Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Baroness D'Souza and Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich

Report stage
Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D’Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 10 and 43 in this group. I remain concerned about the potential constitutional fallout from this Bill, despite what my noble friend Lord Hannay has referred to as a “sterile” issue. There must be a reference to its remarkable impact on vital constitutional elements, such as the rule of law, the separation of powers and parliamentary sovereignty. Although these are probing amendments, such is the gravity of these possible consequences that they surely deserve to be noted, if not in the Bill then at least in the record of its passage.

The Supreme Court has stated unequivocally in a former judgment:

“The courts will treat with particular suspicion … any attempt to subvert the rule of law by removing governmental action affecting the rights of the individual from all judicial scrutiny”.


In this Bill, the Government are doing just this by writing into law a demonstrably false statement—that Rwanda is a safe country to receive asylum seekers—thereby forcing all courts to treat Rwanda as a safe country despite clear findings of fact.

It is clear that the Bill subverts the rule of law, the key elements of which are abiding by international law, equality before the law, respect for fundamental human rights and guaranteeing access to the courts. These rights are negated by this Bill, and as such it is a legal fiction. The longer-term impacts might be considerable—for example, could the Supreme Court in future rule, with any authority, a Prorogation unlawful?

The Bill in its present form enjoins all relevant courts and officials to deem Rwanda a safe country and specifically disallows any rational challenge by the courts. In Committee the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, expressed the hope that there will be a challenge, thereby enabling the Supreme Court to strike the Bill down as unconstitutional. Should this happen, a review of the Bill’s impact on the rule of law in the UK would prove invaluable evidence.

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of Amendments 1, 3 and 5 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to which I have added my name. I do not believe that we can enshrine in law a statement of fact without seeing and understanding the evidence that shows such a statement to be true, in particular when such a statement of fact is so contentious and for which the evidence may change. Ignoring for a second the strange absurdity of such declarations, we must also consider the real impact that this could have on the potentially vulnerable people whom the Government intend to send to Rwanda. As my most reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is in his place, said at Second Reading,

“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”.—[Official Report, 29/1/24, col. 1014.]

Sending those who seek refuge in the UK to a country of questionable safety does not respect this dignity, so I support amendments that require further evidence of the safety of Rwanda before anyone is sent there.