Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Hope of Craighead

Report stage
Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords from all sides of the House, whatever their views may have been, for contributing to this debate. The result has been a much more interesting discussion than I anticipated in my rather brief and somewhat lame introduction to my amendment.

I shall make only one point. My amendment is concerned with the position of our own courts. As Clause 5(3) stands, it prohibits our courts from having any regard to an interim measure when considering an application which relates to a decision to remove someone to Rwanda. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is quite right when he says that the current procedures under Rule 39 are suboptimal. There are various defects which we would not accept in our courts, but that does not apply to our procedures. They are perfectly open, proper and thorough. Our judges would be able to take on board all the points that have been made in the course of the discussion and weigh up one way or another whether this measure from the European Court of Human Rights should be given effect to. I am not asking that they should be bound to give effect to it but that they should be permitted to do so. It seems to be a perfectly reasonable thing to ask our courts to do.

I have considered whether I should press this to a vote, but we have to ration ourselves at this stage of our proceedings and have regard to what happens next. If this goes down to the House of Commons, no doubt it will bounce back again and so on. We have to be careful how far we press things to a Division; I would have liked to do so, but at some points one has to exercise self-restraint, which I am doing.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

Does the noble and learned Lord take comfort, as I do, and perhaps some people watching these proceedings might do, by recalling that on Monday we agreed to an amendment that requires this Bill—this Act, as it will become—to comply with international law when it is implemented?