Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 23 and 27, in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. They deal with Clause 4(1)(a) and (b), and relate very simply to “compelling evidence”. The threshold is quite simply too high for someone to be found to require “particular individual circumstances” to be considered. The point of these amendments is to take away “compelling”.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I am concerned about Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, which on the face of it seems extremely reasonable. If new, clear evidence and facts emerge, they should obviously be presented and tackled appropriately, but I wonder whether we are mixing up what the law can do with operational issues. After all, as was explained at some length from the Front Bench in the last debate, we have a monitoring committee with all sorts of bells and whistles, which should be able to pick up anything that is going wrong on the ground floor; it is the ground floor that matters. It is that issue—operational versus the law—that concerns me.

I quote to the House the remarks of Sir Robert Neill, who is a lawyer and chairman of the House of Commons Justice Committee, at Second Reading in the other place:

“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 … Ultimately, it will be operational measures that make the real difference”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/23; col. 783.]


This is the point: there is a danger of mixing up operational issues, which may be dealt with by the Rwandan Government, the British Government, and the instruments put in place by the treaty, and getting the courts involved at too early or inappropriate a stage. That is the risk with the commendable idea that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has.

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[Lord Etherton (CB)]

My Lords, I will also speak to related amendments that I have tabled: Amendments 24, 26, 28 and 30. I am extremely grateful to those who have co-signed all or some of those amendments: the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

I will speak very briefly, because I spoke previously about this both on Second Reading and in Committee. The current version of Clause 4(1) enables an applicant to oppose removal to Rwanda on the grounds that it is not a safe country for the applicant, but only if the applicant provides

“compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s particular individual circumstances”.

Similarly, Clause 4(4), on the ability to obtain interim relief from removal to Rwanda, depends on particular individual circumstances relating to the applicant in question.

The defect in those provisions—a very basic defect—is that no provision is currently made for applicants in one of the important categories of refugee defined in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 refugee convention. That category comprises applicants who have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their

“membership of a particular social group”.

You can immediately see the difference between other categories of refugee under the convention, who are individual persons, and this category—which is probably the largest, or certainly the most important—comprising a large number of people who qualify as refugees because they are members of a particular social group. Yet when we look at Clause 4—I mentioned subsection (1) as well as subsection (4) on interim relief—there is no reference whatever to “group”, so one category of refugee has simply dropped off the list completely.

The proper approach of courts and tribunals to such a refugee was described in detail by the Supreme Court in HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, a 2010 decision, especially in the judgment of Lord Rodger of Earlsferry. I will not take the House through the case in detail. It is sufficient for me to say briefly that the approach to be taken, as established by that case, is that, if the applicant for asylum claims to be a member of a particular social group, the other members of which have a well-founded fear of persecution, the applicant is entitled to be considered a refugee provided that they satisfy the particular decision-maker that they are a member of that social group.

HJ (Iran) and the other case I mentioned concerned men who wanted to live an openly gay life and would have faced persecution in their home country had they done so, but the principle that I just described of the way to treat this category of refugee, as set out in HJ (Iran), applies across the board. It is not limited to people who are LGBT but applies to those who are members of a particular social group because of their ethnicity or gender or who hold a particular religious or political belief. For example, by way of analogy with the LGBT men who applied in HJ (Iran), if people hold particular philosophical, political or religious views that they have not expressed because of a real risk of persecution, but would like to do so and to live a life in which they can express those views, they are to be treated as members of a social group and granted the status of a refugee accordingly.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said in Committee, the Bill presents us with a false dichotomy. On the one hand, it is all about me—the claimant, the individual; on the other hand, it is about Rwanda generally. The former, the Bill says in Clause 4, allows you to make a claim for interim relief or removal generally to Rwanda, but the latter does not. In between those two extremes is the category of a member of a social group with a well-founded fear of persecution. This is not a torpedo point; it is not intended to undermine or delay this legislation. It is a reflection of the omission of a basic category of refugee defined in the convention, and an extremely important category as well. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to the four amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. I support everything he says and, since we are on Report, I do not propose to add to it. I also have my own Amendment 42. I declare an interest as the co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and the deputy chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

I spoke to this in Committee. Quite simply, and taking on what the noble and learned Lord has just said, this is a very special group of people who are in this country not because they have chosen to take the boat trip but because they have been brought here, by boat, lorry or some other route, and they are victims. When one starts complaining about people who should have stopped in France because France is a safe country, it absolutely does not apply to victims of modern slavery. They are here on an involuntary basis and need to be regarded in a totally different way.

Since I have been opposing much of the Rwanda Bill, I have heard endlessly, “What is it that you or other opposition would do to improve the situation of those crossing the channel?” I deeply regret those crossing the channel and I do not have an answer, but I do not believe that the need to stop people crossing the channel in a dangerous situation is any reason to pass an utterly shocking Bill. It is constitutionally incorrect and does not look at genuine victims, such as those victims of modern slavery. It is no answer to those of us who cannot accept what is going wrong in this country and what is going wrong in this Bill that, because we cannot offer an answer to the people crossing the channel, therefore we should be disregarded. Modern slavery is one of the most shocking crimes, making vast sums for perpetrators across the world. About a third to half the victims of modern slavery come to this country. The Government are ignoring the plight of this most vulnerable group of people. I hope that, at this last moment, they will think again about victims of modern slavery.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Before I refer to the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, I mention Amendment 25, in the names of my noble friend Lord Dubs and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. Sadly, my noble friend cannot be in his place, but I raised this issue in another amendment in Committee. Our concern is about freedom of religion or beliefs and the effect that Rwandan legislation could have on such beliefs, particularly minority religious beliefs, and the conflict that could arise with the Rwandan blasphemy law. The right reverend Prelate might say more.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, has made a powerful case for the amendments in his name and for others within this group. I have added my name to his amendments. From Second Reading onwards, we have repeatedly made the case for these amendments. I will not return to the same arguments, pertinent and important though they are.

The Government insist that belonging to this particular social group—LGBT—would pose no threat in Rwanda because there is no discrimination in law. However, there are no clear protections against discrimination or persecution within law. I refer your Lordships to the comments that I read into the record from activists in Rwanda, who detailed their direct experiences of societal discrimination, which directly affects them and their quality of life.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I understand it, they will be deported to Rwanda.

In conclusion, the Government of Rwanda have systems in place to safeguard relocated individuals with a range of vulnerabilities. The Bill already includes adequate safeguards which allow decision-makers to consider certain claims that Rwanda is unsafe for an individual due to their particular—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

In relation to modern slavery, is there any law in Rwanda that protects those suffering from modern slavery or human trafficking?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am unable to comment on Rwandan law, but, of course, the treaty takes care of this and I went into detail on that earlier. Under Article 5(2)(d) of the treaty, the United Kingdom may where necessary for the purposes of relocation provide Rwanda with

“the outcome of any decision in the United Kingdom as to whether the Relocated Individual is a victim of trafficking”,

and that includes a positive reasonable grounds decision. Under Article 13(1) of the treaty, Rwanda must 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 must take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated.

I have to answer the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, by saying that at the moment I do not know whether it has those laws enshrined in domestic laws, but when the treaty is ratified, it will.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

As far as I know, there is no legislation to that effect in Rwanda.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, will the review of ARAP decisions apply to the Afghan interpreters and translators and not just to military personnel?