Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I had the privilege of serving as a Cross-Bench member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in her remarks. Indeed, she referred to the 50-page report that was finally agreed by a majority in the committee—it is a majority, not a unanimous, report—on 7 February. It was published today, as others have said, and is available in the Printed Paper Office.

In my remarks, I will say something about what the report has to say about safety. Before doing that, I will agree in particular with the tone of many of the contributions that have been made so far on this group of amendments. As always, my noble friend Lord Hannay put his finger on our international obligations, not least among which is the 1951 convention on refugees. It may well be that this is not written in stone and that there should be attempts to try to change and reform this in the climate of today’s demands—I am happy to give way.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for giving way. He has just referred to international agreements. Would he agree with me, therefore, that this Bill contravenes international agreements such as the UDHR and also the ECHR? I am reminded of the fact that the provisions of this Bill extend to Northern Ireland. Hence, this provision and this Bill undermine the very basis of the Good Friday agreement.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness; I was not intending to touch on Northern Ireland, but she is right that this does touch on the Windsor agreement and on our obligations to Northern Ireland, which are separate from those of the rest of the United Kingdom. I commend that section of the report. These are not my opinions; the report does touch on that question.

The noble Baroness also asked about our other obligations. We have many obligations, not just under the refugee convention but under the ECHR, to which she has just referred. The Government on this Bill, as on the Illegal Migration Bill, decline to give a compatibility statement because they cannot say that it will be compatible—although I know Ministers take a contrary view that there is uncertainty around that. However, if there is uncertainty, we must be very careful where we tread.

On the issue of our international reputation, I was very struck by the statement made by the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, which is referred to in the JCHR report. He justified what he was intending to do and has done in sending back 430,000 Afghan refugees to Pakistan. He said it was modelled on what we were seeking to do in the British Parliament. So, even though we know that is casuistry and extreme, nevertheless we can see where this argument can lead and the way in which it be used. So, yes, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, our international reputation can easily suffer.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark got to the heart of this when he said that legislating that Rwanda is safe does not make it so. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, touched on that point. Just saying an apple is a pear does not make it such. Saying that a dog is a cat does not make it such. It may be your opinion, but it is not true—and that is surely what we have a duty to try to do in this place.

On process, procedure and governance, during our debates on the Illegal Migration Bill and the treaty, I complained that we had not been treated properly as a Select Committee in the way you would expect Select Committees to be treated. Suella Braverman, the then Home Secretary, declined to appear before the Select Committee. We did not see James Cleverly in the context of this Bill. However, we did see the Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, and I pay tribute to him for the way he delivered his evidence and took the questions we put to him. As the noble and learned Lord has just said, it is the duty of the Home Secretary of the day to explain the intentions of legislation. If there is anxiety about something as important as a compatibility statement, they should explain why they feel unable to give it.

My noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich rightly said that we are ill-equipped to make these decisions in Parliament. I did not serve as long as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, although we have the distinction of contesting the same parliamentary seat in the heart of Liverpool on separate occasions, or as long as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, but I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said about the way in which legislation has traditionally been dealt with in another place and here. I cannot remember Select Committees being treated by Secretaries of State in the way that I have just described. Thinking all the way back to the British Nationality Bill 1981, on which I spoke many times, there were opportunities to hear the arguments, to discuss the implications and to make appropriate amendments. I have not felt that about this legislation or that which preceded it. I think it has been pushed through in a pell-mell way, bringing to mind the thought that, if you enact legislation in a hurry, you will end up repenting at some leisure.

Let me take noble Lords to page 15 of the report, which comes down to the role of the UNHCR and safety. “As of January 2024”, therefore as recently as last month,

“UNHCR has not observed changes in the practice of asylum adjudication that would overcome the concerns set out in its 2022 analysis and in the detailed evidence presented to the Supreme Court”.

The Supreme Court, not the House of Commons or the House of Lords, relied on the UNHCR when it came to a decision about questions of fact. The report states:

“UNHCR notes the detailed, legally-binding commitments now set out in the treaty, which if enacted in law and fully implemented in practice, would address certain key deficiencies in the Rwandan asylum system identified by the Supreme Court. This would however require sustained, long term efforts, the results of which may only be assessed over time”.


Well, clearly, we have not had the time to make those assessments, and again we are being urged to rush pell-mell. I will not detain the Committee much longer. One witness, Professor Tom Hickman KC, said:

“Parliament is effectively being asked to exercise a judicial function, to assess evidence, to look at detailed facts and, effectively, to distinguish the Supreme Court’s judgment, to say that things have moved on and it is not binding on Parliament—I do not mean in a non-legal way—in making its judgment. In my view, that is an inappropriate exercise for Parliament to conduct. It is a judicial function”.


This view was echoed by Professor Sarah Singer, who is quoted in paragraph 57 as saying:

“To contradict the Supreme Court in this way is, perhaps, not showing the respect to the court that should be owed as a constitutional principle”.


I conclude with the summary on page 35, which says:

“We have considered the Government’s evidence that Rwanda is now safe, but have also heard from witnesses and bodies including the UNHCR that Rwanda remains unsafe, or at least that there is not enough evidence available at this point to be sure of its safety. Overall, we cannot be clear that the position reached on Rwanda’s safety by the country’s most senior court is no longer correct. In any event, the courts remain the most appropriate branch of the state to resolve contested issues of fact, so the question of Rwanda’s safety would best be determined not by legislation but by allowing the courts to consider the new treaty and the latest developments on the ground”.


For all those reasons, I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has done noble Lords a great favour in bringing these amendments to us in Committee. She has already shown her willingness to think further about whether they might be applied in other ways. That surely is what Committee stage is all about. The tone that has been struck in the course of this debate behoves noble Lords to think very deeply. I commend this report to the Committee.