine the Bill’s objective. They unnecessarily delay matters in relation to the relocation of individuals and the deterrent effect of which I spoke. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on keeping his cool during this debate, because he has had a lot of information requests thrust at him.
If you were to separate this group of amendments into two halves, the first is about the process by which Parliament deals with the results of the Bill and how it should do it, looking at normal parliamentary practice. That is what was at the heart of this group; we should do it in a proper and appropriate manner. When the Government have determined that it is safe, according to the conditions laid down for them by this House, they would put an order before this House and the Commons, which would be voted on and could have a judicial end if necessary. That was the purpose of this group of amendments.
The second half of the group is much more about what we know in order to make that decision about whether Rwanda is safe. We have heard, “Rwanda is safe, but we’re going to make it safer”. We have heard “It will be expedited”, “We are working towards the treaty” and “We are”—as written down—“seeking assurances and commitments”. All those are in the future tense. The House is being asked to change our mind about what it has already determined, and we need to have the evidence to make that determination. On the most fundamental, simple question—whether, to implement the treaty, the Government of Rwanda will pass a new Rwandan asylum law—we do not know the answer, let alone having answers to all the other questions raised. We do not know where we will be by the time we get to Report.
On the issue of process, bearing in mind the idea of rolling sunset clauses—we need to look a judicial review and everything else—all those matters are important, but they do not deal with what happens before the Rwanda treaty is enacted; they deal with afterwards. I am interested in what happens both before and after, to find solutions which meet the needs of this Committee.
In a sense, I am in a quandary. If you were to ask me after listening to this debate to make a decision on whether Rwanda is safe, the answer would be, “I don’t know and I’ll come back later—but please tell me when I should come back”. As far as I can see, the Committee does not know when that will be. We have had no evidence, dates or timings, or rollout of information to help us make that decision. I hope that we will see it. If we do not, we certainly will be back. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Hope of Craighead
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment, read with new subsections 1(7) and 1(8), seeks to give effect to the proposition that Parliament cannot judge Rwanda to be a safe country until the Rwanda Treaty has been, and continues to be, fully implemented.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I have four amendments in this group: Amendment 6, 14, 20 and 26. They are all part of a single package. They are designed to address, in a slightly different way, the points that have been debated in the two previous groups. In a way, we are on very familiar ground, because we have covered the ground in considerable detail, particularly in the exchanges with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, at the end of the last group.
I take the Committee directly to the wording of Clause 1(2)(b). That clause states, as we know, that the
“Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.
I am concerned with the word “is”. By way of preamble, I am not speaking entirely for myself in being unduly troubled by the fact that the Government are asking your Lordships to reverse the finding of the UK Supreme Court of 15 November last year. The court said that there were:
“substantial grounds for believing that the removal”
of claimants
“to Rwanda would expose them to a real risk of ill treatment, as a consequence of refoulement”.
In other words, it was not a safe country as defined for the purposes of the Bill by Clause 1(5).
However, that finding was based on the evidence which was before the court. Indeed, that was evidence which was before the Divisional Court a year before in 2022, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, reminded us. In a sense, it was talking about material which has moved on. At least, other things have moved on since the facts were gathered together, which was the basis of that finding. It is important to note that the document which was available at that time was not the treaty but the then memorandum of understanding between the two Governments, entered into in April 2022. That had some quite important differences to what we now find in the treaty.
As all judges know, decisions on matters of fact are open to review if there has been a material change of circumstances. I am very far from saying that there has been a sufficient material change to justify a different finding, but in principle, that finding is open to be looked at again if the circumstances change. Certainly, things have moved on since 2022. As I mentioned a moment ago, there is a new treaty. As for Parliament taking upon itself the responsibility of making the judgment referred to in Clause 1(2)(b), I suggest that one has to be quite sanguine about it and just recognise that there are circumstances where judgments can be looked at again. No judge is going to be particularly aggrieved if people suggest that this should be so.
If I was still in the Supreme Court, I would just shrug my shoulders at this and let Parliament carry on and do what it likes, as indeed it can. The President of the Supreme Court, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed of Allermuir, is a Member of this House, but unfortunately, he is disqualified by reason of his office from coming to address us. There is a mechanism by which, if he was unduly troubled, he could submit in writing his views for us to take into account. So far as I know, he has not done that, and I am not greatly surprised that he did not think it necessary to do that.
When I said that Parliament can do what it likes—even if, as is plainly the case here, what it is doing is plainly in conflict with our international obligations and therefore deeply regrettable—it must think very carefully about what it is doing. It must be careful in the choice of words. If it is going to take the place of judges who are very careful in their choice of words when they issue their judgments, it must exercise the same degree of care and skill. That is all the more important in view of the way the Bill gives effect to the judgment. It is surrounded by so many barbed-wire fences, all designed to prevent that judgment ever being challenged in any UK court under any circumstances. This means that the judgment your Lordships are being asked to make is crucial to the safety, lives and well-being of everyone, wherever they come from, who are at risk of being removed to Rwanda.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, I cannot of course surpass the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in quality but I can at least claim the advantage in quantity: I have seven amendments in this group to his four.
We discussed in the first group of amendments why Parliament is ill equipped to make the fact-specific and time-specific judgment asked of it by the Bill—that Rwanda is a safe country. I suppose that on Wednesday we will look at how this difficulty is compounded by restrictions on access to the courts, which is the most troublesome aspect of the Bill.
The amendments in this group do not provide answers to either of those concerns of constitutional principle. Instead, and very much as a second-best option, at least as far as I am concerned, they accept the proposition that Parliament should be the decision-maker and seek to make something workable out of it. The past few hours have surely served as a warning, following the similar warning delivered by the International Agreements Committee at the end of last year, that this House could not, as the noble and learned Lord put it, in all conscience sign off now or in the near future on the proposition that Rwanda is a safe country. The Minister came very close in the last debate to admitting the obvious—that this is at best a work in progress. If he is as sensible as I think he is, he should be very grateful for the olive branch that is Amendment 6 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope.
We turn to the question of what Parliament would need in order to make its judgment—the letter promised to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, will be a welcome start, but it could not of course be enough—and how to ensure that this judgment can be revisited over time. My Amendments 15, 16, 77, 83, 88, 89 and 92 in this group, on which I am grateful for the assistance of the Law Society of England and Wales, are put forward in that spirit of slightly grubby compromise.
Amendment 15 provides for an independent reviewer to review the implementation and operation of the Rwanda treaty and report on it, initially at three-month intervals and thereafter annually. The objective is to produce an impartial report which Parliament can use to come to its own view. I am indebted for that idea to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer himself, who signed the amendment but unfortunately cannot be here today. I accept that there are bodies other than an independent reviewer which could give us the expert advice that we need to make the judgment required of us under Clause 1. It may not be realistic to expect the Government to accept the UNHCR or indeed the Joint Committee on Human Rights for that purpose. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, suggests involving the independent monitoring committee established under the UK-Rwanda agreement. There is a good deal of logic in that and it might be a satisfactory solution, so long as its reports are published in full and without interference by the joint committee—the body made up of officials from the two Governments and hence anything but independent—to which the monitoring committee, under the scheme of the treaty, reports. For that reason I see attraction in the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in his Amendments 64 and 65, which cut out the middleman and require the monitoring committee to report directly to Parliament.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 8 and associated Amendment 72 in my name. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and to the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Bristol and the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich for their support. I have also added my name to Amendment 64 tabled by my noble friend Lord Coaker.
I have tabled Amendment 8 for several reasons in relation to what happens to those who would find themselves translated to Rwanda should this Bill become law and should there be time for the Government to find the mechanisms and processes to make it work, which is in considerable doubt. Nothing that I say this evening should be taken as any endorsement whatever for any part of the Bill, because I do not believe that it will work or that it is acceptable in terms of our international conventions.
I take up the point made at the end of the last group by the Minister, when making a gallant effort to defend the Government, that this is about deterrents. The deterrent is Rwanda. The deterrent is the refusal, through the Nationality and Borders Act and then the Illegal Migration Act, to allow people to claim asylum when they reach our shores if they do not come with the appropriate accreditation and passport. As there are no current resettlement routes outside the particular routes for Ukraine and Hong Kong that are currently working, anyone outside those bespoke processes is denied asylum in the UK. The previous Home Secretary and her predecessor both made it very clear that what they were doing here was indicating that someone who came without those papers and processes was illegal. By being illegal they became, in the words of Suella Braverman, a criminal—they therefore broke our values and should not have the right to be processed here but instead should be transferred to Rwanda.
My amendment and the associated Amendment 72, which deals with the treaty requirements, are very simple. Someone who is offshored and can justify their asylum claim by showing that they are a genuine refugee should be allowed back into the country. That was true of the Australian scheme mentioned earlier, which incidentally was about picking people up in the 1,000 nautical miles of sea before people reached Australia and translating them back to the processing company.
The one thing the Australian scheme had in common with the Rwanda scheme is the cost: it ended up at £1 million per individual, which is what we will end up with here. They had that in common.
What the Rwanda scheme does not have in common with the proposition from, I repeat what I said a few weeks ago, the very far-right Prime Minister of Italy, the leader of Brothers of Italy—I do not know whether Members on the Benches opposite accept that she is a genuine right-winger—for offshoring to Albania is that those who are adjudged to be asylum claimants and shown to have refugee status will be transported back to Italy. They have the right to come back to the country that originally transported them out.
I want to make this clear, although at this time of night the message probably will not get across, but I do not believe that Members of the House of Commons understood what they were passing. I do not mean to be patronising, but I just think that they did not take account of the detail; neither did the public. I do not think they understood that it is a one-way ticket. We are not offshoring by any known concept of that process, but showing Rwanda, as I just described, to be a threat. If it is a threat, it is a threat. What is the threat about Rwanda? It is that it is Rwanda.
The Bill is a one-way ticket that, bizarrely, allows asylum to be claimed or not. In the responses at the end—and I gave notice of this at Second Reading—I would be interested in knowing what happens if someone who is not allowed to claim asylum in the UK, having been transported to Rwanda, chooses not to claim asylum in Rwanda. It cannot be presumed that, because they had tried to claim asylum in the UK and were criminalised when denied it, they would claim asylum in Rwanda. Perhaps we could park that and someone can give me an answer.
Let us say that they do claim asylum in Rwanda: they will end up no different from those who have not claimed asylum, because they will be in Rwanda. Sadly, those who have demonstrated their legitimate claim to asylum, and therefore are refugees by every international convention, will be in exactly the same position as those who are adjudged not to be refugees but who remain in asylum. The only two categories among those who can reach the UK from Rwanda are those who are claiming asylum in the United Kingdom as Rwandans, or those who cannot be transported from Rwanda to the country of their origin because it is unsafe and who are allowed back under the Bill. Those are the only two categories. Those who are not allowed back are those who have actually demonstrated their refugee status. This is Alice in Wonderland stuff; it is absurd.
If this is all about sending signals to the traffickers that their business model is broken, we would really be breaking the asylum seekers rather than the organised criminals. They would simply say to people, “If you are going to be transported to Rwanda, but you demonstrate your refugee status, you will remain in Rwanda, just as those who do not will remain in Rwanda”, the asylum seekers will disappear into the ether. Organised criminals are to be dealt with in subsequent groups in Committee. Genuine refugees will find themselves in the hands of organised criminals and part of modern slavery. We know that that will happen, because that is what organised traffickers will tell asylum seekers: “We will give you a telephone number. Ring it, and we’ll find you a job and a bed, and we’ll own you”.
If there is anything moral in how we stop people coming across the channel in dangerous small boats, it is not the morality of sending away the organised traffickers. It is the immorality of encouraging people to disappear into the hands of those same organised criminals.
I am suggesting that—as with Giorgia Meloni, and every other system in the world that has ever existed, as far as I know—those who demonstrate their refugee status, and have been transported from the country they finally reached, should be allowed to come back as refugees. It might not fit the threat of Rwanda that we talked about earlier, and will talk about in subsequent groups, but it would fit our commitment to our international obligations and the human rights of those individuals. If we do not do that, we are developing a concept of the United Kingdom as a country that will not only breach all international conventions that we have signed but our basic morality. That would be demonstrably dangerous for this country and other parts of the world in years to come.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, the full incoherence and madness of the Bill has just been exemplified in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The many possibilities here are incredible, such as the idea that asylum seekers may well receive the advice that when they get to Rwanda they should not apply for asylum. What do the Rwandan people do then? We should ask ourselves that question: where do you send them back to? To Britain, whence they came—they are not applying for asylum here—or back to France, our great partner in trying to deal with the crime that is emanating across Europe, with which we need to be collaborative, and need intelligence and serious investigation into criminal gangs?
I was rather attracted by the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that we change the tense and make it about the future: that if Rwanda does become the safe country we are being asked to vote that it is, that we feel it has a legal system capable of making these assessments, and it is properly monitored, and we receive evidence—I have mentioned evidence before—we must be sure of that, and putting it into the future might be rather appealing. The one thing I had concerns about was when the noble and learned Lord said that this would not cause delay. I am hoping that there will be delay.
I do not want to see people being flown to a place in which this great project of modernising and improving the system will take place. If it is going to happen at all, I want it to have happened before we send anybody there. I happen to take the view, unpopular among many, that exporting people and sending them away is part of the problem. We are not doing as Italy’s ultra-radical, proto-fascist leader Ms Meloni is doing, which is asking the Albanians to do on Italy’s behalf what the Italian system would be doing. We are not asking for that; we are sending them there. We are exporting a problem.
I am concerned about the issue of delay and perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, will respond at some stage. I see him getting to his feet; maybe he can help me.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
I do not quite understand the point that the noble Baroness is making. When I talked about delays, I meant the delay of implementing the Bill—putting the various people in place for the monitoring to take place. The fact is that the committees I mentioned already exist. The distinction is between that situation and setting up new independent monitoring, which will take time. That is my only point, but of course I appreciate that all the time that is necessary should be taken to be absolutely sure that implementation has been achieved. That is a different question.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
So the delay we were talking about is delay in the implementation of this legislation. I remind your Lordships of an example of that. The Human Rights Act passed in 1998. The point was made at the time that it would not come into operation until 2000, because it was accepted that there would have to be considerable training and learning before it could possibly take effect in the courts in a sensible way. We had to make sure that decisions would be made in a way that complied with that Act and the European convention. We recognised that, if you want to create change of that sort, there have to be concomitant changes in systems, training, lawyering and judging.
So I would certainly want to see evidence of more than four days of training. The International Bar Association is involved in training lawyers and prosecutors around the world in relation to, for example, coercive interrogation, as we politely call it, to prevent the torture of people who are arrested and to make sure that, to comply with the rule of law, we do not use those kinds of practices to extract confessions in our systems of law around the world, because we have learned that confessions extracted in that way are never reliable. Training takes place, but we all recognise that four days of training does not produce the goods. Two sets of four days of training, as we have had so far in Rwanda, do not create a change in the culture.
We are talking about something much more substantial and meaningful in changing systems. I remember, because I was in the radio studio with him at the time, when the Supreme Court’s judgment came out and Lord Sumption and I were asked, on the “Today” programme’s podcast, about the effects of it and the Government’s response that they were going to pass a Bill in which they said that the country was safe. He was absolutely shocked and said it would be disreputable to do such a thing. Why did he say that? He said it himself on the programme: it is the systems that are problematic here. The outcome of refoulement is a result of inadequate systems. To change them would be a substantial challenge, and not one that can be completed in a matter of months. The story is that somehow the evidence on which this was based was outdated, but we must have evidence of substantial change before we can possibly consider the Bill as an acceptable one to put through this House.
I certainly cheer on the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and any other amendments that may come forth that will delay this, but we know that this is really about an election that is coming up, in which this has become a very heated issue. There is a desire on the Prime Minister’s part to fulfil Ms Braverman’s dream: that she will see a flight go into the air to Rwanda, carrying on it some of these asylum seekers. That is the dream; that is the election flag that has to go up the flagpole. All I can say is that it would be unfitting, inappropriate and unworthy if this Parliament passed the Bill for that reason.
Lord Bishop of Lincoln
My Lords, I rise to speak because I suspect I am in a minority as one of the very few Members of this House who have had direct contact with Rwanda, having had 10 years’ engagement with the diocese of Kigali, the capital city, and the great joy of visiting the country and seeing life outside in the countryside. One of the most moving things of my nearly 40 years of ministry was praying at the national memorial for the holocaust in Kigali with a local bishop who had lost so many members of his family. He was still so distraught that I had to find the words for our prayer together.
I put on record that I have come across so many wonderful Rwandans who would be hugely great examples to us individually of the practice of forgiveness and trying to make life beautiful again after a terrible tragedy. I can think of one instance where I met a priest; most of his family had been murdered, and in an act of forgiveness he took the murderer of his loved ones into what was left of his family, because he felt there was a requirement upon him to demonstrate and show forgiveness in this terrible situation.
It is also true, in my experience, that Rwanda has done a remarkable job in developing its economy. I was going to say it was a “tiger economy”—that is perhaps the wrong fauna for the Great Lakes region, but there have been real strides forward in their economy. Of course, people have been very eager to support their President because he has largely delivered to them peace.
It is also my direct experience, relating to what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, that the institutions of civil society remain substantially undeveloped. It seems to me that, although we may agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and might want to say that Rwanda could in the future be a third-party partner in dealing with these issues, I would strongly say that that day has not yet come.
Of course, I am not in principle against the idea of third-party partnerships; it is very interesting what we hear about Italy. It seems to me that what is required is a real, dedicated commitment to a partnership among western nations in seeking to see how this could be done effectively and generously towards those whom we categorise as criminals, many of whom have suffered dreadful trauma and persecution in their homeland, which is the only reason they have taken the risk and put themselves in the hands of these dreadful criminal gangs.
It is also very important that we take account of the fact that, if we are going to even think about the prospect of sending people to a third-party country, there has to be a guarantee, as evidenced in Amendment 8, that people have a right to return and establish their claims here. If this is not allowed, it is simply a case of our throwing the problem away. That seems to me to be simply immoral, and not something that we as a nation should be contemplating.
We need to look very carefully again at putting this burden on the people of Rwanda and how we might think much better about working together with other nations in developing a pattern that will help us, in the longer term, cope with huge further migration through climate change, which we have not even contemplated yet and which will affect us very deeply.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, with his fascinating and personal knowledge of Rwanda, and the very useful advice he has given us this evening. I have put my name to the seven amendments set out by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and I do not intend to refer in great detail to any of them, particularly at this time, because I would like to get home before midnight, if that is possible, and I am in the last group.
Shortly, the points I wanted to make are these: it is obvious that Clause 1(2)(b) is out of kilter with Clause 1(3). You only have to read Clause 1(3) to see that the Government of the Republic of Rwanda has “agreed to fulfil”—that seems to me to be partly in the present, but almost certainly partly in the future. In the treaty, which we pored over in the debate that I listened to and did not speak in—I thought enough people had spoken—the 10 requirements that we discussed are clearly not all fulfilled. The right reverend Prelate points out—and he knows; he has been there—that the structures are not all yet in place.
The noble and learned Lord the Minister made a brave effort to say that Rwanda is safe and, following discussions, will be safer. That is splendid wording, but it does not really work in this House, when we look at the fact that the Government want this House to say, despite our vote on the treaty debate, that Rwanda is safe when it patently is not. Speaking as a former lawyer as well as a fairly long-term Member of this House, I cannot believe that any Government are asking us to say that something is what it may well be—and for the sake of Rwanda, if it really wants our refugees, I hope it will be —when, quite simply, it is not there yet. Right around the Committee, we have all been saying that from the first few words, so how on earth can the Government expect the House to agree to a phrase that the,
“Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament”—
Parliament including us—that Rwanda is safe?
I very strongly support what has been said by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. It seems to me that to some extent, subject to issues of modern slavery to which we will come in another group, the Bill could be partially redeemed by two points. One has been set out by the noble and learned Lord in Amendment 6, and the second is set out in the various amendments headed by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich about an independent reviewer. If you had the twin of “will be” when it is ready, and an independent reviewer to assist the Government to say that at least the requirements in Clause 1(3) and the 10 requirements in the treaty have been met, then I have no doubt that the Government could say, “Now we can send people to Rwanda”. However, I plead with the Government: I cannot believe that they are really expecting us to say that that which is not safe is safe at this stage.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, I am not sure that my noble and learned friend should call herself an ex-lawyer. That was very good indeed.
At Second Reading, I said that we live in a constitution that is akin to a three-legged stool, with Parliament, the Government and the judiciary in a balance between those legs. I think it is very important to realise how key to our constitution that stool really is. Clause 1(2)(b) represents grit in the relationship between those legs: the requirement that this House enters into a judgment that many in the House feel is very wrong, a judgment which is everlasting. At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord McDonald of Salford very eloquently spoke about the political risk within Rwanda at the moment. The judgment is largely in a vacuum, because a number of questions have been fired at the Minister about where we are with safety. That is very difficult for our House to do and is grit. That represents further grit because of course it will be something that the judiciary has to take account of when it comes to determine anything under the Bill.
That is why I find the amendment package that my noble and learned friend Lord Hope has put together so very attractive. I hope the Government will look at it for the reason of logic alone and for a second reason, because the second half of my submissions at Second Reading were to do with the Salisbury/Addison convention. That is a convention about creating a smooth relationship between two of the legs of that stool. Indeed, we are here tonight because of that convention: we are working late, sitting extra late tonight, in order to speed things through because part of that convention deals with speed of consideration.
I do hope the Government will think of the convention in relation to how the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has expressed the amendments and the provisions in the Bill that represent grit in the relationship. We have a convention that is all about promoting a relationship, and we have a Bill before us that is all about putting grit in the relationship. This has to be thought of in terms of the convention.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, each and every amendment proposed to this Bill shows the sheer nonsense of it. We are being forced by this Government to deny reality. We are being forced to create an enduring piece of legislation that states the proposition that Rwanda is “conclusively” safe, which cannot be rebutted even by conclusive proof to the contrary. This is Alice in Wonderland; it is complete and utter nonsense.
I have signed Amendments 6, 20 and 26 in the name of the learned Lord—I am sorry, it is very late—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. I have tucked myself under his coat-tails because they are incredibly sensible amendments. They at least require the Rwanda treaty to be given effect and to remain fully implemented for the Act to have effect.
However, even with that, I am not sure that we can legislate that Rwanda is conclusively safe, so my Amendment 93 would go further. It would require the whole Act to be scrapped on the day that the Secretary of State is presented with evidence that Rwanda is not conclusively a safe country. Noble Lords might call this a wrecking amendment; I would call it a huge dollop of sanity in the mad world of this Bill. Surely the Minister and all other noble Lords should support this. Why would anyone want a piece of legislation to exist on the statute book with a key provision that
“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”,
if Rwanda is not conclusively safe? Rwanda is either conclusively safe or it is not. If it is conclusively safe, why do we need legislation to force decision-makers to treat it as such? If it is not conclusively safe, why would we force decision-makers to treat it as though it is? This clause is either pointless or plainly false. I struggle to see how this Bill was ever written. Did lawyers really write this Bill? I cannot believe that anyone is going to defend it when it is so patently stupid.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I rise just to say that I entirely agree with those who have said that we should look carefully at the direction of travel suggested by the amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and encourage the Government to do the same.
It seems to me that the Government have got themselves into a pretty strange position. In proceeding with what they want to do, they have given themselves a binary choice: either legislate a fundamental untruth or find a way of establishing a system that will bring about and give confidence on the safety of Rwanda. If they do not want to do the former—and they should not—they must investigate ways of doing the latter.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, I shall first address the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. Speaking entirely for myself, nothing I say is intended to cast any aspersions on the state of Rwanda, the suffering that it has gone through or the plight in which it currently finds itself. I found his remarks incredibly moving. The Supreme Court made clear that it was not a lack of good faith that had led Rwanda to be in the position that it is in; it was just that Rwanda did not have a system that could properly deal with the analysis of asylum claims in a way that would be acceptable to the commitments that we as a country have made to asylum seekers.
I agree very strongly with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said: that Clause 1, in so far as it says that
“Rwanda is a safe country”
is not right, and it would be wrong for us as a Parliament, or as the House of Lords, to agree to that which we know is wrong.
May I address the four alternatives that are now before the House as a means of trying to deal with that? First, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has proposed that one can give effect to the provisions of the legislation only if the joint committee, set up under Article 16 of the recent Rwanda-UK treaty, says that the agreement is being complied with, and that committee would have to act on the advice of the monitoring committee. In principle, that sounds quite a good idea. As the noble and learned Lord acknowledged, one should recognise—I do not say this in a disparaging way—that the joint committee is just the two Governments.
If it is the joint committee alone, that gives no additional assurance. Because the UK Government want to do this come what may, it is hard to imagine that the Rwandan Government are going to say that they are not complying with a treaty which they say they are complying with and have committed themselves to complying with. If it was only the joint committee under Article 16, that would not provide much protection, I say with some respect.
The amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, says that the joint committee has got to act on the advice of the monitoring committee. Only if the monitoring committee positively advises that the agreement is not being complied with will the joint committee of the two Governments be prevented from giving the advice that it wants to give. I have no idea how this monitoring committee will work. It will presumably be 50:50 on each side. If it is paralysed, I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord’s proposed requirements would then be satisfied. If the joint committee was not getting positive advice one way or the other, it would still be able to give the assurance that one gives. Could that be dealt with by a number of tweaks? It might well be possible.
Subject to those points, I can see attraction in what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is saying. The only other point I have on his proposal is that the Minister appears to escape any duty at all. Should we not have it so that the Minister is subject to judicial review on the decision he takes about whether to implement the treaty?
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for his comments on the significance of the joint committee. I would introduce it only at the beginning. For the future, it is entirely a matter for the monitoring committee to advise on whether the system is being fully implemented, once it has started up. One could remove the joint committee altogether and just have it rest entirely on the monitoring committee; that would be very close to the position of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and indeed that of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. We are working towards a solution of some kind, but I welcome very much the helpful comments of the noble and learned Lord.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I am grateful. The other proposal, which my noble friend Lord Coaker has put his name to, as well as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is to get the monitoring committee to decide. Then one of the only wrinkles would be: how does this monitoring committee work? It would require a positive assertion by the monitoring committee that the terms of the agreement are being broken. If the committee cannot get that, for example because it is deadlocked, then this potential Act would be given effect to. That is the second alternative.
The third alternative is the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that there be an independent reviewer. If that reviewer says it is not safe, this potential Act would be given effect to, as I understand it, only if there is a resolution by the House of Commons saying that it is safe. That has some attractions, but I am not attracted to it at the moment. First, the House of Commons has already shown its willingness—not because its Members are dishonourable people but because they are whipped by the Government, who have a significant majority—to pass a Bill that uses the word “is”. Secondly, surely such a resolution has the same vice as the Bill: one is asking Parliament to sit in judgment on the question of whether Rwanda is a safe country, and that is an inappropriate activity for Parliament.
I am in favour of one or other of the proposals of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in Amendments 15 and 16, or the monitoring committee—subject to my anxiety about how it would work. I strongly submit that we should not let the Minister off the hook; he or she should be subject to judicial review.
Of course, one has great sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said. However, our attitude—although it sticks in the gullet—nevertheless has to be to try to make this Bill work. My own view is that, if you are going to do offshore processing or deportations to safe countries, the one thing you have to be sure of is that you are acting in accordance with the law.
What makes this Bill so discreditable is not necessarily the policy, which people can disagree with, of offshore processing in third countries, but trying to do something like that in breach of the law. We should be working to get to a point where we are acting in accordance with the law.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I agree with the noble and learned Lord, but I would like to say a word in defence of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. Mine is the louche, unlearned name on the otherwise very learned list, alongside the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.
We would be in a different situation if the independent reviewer, in a reasoned public document, put forward the case that the country was not safe—that refoulement was happening or could happen and there were not adequate systems to stop it. Here, we are talking about the difficulty of working out what it will be like when the treaty is in operation. Then, the reviewer would be presenting the House of Commons and Secretary of State with a report which, let us say, is critical. Then, it would be more difficult for the House of Commons to conclude that it did not care about the evidence. If there was such evidence, unlike the present situation, the House would have to say, “We reject the evidence”. I therefore stick with my louche support for the learned amendment.
As for the other learned amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, I understand it and it seems to have much merit. It has two possible downsides. First, the monitoring committee works for the joint committee, which is strange when you think about it—you might think it should be the other way around. It would therefore be very important, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, that the monitoring committee’s reports be published in full.
The second possible downside is the composition of the committee. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, spoke about one member of the committee. Another member is Alexander Downer. That seems to me to be a bit of a downer. This is a man who is chairman of Policy Exchange and who invented the Australian scheme. This is the man who pressed hard for push-backs—actually shoving the little ships off to Papua New Guinea—which is something our Royal Navy has always refused to contemplate. The committee has to be comprised of persons independent of both parties. I am not quite sure how independent Mr Downer is of the Government.
My name is also on nine amendments, I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and on the amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, spoke. I see some attraction in the Blunkett scheme. If the Government are convinced that the system in Rwanda is fair and convinced that asylum seekers are given a fair hearing and assessment, why should we not accept that, if they are given asylum status, they should come here? The beauty of this is that he is turning offloading into offshoring. The distinction is one that some of us in the House have not always seemed quite to follow.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Does he agree that the divisional court in the Rwanda proceedings upheld the principle of remote, third-country processing—that it was lawful in UK law—and that decision was upheld in the Court of Appeal and was not appealed further to the Supreme Court? So I think the noble Lord would agree that it is unquestionably and entirely lawful.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
It is a breach of international law. The noble Lord made the same point when we had the same debate at Second Reading. It is at variance with the refugee convention and with the European Convention on Human Rights Articles 2, 3 and 13. It may be that in the UK domestic courts it is not seen as a problem; it certainly does not seem to be seen as a problem by the noble Lord, Lord Murray. For me, it is a problem. For a country which purports to support the international legal system, it should be a problem.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I do not think the Committee needs to apologise for an element of repetition and even circularity in contributions on the various groups, because that is the nature of the Bill before us. It is a relatively short Bill, but its provisions are interconnected, as are the different approaches that Members of the Committee have taken to amend them.
Let us take stock for a moment, because we have been on a bit of a stream of consciousness. Members of the Committee have expressed different opinions about whether offshoring per se is acceptable. To my mind, the exchange we have just heard reveals that we do not currently have legal authority in the UK that says that processing asylum claims in another country is unlawful. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, on that, but I have to say that my instincts are with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, on the fact that this is going to be debated for many years to come and we have not had higher court determination of it. It is a debated point internationally. That is a point we can put aside for the moment. There is another question in this Bill, about what is and what might be in the future.
I think that most Members of the Committee have either agreed or even reluctantly conceded that what is is a little different from what we are working on and what might be in the future, which then takes us to how we change the future and how we evaluate changed facts in the future. Then, under the scheme of what is before us, there is first the question of the treaty and then the question of the Bill before us that the Government propose to make an Act. I think there is some considerable support for Amendment 14, which says that the treaty—which is currently a very important trigger in the Government’s scheme, because it is the treaty coming into force that makes the Act come into force—needs to have been effectively implemented, so that facts change on the ground in Rwanda before even the treaty that is the current trigger for the Act can come into force. I certainly agree with that. There are different approaches in the amendments as to how that should be measured, but I think it is just logical that until the treaty, as suggested by your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee, is effectively implemented, even under the scheme of the Bill as drafted, the Act should not come into force.
Then we have a range of amendments offered in subsequent groups about what commencement should look like in the Bill, and later we will have very important debates about judicial oversight and not ousting the jurisdiction of both domestic and international courts.
Lord Horam (Con)
I have two points. First, to correct the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, there is precedent in the Australian situation, in that, under the Australian rules, the Government of Nauru make the decisions, with assistance, training and support from the Australian Government. The Rwanda situation is exactly the same. We are trying to bring in training, support and assistance to the Rwandan Government, so the two examples are exactly the same. Australia’s, which has been working successfully for 10 years, has all-party support and is hugely successful. If I may repeat the point I made earlier in the day, there is a great prize here: if we can get genuine agreement on this subject, there is the prize of having a proper, whole immigration policy which the whole country can support, not just this Rwanda business.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I hate to cross swords with the noble Lord, but I am afraid that what he is saying is factually incorrect. The Australian hearings in Nauru are for asylum in Australia. The hearings that the Rwandans would carry out in Rwanda for people who came here would be for asylum in Rwanda.
Lord Horam (Con)
The people who are being investigated in Nauru want to go to Australia. Similarly, the people who will be investigated in Rwanda want to come here. The situation is exactly the same.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
Within that debate about processing and offshoring is a question as to whether, if you succeed in your asylum claim when you are processed over there, you then stay over there or come back to the country from which you are sent. That is a crucial debate that is being fudged here.
Lord Horam (Con)
The situation here is exactly analogous to that in Australia, which has been working successfully for 10 years.
The other point in this debate, in reference to the interesting amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is the importance of the monitoring. I agree with him and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that the more transparent and obvious this is, the better it will be for everyone. Fundamentally, we cannot expect the law to do everything. We all know that there are many laws which are not adhered to in practice. It may go wrong on the ground floor in a way that lawyers, for all that has been said in the treaty, are not aware of until it is too late. You therefore need a strong monitoring committee whose information is available to this House and the general public, because you cannot do it any other way. The law cannot encompass what may happen in future.
That is a crucial point from this debate. I would have thought that my noble friend the Minister could accommodate the relative transparency of the monitoring committee, which has independent people on it. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, may not like some of them because they disagree with him, but the committee is none the less independent. Precisely because of that, it will have people of differing views. The Government should look at that in response to the tone of this debate.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I will speak in favour of this group, particularly Amendments 6, 14 and 20, but I wish to avoid the circularity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, was saying, that has been inevitable on something so interconnected.
The Home Secretary has said that
“we will not operationalise this scheme until we are confident that the measures underpinning the treaty have been put in place; otherwise, the treaty is not credible”.
This set of amendments enables this approach, so if the Government are not willing to accept these amendments, can the Minister explain how they will ensure that the obligations of the treaty—to quote the treaty itself—
“can both in practice be complied with and are in fact complied with”?
This is an even more pertinent question since any recommendations arising from the monitoring arrangements in the treaty are non-obligatory. To take just one example from the Government’s own evidence pack, a new asylum Bill is required in Rwanda before an assessment of the implementation of the treaty can be made. When will this legislation be published and will it be, to use the official term, fully operationalised before any flights take off?
Much wisdom has been articulated in this Chamber today. I urge the Government to listen and act accordingly.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, my Amendments 64 and 65 seek to address the problem that all noble Lords have been seeking to address: Clause 1(2)(b), which basically says that Rwanda is a safe country. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, was quite right, when moving his Amendment 6, to point out that the word “is” is absolutely fundamental to the meaning of the Bill and is why there is such a debate among your Lordships.
The Government are stating that Rwanda is safe, but all the evidence points to it perhaps becoming safe in the future or, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, “working towards” being safe. That is not the same as “is” safe, which is the fundamental dilemma. I say to the Government that if something is completely and utterly wrong—such as the use of the present tense when it should be a future tense—it does not matter what you do, you simply cannot answer the questions that are being put. Two and two has to make four, yet the Government are arguing that two and two is three. It is ridiculous, it is nonsense, and it will not stand up.
I do not mind if my Amendments 64 and 65 are not legally watertight. I accept that. I am not sure the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is the best amendment, though I am sure it will be legally watertight. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has proposed an independent reviewer. There can be a debate between us as to which is the best option, and there may be other, better options. I would prefer that the whole Bill was opposed and defeated, but we have said we are not going to block or delay it. I know it is disappointing to some, but that is the reality of where we are.
What we are seeking to do, therefore, is to work with others to mitigate the impact and improve the Bill. However, the Government’s response so far has been to say that all the criticisms are not correct and Rwanda is safe because we are legislating to say it is; the rest of the debate and the very reasonable points that are being put forward are dismissed. I am sure when the Minister replies, he will—unless I am mistaken —have a brief which says that the monitoring committee has established in Article 15 of the treaty and there is no need for any of this to be included.
That way lies a legislative impasse. We are asking the Government to listen to what is being put forward. The real question of the debate is not whether Amendment 6, 16 or 64 is better, but what are the Government going to do in response to the legitimate criticisms being made? We want some sort of mechanism to understand how the Government are going to implement the treaty and ensure that implementation is successful. What happens if it is not? What happens if the obligations are put forward but not achieved?
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked: if Clause 1(2)(b) is right, why do you need Clause 1(3)? The Minister could not answer her question because Clause 1(3) sets out the future obligations on Rwanda, whereas Clause 1(2)(b) says that there is no need for those obligations because it is already safe. The Bill contradicts itself, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, pointed out. However, all the Government say is that we are wrong and they are right and so they are going to carry on. That is no way to legislate. The Government want their Rwanda Bill, so they are going to get their Rwanda Bill. The least they can do, however, is listen to what people are saying and make the Bill make sense and actually do what it says it will.
As for my Amendment 64, I am perfectly willing to look and see whether other amendments are better or whether there is a better way of doing this. The real question is: are the Government simply going to dig in and refuse any amendment or appeal to them to make the Bill more logical than it currently is? I say to the Minister that we will have to come back to this on Report. It is clearly important for us, in deciding how we do that, to hear what the Government have to say.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for speaking in this group, and in particular the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his introduction.
The UK and Rwanda entered into the migration and economic development partnership with a commitment to develop new ways of managing flows of irregular migration by promoting durable solutions, and so breaking the existing incentives that make people embark on dangerous journeys to the UK. The UK and the Government of Rwanda have a shared vision regarding the necessity for the global community to enhance international protection for asylum seekers and refugees, underlining the importance of effective and operational systems that provide protection to those most in need.
This partnership is part of a suite of measures to tackle illegal migration and builds on wider collaboration with Rwanda on many shared issues. As I have set out previously, we have assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of all measures within the treaty will be expedited. The treaty itself will follow the usual process with regards to scrutiny and ratification. I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich that I am afraid I cannot improve on that, and I will continue to defer to the Home Secretary.
I would like to provide reassurance to noble Lords that the treaty enhances the role of the previously established independent monitoring committee, which will ensure that obligations under the treaty are adhered to in practice and will be able to take steps to address any concerns at an early stage. Therefore, the Government argue that the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, are not necessary, although I of course take his points about words. As the noble and learned Lord said, the Bill reflects the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments given in the treaty to people relocated to Rwanda in accordance with the treaty. It addresses the point made by the Supreme Court that Rwanda’s systems could be strengthened, on the basis of the facts before the Supreme Court at the time.
Amendment 14 in particular would impose a requirement for the joint committee for the migration and economic development partnership to provide a declaration to the Secretary of State confirming that the mechanisms specified in Article 2 of the treaty have been implemented. Without such a declaration, the effect of the amendment would be that the treaty could not be regarded as fully implemented. This is unnecessary. We have assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of all measures within the treaty will be expedited.
I turn to Amendments 15, 16, 77, 83 and 88 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and Amendments 64 and 65 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. The monitoring committee is independent of both the UK and Rwandan Governments. It was established under the memorandum of understanding that originally underpinned the partnership. The treaty enhances the monitoring committee’s role. Article 15 of the treaty provides that the UK and Rwanda must establish and maintain a monitoring committee for the duration of the term of the agreement. This means that both parties are obliged to ensure that the monitoring committee continues in operation for the life of the agreement, and this obligation is binding in international law.
The Government have already established robust reporting mechanisms. The monitoring committee’s terms of reference and enhanced monitoring plan are available publicly on GOV.UK. They set out that, during the period of enhanced monitoring, the monitoring committee will report to the joint committee, which is made up of both UK and Rwandan officials—as set out in Article 15(4)(b)—in accordance with an agreed action plan, which will include weekly and bi-weekly reporting as required.
It would be helpful to go into more detail on this. The treaty includes enhanced provisions to provide real-time independent scrutiny of Rwanda’s asylum procedures, aimed at preventing the risk of mistreatment contrary to Article 3 of the ECHR before it has the chance to occur. This addresses the findings in the Supreme Court proceedings that under the previous arrangements, as set out in the memorandum of understanding, the work of the monitoring committee would necessarily be retrospective.
In addition, the new provision of the monitoring committee’s own complaints system will allow relocated individuals and their legal adviser to make direct and confidential complaints regarding any alleged failure to comply with the obligations in the agreement. That enhanced phase will ensure that monitoring and reporting take place in real time, so that the monitoring committee can rapidly identify, address and respond to any shortcomings or failures to comply with the obligations in the agreement, identify areas for improvement, or urgently escalate issues prior to any shortcomings or breaches placing a relocated individual at risk of real harm. That will include reporting to the joint committee co-chairs within 24 hours in emergency or urgent situations.
As per Article 15(4)(c) of the treaty, the monitoring committee will make any recommendations to the joint committee that it sees fit. The monitoring committee will otherwise produce a formal written report for the joint committee on a quarterly basis over the first two years of the partnership, setting out its findings and making any recommendations. Following notification to the joint committee, the monitoring committee may publish reports on its findings as it sees fit. At least once a year, it will produce a summary report for publication. We consequently consider these arrangements, which have been carefully agreed with the Government of Rwanda and will be binding in international law, to be sufficient to ensure continued compliance with all the terms of the treaty.
Finally, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his Amendments 8 and 72. Clause 1 sets out the obligations to which the Government of Rwanda have committed under the new treaty. The proposal in these amendments does not reflect the arrangements under the treaty. Requiring persons whose claims are successful in Rwanda to be returned to the UK would be against the spirit and intention of the treaty and the partnership. Those relocated to Rwanda are not intended to be returned to the UK, except in very limited circumstances.
It is the Government of Rwanda who will grant refugee status to those relocated to Rwanda through the treaty, which will underpin the migration and economic development partnership, not the UK Government. The grant of refugee status in Rwanda does not confer on that person any rights in the UK, as would be the case for any other person granted refugee status in Rwanda who had not been relocated from the UK. Anyone who wishes to come to the UK in future would have to apply through legal routes—through a work or family route. However, there would be no guarantee that they would be accepted.
As my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth noted, relocating asylum seekers to a safe third country to process their claim is compliant with the UK’s obligations under the refugee convention, as confirmed by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court did not disturb that finding.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
Perhaps the Minister will answer two very simple questions. First, where else in the world have people been offshored but actually offloaded, as opposed to having the process completed and their refugee status acknowledged in the country they have reached? Secondly, what happens if people do not claim asylum in Rwanda?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Under the terms of the Bill, a person will be relocated if they have made a protection claim—that is, an asylum claim—in the UK. But, to be clear, we can also remove those who do not. On the other point, we have heard a very lively debate on other examples from around the world; I am afraid that I am not an expert on those examples, so I am not able to opine further.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I was living in hope that the Minister would respond to my comments. On an earlier group he declined to answer my questions about the compatibility of what is being proposed by the Government with the criteria set out by this House some weeks ago, with a majority of 43, as being necessary to have been operationalised and in effect before Rwanda could be considered a safe place. Will he now take the opportunity to work his way through those 10 points? I am of infinite patience, but he said that he would do so on a later group. Can he now do so, please?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am afraid that I will not at this precise moment, but I again defer to the Home Secretary, who made his views very clear on operationalising the Bill.
As my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton set out earlier in the debate, Rwanda has a strong record of welcoming asylum seekers and looking after refugees, and it has also been internationally recognised for its general safety and stability. Those relocated to Rwanda will be given safety and extensive support, as detailed in the treaty. I am grateful to the officials in the Government of Rwanda for all their efforts, particularly for the provisions for real-time and comprehensive monitoring of the end-to-end relocation and asylum process for individuals relocated under the partnership. I hope that I have at least been able to go some way to responding to the amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and that, on that basis, he is content not to press them.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this very interesting debate. I am particularly grateful to those who have offered some support to my Amendment 6, which seeks to reword the clause with the word “is” in it, substituting words that are far more in keeping with certainly what I think the majority of the Committee has been discussing throughout the proceedings this afternoon. I am very disappointed with the Minister’s reply, because he simply brushes it aside as not necessary. However, anybody who listened to the debate with care would see that it is absolutely necessary to change the wording of that clause, and we will certainly have to come back to it on Report. As for the various options, we have a menu. I think those of us who have put forward suggestions as to how the matter might be regulated will think carefully as to where we go from here, but we will certainly come back to it on Report.
My only other point is that I was very taken with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, about whether the House of Commons appreciated the significance of offloading people to Rwanda, and particularly those who, when they reach there, do not claim asylum. It is a horrifying situation, with these people just cast adrift in a country which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, probably has no connections with what they were looking for—and indeed, they probably had a variety of good reasons for coming to the United Kingdom. It is a deeply disturbing situation and I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, will pursue the matter a little further, because it really illustrates the harshness of the measure that we are being asked to consider. Having said all that, I withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Hailsham
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 13. I will be very brief, because the hour is late. At this time I am usually putting my dogs out, but on this occasion I have the pleasure of addressing your Lordships’ House.
The effect of Amendment 9 is to delete Clause 1(4), and the effect of Amendment 13 is to delete Clause 1(6). It is worth just reminding your Lordships what these two clauses say. Clause 1(4) says:
“It is recognised that … the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign, and … the validity of an Act”—
any old Act, incidentally—
“is unaffected by international law”.
You then go to Clause 1(6) to see what is meant by “international law”, and that is everything to which we have ever put our name, which is there in very considerable detail. So the first question that your Lordships should ask yourselves is, why on earth is it there? I have no doubt that, as a matter of strict law, the statements are correct, but why are they there? They serve no legislative purpose whatever. I think I know why they are there: it is to provide comfort to the Braverman wing of the Conservative Party—and I, for one, do not wish to provide comfort to that wing of the Conservative Party, which has been bringing disrepute on the party which I have served for 40 years.
We then go on to consider: does it serve a purpose? Clearly, it does not. But what it does do is damage our reputation for probity, because any bystander reading the Bill will come to the conclusion that the given word of the United Kingdom, expressed in treaties and in international law, is not worth credit. I do not wish to give people that interpretation. Nor, for that matter, does the report of the Select Committee on the Constitution of your Lordships’ House, published on 9 February.
I commend to your Lordships paragraphs 54, 56 and 57. Paragraph 54 acknowledges that it is true that the validity of an Act of Parliament in domestic law is not affected by international law. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom is still subject to the provisions of international law. Paragraph 55 states:
“We agree with Lord Bingham that respect for the rule of law requires respect for international law”.
Paragraph 56 states:
“Legislation which puts the UK in breach of international law undermines the rule of law and trust in the UK in fulfilling future treaty commitments”.
The summary section, paragraph 57, states:
“We reiterate that respect for the rule of law requires respect for international law. Legislation that undermines the UK’s international law obligations threatens the rule of law”.
It concludes:
“We invite the House to consider the consequences should the enactment of this Bill in its current form breach the UK’s international obligations”.
These two clauses are unnecessary. They are damaging to our reputation, serve absolutely no legislative purpose and should be removed from the Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am very proud to have signed the two amendments tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. When I first looked at them, I thought that, given the scale of obscenity that this Bill perpetrates, maybe this is flotsam— maybe this is just stating the obvious that for many years we have passed Acts of Parliament and sometimes aspects of domestic legislation have subsequently been found to be in breach of international law. As a matter of domestic law, a statute is not automatically invalid because it breaches international law without incorporation of the kind that we had with the EU and the Human Rights Act.
However, having spoken to the noble Viscount and thought again about the contemporary implications of provisions such as those in Clause 1(4) and Clause 1(6), I felt compelled to agree with him and to sign up to his amendment. We are sending a signal, initially to domestic civil servants, diplomats and Ministers, including in the context of the Ministerial Code, that we do not think our international obligations matter. That is a very significant cultural concern. It was perhaps the noble Viscount who made the point in relation to the Rwanda treaty earlier that we are saying, in the context of this Bill as a whole, that it is going to be alright, that Rwanda is not just going to be safe in the future but we can assume that is it safe now because of this treaty, this international binding agreement that Rwanda will of course respect because it is binding in international law—while simultaneously we are saying that international law does not affect the validity of UK law.
That is an extraordinary position, and an extraordinary position to put UK civil servants in—whether in the Border Force or the Home Office or whether they are diplomats anywhere in the world. Perhaps my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton will comment on this in a while as a member of the Constitution Committee. There are real tensions for Ministers and their duty to comply with the rule of law to put a provision such as this in primary legislation, notwithstanding the traditional point about the delicate relationship between the validity of domestic law and international law.
Then there is the bigger, existential question. At this particular moment in the world, in its state of insecurity, the United Kingdom’s position on Russia and Ukraine, events in the Middle East, Houthis and China is to say that international law matters. Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump has made some remarkable comments about his NATO allies. We are saying one thing, including with our arms, military support and rhetoric, about the importance of international law—“Do not breach it, because if you do, you will find us standing in your way”—while we pass a provision like this at the same time. I apologise to the noble Viscount for not seeing the vital importance of his amendments to begin with, but I certainly do now.
Week after week your Lordships’ House has noble Lords, including Ministers, talking about various parts of the world and the importance of the UK as a permanent member of the Security Council, and everything it will do and has attempted to do over many decades, including by military force, to uphold the international rules-based order— and then there is a dinner break or a change of personnel, and we have the Home Office back here saying that it will pass legislation to state that international law does not matter. That cannot continue. For those reasons, I am proud to support the amendments of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, mentioned the Constitution Committee, and Amendment 10 in my name also seeks to reinforce the position of that committee’s reports to this House. It comes to something when an amendment has to try to define the purpose of this House, but the amendment states that
“the primary responsibility of Parliament and the courts is to uphold the constitution of the United Kingdom, including that constitution’s fundamental commitment to the rule of law”.
The bit we are talking about here is the separation of the two legs of the stool, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull—Parliament and the courts.
It is the role of Parliament to enact legislation, and it is the role of the courts to apply legislation to the facts. Clause 1(2)(b) breaches that separation of powers between Parliament and the courts. Further to that, Parliament is overriding the role of the courts by replacing a factual assessment of the courts with a deemed factual assessment by Parliament. The courts have procedures to evaluate evidence and determine the facts. In asylum cases they assess safety and risk daily. Parliament exists to legislate rather than make these assessments based on the valuation of evidence. Although the sovereignty of the UK Parliament is an established principle of the UK constitution, there are huge consequences when legislation is enacted which significantly impacts that separation of powers. The Bill is a dangerous precedent in which legislation could be used to reverse factual conclusions, jeopardising the rule of law as well as the separation of powers.
We may think that this legislation is for other people in our society—for people not like us—but the precedent this sets can be taken and applied more widely to achieve a political aim. We need to be alive to how marginalised people in our society are treated, and this is a marker of the values and priorities of our Government, who make decisions that affect us all.
It is clear from the debates in Committee that Members are not comfortable with what the Government are trying to do with this legislation: to replace the findings of fact of the highest court in the land with their own assessment of fact based on evidence yet to exist, in practice. We would mock other countries for trying to do that; that is why this amendment is so important, to lay down what Parliament and the courts are for.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I support the two amendments tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, which are entirely valid. It strikes me as a bit odd that the Government assure us, again and again, that nothing in the Bill is in breach of our obligations under international law. They say that with great determination, and I am not suggesting that they do not believe it, but, in that case, these clauses are completely, totally and utterly unnecessary. On the other hand, if the Government have doubts about it—and certainly, the Home Secretary was bound to give a warning that he was not absolutely sure this would pass muster under our international obligations—then of course they want to put clauses like this in, which totally invalidates the claim that they are not breaching international law.
I ask the Minister to reply to a very simple question; I know there is a reluctance to reply to questions, but let us try this one. For a very long time, this Government —this country—worked to the principle of “My word is my deed”. Is that still so? Yes or no?
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s determination to stop the boats, and I commend the provisions to disapply six sections of the Human Rights Act 1998 and to leave open to a Minister of the Crown whether to comply with an interim remedy from a court or tribunal that prevents or delays removal. I wish the Government success and hope the Bill will succeed, but it needs further tightening to avoid potential legal challenges that would prevent it from achieving its aims.
My Amendment 32 therefore is to disapply, for the purposes of the Bill, the relevant international arrangements and other law that prevents the UK from controlling its borders. The first reason for this amendment is a practical one. It is pointless to make a law that is unlikely to work. That, sadly, seems to be the case for the present Bill unless it is amended. The second reason is a deeper one. There is no doubt that there is a popular wish for the small boats to be stopped, and that one of the reasons why the Government were elected was to control our borders. Unless they make a law strong enough to withstand whatever challenge might be brought to it through national or international law, the Government will fail the people on whose support the laws made to govern Britain should be grounded. Trust in the democratic system, with its political parties, Parliament, Government and the judiciary, will be lost.
I do not accept the narrowness of contemporary theory about the dominant position that international treaty law should command. The apparent demand that international law should trump UK law is a form of legal and ideological utopian internationalism.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Is it therefore the noble Baroness’s position that if there were extensive refoulement by Rwanda, that would not be a reason for not having the Bill?
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
That is not my view. My view is that, none the less, given the ingenuity of many noble and learned Lords in this House, and members of the judiciary, barristers and solicitors outside this Chamber, there may very well be intelligent and ingenious challenges that will hold up the operation of the Bill. That is why I want to bring forward my amendment.
By contrast, there are treaties that govern trade, diplomatic or military alliances, and they deal with the national interests of a state and, at one remove, its people. Many who advocate the pre-eminence of international law base themselves on theories of universal rights formulated in the heady days of treaty-making in the decades after World War II—for a European world, by and large, and circumstances very different to our own. These arrangements have provided a quasi-legal framework—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I am sorry—the phrase “for a European world” makes me wonder whether the noble Baroness believes that internationally agreed human rights should apply around the world and not just in Europe.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her interjection. I am referring to the treaties emerging from the post-Second World War world, which was very much a European world at that time, to deal with circumstances such as the Holocaust and others, which had been left over from and arisen from it. I agree that there has been constant movement in this area. For instance, the European court at Strasbourg continues to make judicial interventions that sometimes try to push the European Convention on Human Rights much further than it was initially drafted to cover.
However, if I might continue, these treaties were conceived for a European world, by and large, and circumstances very different from our own. As I have said, these arrangements provide for potentially unlimited numbers of people from outside this country to command priority over the express and explicit wishes of its citizens.
Today, mass immigration threatens the democratic arrangements of western countries, the political systems on which they rest, and the stability on which societies and their economies depend. The threat does not stand over Britain alone. The failure of Governments all over Europe to stop clandestine or illegal immigration is destabilising them and their political arrangements. The difficulty of controlling long land borders all over Europe and the difficulties thrown up by the Schengen rules—now, I fear, ignored in many cases—have brought instability and undermined the democratic order. So too have international obligations embedded in domestic law and constitutions. The Sweden Democrats, who advocate tight controls on immigration, have shot to being the largest party in the centre-right governing bloc. For Denmark’s left and its social democratic Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s greatest challenge is non-western immigration. Italy can no longer process the volumes of asylum seekers arriving in small boats in Lampedusa and has called on the EU to help. France passed a measure on immigration, only to have the very amendments that had allowed it to pass, after 18 months to two years of wrangling, struck down by the constitutional court.
The UK is in a more fortunate position than these countries, since it is subject neither to Schengen nor the constraints of EU membership. This country and its people have the power to make their own laws. Their legitimacy derives not from arrangements made for times and circumstances different from our own—for a Eurocentric world, to be interpreted by internationalist institutions at a remove from democratic accountability that are often unaccountable for the consequences of the rules they liberally apply. I refer to my noble friend Lord Howard, who is not in his place: the question of democratic accountability must be central to any debate on controlling the UK’s borders.
Our Government have indeed recognised this in drawing up the present Bill, but they have held back from the final measure needed to make it effective. My amendment, like the same one proposed in the other place, will ensure that the Bill is fit for purpose—a purpose fervently desired by the people of this country.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Lawlor. I will speak generally about the Bill very briefly, and the amendment, and also say why I strongly oppose the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which are pernicious and dangerous. I cannot believe that, when my noble friend Lord Hailsham sought election in the county constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham in 2010, he would have told his constituents that he would seek to disregard the rights and privileges of Parliament in favour of supranational legal entities and international treaties, because I suspect that that would not have been a very popular point of view to take. But that seems to be the logical implication of the amendment he has put forward today.
The Bill does contain some important statements of principle, in that it reasserts the sove