Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they will publish the explanatory memorandum on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’s compliance with Article 2 of the Windsor Framework.

The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will apply in full in Northern Ireland in the same way it does in the rest of the UK. This is set out on the face of the Bill, reflecting that immigration policy is a UK-wide matter. There is nothing in the Windsor Framework that affects that. The Bill does not engage the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, including the rights chapter – those rights seek to address longstanding and specific issues relating to Northern Ireland’s past and do not extend to matters engaged by the bill. The Government remains fully committed to that Agreement in all its parts.

I have written to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in relation to this. The letter will be published in the House Library in due course.

To provide further reassurance on these points, the published factsheet on this Bill has been updated to reflect this: Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)