Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[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”.

Family Migration (Justice and Home Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee report covers a lot of territory and has clearly highlighted many of the real problems with government policy. Its recommendations are, I would say, very sensible—clearly, the Government do not agree with them.

There is one thing that perhaps the Minister can answer now. The committee called for increased funding towards Home Office services to overcome delays and to reduce application fees. We know that the problems we have with the cost of hotel stays and the barges are all down to the Government because they chose not to set up a proper system for all the asylum seekers. I do not see why they could not have taken some advice from this report. The Government’s response is really not very good, which suggests that whoever responded did not read the report properly.

We know that the Government’s treatment of asylum seekers has been abysmal. They have created a backlog that they cannot clear up in the available time before they are thrown out of government, and the next Government will have to do it for them. It is quite shameful that they leave such a mess behind them for the next Government to sort out.

If we put aside all the things that we should feel towards people in such distress—our compassion, humanity, respect for the law and respect for the welfare of anyone in Britain—we could at least look at the financial and economic benefits of immigration. With an ageing population, we need other people. By inhibiting access to this country for people who need to be here to look after their children and so on, the Government are denying the British public all the skills, experience and competence of those who could come here, work and be a benefit to the tax system. They could be taxpayers, and therefore they can benefit us; I do not understand why the Government have such a block about this.

The Minister is clearly a stupendously intelligent person. I wonder whether he has read the report and, if he has, whether he might have a slightly different response from the Government’s, which is quite inadequate.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Of course.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Can the Minister write to me about the questions I asked?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Maybe. No, of course I will.

Migrants: Barges

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As I replied to the noble Baroness, that is a long way from the topic of infection on barges. The term of office of the chief inspector was time limited. It is clearly open to the Home Secretary not to renew the appointment.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain this to me, because I have not really understood it? Presumably the Government instituted health checks before any migrants were put on that boat, so why was it only the Dorset Council review that threw up these very negative findings? If the Government did not know about this, why did they respond to it so quickly?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Because those health checks were the responsibility of Dorset.

Asylum Applications Backlog

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My noble friend is entirely right that one of the keys to the asylum process is to remove those whose asylum applications are refused, but in some cases some countries are difficult about taking back their citizens. The Government take very seriously their obligations to seek to negotiate an improvement in those situations. An example of that being very successfully achieved was in relation to the Albanian cohort. As the House will hear later during the Statement repeat, we have successfully removed many Albanians to Albania under that agreement.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, when are the Government going to apologise for having created this backlog by closing all the safe and secure routes, except for a few nationalities? When will the Government apologise for making asylum seekers and refugees, who have experienced the most horrendous conditions, into some sort of right-wing trope and hate figures?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I do not recognise any of the items raised by the noble Baroness. I can reassure her that there will be no such apologies.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that this Bill was not a manifesto commitment at the last election; it is rather the extended version of a populist slogan for the upcoming one. That distinction is even more constitutionally significant when the Executive propose to expunge the age-old common law jurisdiction of His Majesty’s courts to issue interim relief in expulsion cases, the judicial practice of considering international obligations, and the Human Rights Act 1998 duty to interpret legislation compatibly with convention rights and freedoms where possible.

Noble Lords, and in particular the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope and Lord Etherton, rejected the Government’s suggestion that the previous amendment to Clause 1 offended our legal traditions. None the less, we have softened it still further, removing references to “acts and omissions” and intended compliance only in the spirit of dialogue with the other place. Now, it merely requires that those interpreting this measure give regard to the human rights treaties mentioned. Without this amendment, an eventual illegal migration Act 2023 could become effectively exempt from the European Convention on Human Rights under domestic law as soon as its provisions are brought into force.

Again, in attempted dialogue with the other place we have clarified the amendment to Clause 4 to ensure that the duty to remove—so central to the Government’s scheme—is revived the moment a first instance court dismisses an application unless permission to an appeal court is granted. Without this amendment, the duty to remove applicants would continue, even where our higher courts are still considering the safety of a third country such as Rwanda.

The amendment to Clause 52 has been tightened to provide that courts must not only attempt but ensure that they give reasonable opportunity to the Secretary of State to object before granting interim injunctions preventing removal. Without this amendment, no British court would retain its common law power to prevent removal, despite grave risk to a person subject to ongoing legal proceedings. Noble Lords will remember that the Government have already taken the power to ignore Strasbourg interim relief under Clause 53.

In summary, without these amendments, the Government could argue a power, or even a duty, to remove new arrivals—potentially even as we rest this summer—before the Supreme Court hears the Rwanda test case in relation to past arrivals this autumn. That is what is at stake: one of the gravest executive power grabs and abrogations of the rule of law in living memory. That is why the, yes, unelected but more independent Chamber should exceptionally stand firm to protect the constitutional role of our courts and the rule of law.

In a state of sadness and some disbelief that things have come to this in our beloved land of rights advancement, from Magna Carta to the post-war settlement, I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I would just like to say, if I may, that I am surprised that the Government do not like this amendment. Quite honestly, it strengthens the Bill when it comes to legal procedure, and they would have fewer legal challenges to all their cases if it goes through. They should welcome it, particularly if there is no conflict with international law, as the Minister told us earlier, in order to restore certainty. The Government should support this amendment.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords—

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, there are three reasons we should be stubborn about not allowing the Bill to go through. The first is that this was not in the Tory Party manifesto: we do not have a duty to pass it. Secondly, Rwanda is not a safe country. Thirdly, we cannot pass legislation that allows the Government to break the law; that does not make sense.

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amended version of Clause 1, put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Whether or not Parliament intends to incorporate international treaties within our own law depends on the wording. The point was made on Report that the noble Baroness’s previous wording had no reference to interpretation. It seems to me quite clear now that the emphasis has been put on having regard to the provisions in these international treaties which bind this country for the purposes of interpreting this Act. I consider that this falls plainly on the right side of the line.

As for my own amendment to Motion S, which the noble Lord, Lord Murray, has addressed, I thank the Minister for his time, patience and reasonableness over the discussions concerning this. I was principally concerned that those who are entitled to the protection of the convention because of a well-founded fear of persecution in the country stated in the removal notice should not have to have an additional test of irreversible harm in order to prevent removal there. The assurances the noble Lord has given have satisfied me over that concern, particularly in relation to the principles in the case to which he drew attention, HJ (Iran) for LGBT refugees. My concerns have been satisfied and for that reason I will not oppose the Motion of the Government on this point.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to ask the Minister to make a correction. He said that there were divisions between the two sides of the House, but surely what has been true about this Bill is that large numbers of people on this side of the House have been very unhappy about it, have voted against it or have not voted with the Government. It is very important that the Minister takes back to the Home Office the fact that this Bill is not supported by the House as a whole, even by those of us who recognise the great need to have strong immigration control.

If I may say so, the Minister’s comments about the drawings on the wall made me very unhappy. If it were his child in that place, he would know that his child would have been uplifted by those paintings. What about the people who did those paintings? They did it to make life a bit better for those people who find themselves in a position that we all ought to thank God that neither we nor our children are in. Until the Government understand that feeling, and recognise the unhappiness across the House, they will have missed the whole tone of what this House is about.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is a bad Bill. We have done our best in your Lordships’ House to improve it. However, it is quite obvious that the Government, when we talk about kindness, compassion and humanity, seem to think that these are weaknesses. I argue that they are actually strengths. It is part of our British psyche to give that sort of kindness, so the Bill does not work for anybody in Britain. It certainly will not work for the Government to stop the boats. I just wish the Government had more common sense.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, while echoing all the sentiments that have been expressed, I will address the remarks of the Minister in introducing new material at the very beginning of his statement about the legislative consent Motion of the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd. The impression given by the Minister was that these were matters reserved to the British Government, and that therefore any legislative consent Motion from the Welsh Senedd was not appropriate and certainly not allowed. But the matter on which it passed the legislative consent Motion was a very narrow issue indeed about how children in Wales are to be looked after, and the responsibilities of local authorities towards those children, no matter where those children came from.

The piece of legislation that the Government are now putting a red line through is an Act of the Welsh Parliament that has been signed by the Head of State. It is one of which the Welsh people are truly proud, because it projects certain obligations on local authorities to commit to those children who find themselves in Wales, no matter where they come from. I wonder whether the Minister, in reminding us why the Government have overturned that piece of legislation, knows that they are actually overturning a piece of primary legislation that was passed five years ago and has universal support from all parties in Wales. It is that narrow point that the Government seek to overturn, not the Bill as a whole, even though the Welsh Parliament has of course expressed widespread concerns about the Bill as a whole. But that is what the legislative consent Motion was denied for: the overriding of a piece of primary legislation in that respect.

UK: Violence Against Women and Girls

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for bringing this subject yet again to this House. It has happened many times, but we still need to talk about it and to highlight the fact that it appears to be increasing and becoming worse in many areas. Other noble Lords have talked a lot about the problem, in some quite graphic detail, and I am going to try to concentrate on the solutions. The solutions often seem a little dull and worthy, but as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said, there are no quick fixes on this.

For somebody who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, as I did, when society actually appeared to be changing very fast and for the better, it seems inconceivable that we still have a problem of male violence, misogyny and sexism towards women and girls. That a man can grope a woman’s breasts and think she ought to be flattered, or that a girl can be raped and not feel able to tell anyone, is horrific. Clearly, we need to do something about it, and we are not doing enough.

The solutions to the problem within our society involve addressing the imbalances of power, including economic and social power, that can leave individuals vulnerable to domestic abuse—and of course domestic abuse is one of those gateway crimes to much worse crimes, including murder. So I am going to talk about solutions, which are hard but vital.

We need relationship education to inculcate values of respect for others and respect for difference. These must be provided in schools and other appropriate environments. Programmes must also be provided to train all front-line staff dealing with the public, including housing officers, police and workers in the health services, particularly maternity services and other relevant areas, to recognise signs of abuse and provide pathways of escape for survivors and victims. This is not only to help those who are suffering from this but also to educate the people involved, because we can start with schools but we have to go through the whole of society.

Multiagency working is essential to identify the full extent of domestic abuse and improve prevention or early intervention. Crime reduction partnerships must take a lead in co-ordinating information from refuges, the NHS, police, children services, adult services, social housing, schools, voluntary organisations and any other appropriate local body which may have information about individuals and families at risk.

Access to counselling has to be increased for all those affected by domestic abuse—survivors, witnesses and perpetrators—because this is the most effective way of reducing reoffending and breaking cycles of offending within family and neighbourhood networks. Of course, children within families can also be at risk. It is not just the risk of physical abuse; witnessing such abuse can cause long-term psychological damage.

Afterwards, of course, survivors should be helped to remain in their own homes, with the provision of all necessary safety measures, including alarms, improved locks and grilles, extra police patrols, neighbourhood watch schemes and so on. Where this is not possible, appropriate immediate refuge and future housing must be available for all victims escaping domestic abuse. Of course, all these provisions have to be publicly funded, with permanent guaranteed funding.

In closing, I ask the Minister replying to the debate not to make reference to what women and girls can do to protect themselves—I am sure he will not—because this is a male problem. We must focus on what the majority of non-sexist men can do to stop the minority of violent, misogynist men.

Asylum: Channel Crossings

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I cannot provide the noble Baroness with an update on the child rights impact assessment, but I am sure that it will be provided.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I cannot understand why the Government are dead set on spending huge amounts of money on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. In fact, we would be much better off if we let them work here, as most of them want to do. Have the Government thought about that at all—about making them taxpayers?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As I have said many times in this House while the noble Baroness has been present, the reason why asylum seekers are not initially allowed to work is in order to prevent a very large pull factor encouraging illegal migration.

Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I feel some sense of responsibility for the situation in which your Lordships find yourselves this evening because I devised the formula quoted in the regulations before us.

I drafted that particular formula with very specific reference to the locking-on and tunnelling offences described in the Public Order Act, which we were considering as a Bill at that time. I confess that I was not looking forward at that time to any other use of that formula. I understand why the Government have found it attractive and the point they are making that it is better to have a uniform test across the board. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said, this is a debate about the right way of doing things.

I have been making strenuous efforts on the REUL Bill to make it clear that parliamentary accountability requires debate in the Chamber on things that we can discuss and amend if necessary, and not be driven by statutory instruments. While I stand by the formula which I devised—I believe it is the right formula, pitched at exactly the right point for the police to decide when they should intervene—I deeply regret that the Government have felt it necessary to approach a situation in this way. I endorse exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has been saying and therefore wish to make it clear that while I stand by my formula, I greatly regret the procedure that is being adopted.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I actually told the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, that he should not have helped the Government. I am prepared to forgive him, from a sense of generosity, because I know he was trying to help, but it did not actually help at all. The opening speech by the Minister was quite interesting because it lasted nearly nine minutes and focused almost entirely on what the police and the protesters were going to do. It avoided the talk of the constitutional novelty that the Government have introduced.

For me, this is a make-or-break moment for democracy. It is a crossroads that we really have to face up to because, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said about respecting conventions, the fact is that the Government have not respected our conventions. There are two issues at stake here. The first is suppression of freedom, with a measure that your Lordships’ House rejected as unreasonable only very recently. In some ways more seriously, and secondly, this government move sets a precedent that the Government can use secondary legislation to overrule Parliament’s will as expressed in votes on primary legislation. This means that any future Minister, at any time, could decide to change any law in any way. This to me is deeply disturbing and we will hear from other people, I hope, who find it disturbing as well.

The shadow Attorney-General has said that we have to stick to the conventions and allow this statutory instrument to pass, but that argument seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the conventions. By convention, your Lordships’ House does not block primary legislation, but this is not primary legislation. Your Lordships’ House can, does and has blocked statutory instruments. I recognise that there is no convention that the Government cannot use a statutory instrument to overturn parliamentary votes on primary legislation, but that convention does not exist because no Government have ever tried to do this before.

What we face here is a novel issue—a turning point for our parliamentary democracy—and the decision in your Lordships’ House on the following question will establish a new constitutional understanding. The key question is: should the Government be allowed to overturn parliamentary votes on primary legislation by using secondary legislation? That is the question we have to think about here today. We have talked before in your Lordships’ House about our discontent about overreach by secondary legislation. I ask your Lordships: is this not the day to act on this? If we refuse to act today, when are we going to act?

The Labour Party has tabled an amendment to regret, and regret is what I believe we will all experience in the future if we fail to support this fatal amendment today. The whole country will have cause to regret the further erosion of the right to protest, which is part of our basic British way of life, and the enfeebling of this House, which many in this House might regret as well. We will regret it when Ministers start regularly to use their power under secondary legislation to overturn existing laws that Parliament has debated and voted for. We will regret it when we read headlines about the police arresting a group of parents and their children who are protesting about pollution outside their school.

What about the community up in Stone in Staffordshire who, just last week, protested about having HS2’s HGVs rushing past their houses 42 times a day? They protested quite hard; I think they would have fallen foul of this piece of law. Or what about arresting people holding a vigil for a victim of police violence, which has of course happened? We will definitely regret it when we hear about a big march against a government policy, as when a million of us protested about the Iraq war, and the police will then have to say, “Sorry, that protest is banned because it may cause more than minor disruption”. That is a very low bar.

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[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not propose to address the public order issues. It is a fairly simple issue, really. It is not the role, and can never be the role, of the unelected House to seek to have the last word. The last word on every issue belongs in the elected House. Sometimes, it is true, it has to wait a year, if the Parliament Act is used, but at the end of the day it has to be in a position of owning what it has passed, so that the electorate can take a view of what it has done. That is where the Government are formed, not here. It is a simple issue, really.

Our conventions have been tested and have been found wanting. I agree very much with the speech that we have just heard—I am a member of the Delegated Powers Committee—but that is not the issue. We have had case after case of the Government taking away powers from Parliament to give executive authority to Ministers. The House has debated this two or three times, but we have not done much about it so far. The simple issue is this: the elected House must own the decision.

I will upset a few people at the end of the evening; I am happy to vote for my noble friend’s amendment but if the fatal amendment is put then I intend to vote with the Government. I will not be in a position after the next election of allowing the then Opposition to claim, when issues arise, “You never voted against it”. I will have at least one name in the Lobby. This is not the first time this has happened; the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, voted in opposition against fatal amendments. We know that it has been reviewed, but maybe it is time to look again at our conventions. I think the last time they were reviewed properly was in 2006, by a Joint Committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling.

I will not get confused—I agreed with about two sentences of the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on constitutional issues. She has spent all week on social media misleading the public about the powers in Parliament. The powers belong to the elected House. It must be in a position to have the last word on every issue.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Can the noble Lord tell me how I misled anyone? I think it has been the Labour Party that has misled people.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Anyone can look at what has been happening this week. It has been misleading. The fact is that we are in a democracy and we are an unelected House. Our job is very simple: we just ask the other place to look at things again and again. At the end of the day, it has to own the decision. How can it go to the public in a general election if there are decisions that it cannot own? That is our present system and no one has come up with a plan to change it at this time.

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Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Leave out all the words after “that” and insert “this House declines to approve the draft Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023 because Parliament has already rejected during consideration of primary legislation the proposals contained within those Regulations”.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

There are two ironies here. The first is that I do not think for one moment that this piece of legislation is going to catch any more protesters. People who think that they are defending the planet are very dedicated and creative. They will come up with other ways of protesting, so this particular law is likely to catch other people.

The second irony is that I, who complain endlessly about all of the ridiculousness that happens here and am very short of patience when I am told not to run in the corridors and things like that, am defending the status quo. That is an irony—that I want us to respect the conventions. Therefore, I should like to test the opinion of the House.