Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.