Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I hope the Committee accepts that I rarely intervene when the lawyers are at it, because I am not of great assistance, particularly to my noble friend of a great many years Lord Clarke. But he asked the Government to tell him of an occasion when this has happened before. I will remind him of one: the court of King Canute told him that, because he was sovereign, he could tell the waters to stop and the tide to go out. Of course, we were never taught it this way round in school, but the truth is that King Canute went to prove to his courtiers that he could not reverse the truth.

The problem with this part of the Bill is that it proposes that the sovereignty of Parliament is able to make a situation true, whether it is or not. In other words, this would be wrong even if the Supreme Court had not ruled that this is not a safe country. It is not part of the sovereignty of Parliament to declare truth; it is part of the sovereignty of Parliament to declare the law—and, in so far as we are sensible, we try to make the law as close to the truth as possible.

Now this Government have done a remarkable thing. There are many bishops on the Bench at the moment, so I will speak with a certain amount of care, but I seem to remember:

“‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer”.


This Government have not even asked the first question. They assert that this is true and, as my noble friend suggested, not only is it true but it will always be true until, I suppose, the Government—because the courts will have no place in this—say that it is not true.

The reason I feel so strongly about this is that I have spent nearly 11 years of my life as chairman of the Climate Change Committee. One of the problems I have faced all that time is people asserting “my truth” —not “the” truth but “my” truth—and that their truth is the equal of anyone else’s truth. That is not the nature of truth. Truth has constantly to be questioned. Doubt is an essential part of faith; you have constantly to question. The Government are proposing a unique situation, which is that we shall never question their decision, at this moment, that Rwanda is a safe place. I am not going to try to say whether I think it is safe or not. I think merely that it should be under constant consideration if we are going to take other human beings out of our jurisdiction and place them somewhere else.

That, if I may say so to my noble friend, is a moral matter. We remove responsibility by doing this, and the one way in which we can protect ourselves is if the place to which we send them is constantly available for questioning. The only place where that questioning can take place is in a court because courts listen to all the arguments, hear all the evidence and make a decision. If you do not like the decision, you can appeal it, but finally you have to accept it. Once you undermine that, I do not see how you can uphold the rule of law anywhere else. Once the Government have said that their truth is true and there is no other truth, we have moved into a position which is entirely unacceptable in a democracy. This Government have to understand that—on this issue perhaps alone—this House will have to stop this Government’s proposal by whatever way. This is our duty. We are not a House which just puts the details of law into some sense. We also have a constitutional position. The Prime Minister made his rather curious statement about the will of the people, but the will of the people can be protected only if this House stands up for the constitution of our nation, and our constitutional position must be that the Government cannot determine truth. Only the courts can do that.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I endorse the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I want to question slightly the use of truth because there is a difference between truth and factuality. Something can be not factual, but it can be true. Let us look at a parable, for example. We have not even got as far as factuality when we are talking about truth. To put it very simply—I am in terrible danger of evoking Immanuel Kant here, but I will try to avoid that—if I say I am a banana, it does not make me a banana. There has to be some credible questioning of that. I am not a banana. A country does not become safe because someone says it is, even if a Government say that. That has to be demonstrated, and it has to be open to question, particularly, as has been said many times, because the word “is”—we are getting very Clintonesque in his impeachment hearings when we get into the meaning of “is”—has a permanence about it that does not allow for the possibility of change. I fail to see rationally how this is such a problem for the Government, other than that there is an ideological drive in this which is not open to argument.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

I can answer that only by saying I would have to consult the national register and chartered institute to find out how quickly they respond now and how that compares to the MoJ system. I agree it is an important element. Part of the problem will be the supply chain, but I think these issues can be overcome. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I endorse every word of what the noble Baroness just said. In a previous incarnation—that is probably the wrong phrase to use; I am mixing my religions—I was a professional linguist in Russian, German and French, working in government service. One of the things you learn as a professional linguist is that language goes deep. This is not simply a matter of picking someone off the street who can order a pint in a Spanish bar; you are dealing with the stuff of people’s lives. Surely accuracy is vital, for the sake of not only clarity of understanding but justice itself.

I could give many examples of how this works. There is the difference between translation and interpreting. Interpreting goes deep, because you have to understand that some things cannot be translated. That is how language works.

I will not trespass on eternity here, but will simply say that justice, whatever the logistical problems highlighted a moment ago, demands that people have clarity of understanding and expression in courts of law. I endorse every word that was said in the last speech.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I too support this amendment. I was really surprised that there is not already a standard and that this is not consistent across the criminal justice system. When the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, explained that the Metropolitan Police had already taken the lead on this, I was hoping that that was during my time, but it was not. However, I think this is a good idea. This is about not only high and consistent standards but experience—experience within the criminal justice system will be relevant at various times—and integrity. These people will have access to private and confidential information. For all those reasons, it is important that there is a consistent, high standard.

Each part of the system, whether the police, prosecutors, defence, courts, judge or jury, requires this to happen consistently. It seems amazing that at the moment they are not able to rely on the same interpretation or translation of the same material. That seems odd. At least in the case of the police, you can go back and check some of the original evidence. Body-worn video, CCTV or audio recordings of the interview might be available, so someone can go back and check. However, as far as I am aware, that is not the case in court. There is a written record, but that in itself is open to interpretation and is not always entirely accurate.

There are things that feed into the criminal justice system which are also important and rely on the contribution of the individual and what they say, for example psychiatric assessments. These can be vital in determining whether someone is guilty or so psychiatrically ill that they should not be held guilty for their actions and in determining what actions will follow a sentence.

This is not a minority issue, particularly in London. The last time I saw the figures, around 27% of the 250,000 arrests carried out by the Metropolitan Police every year are of foreign nationals. There is then at least a risk that they are speaking a second language, not their first, which imposes certain challenges on the whole system. It is vital that they, as well as witnesses and all the other people who play a vital role in the criminal justice system, are able to be heard.

Finally, it seems to me that this is particularly pertinent in an adversarial system which relies an awful lot on cross-examination. Are mistakes made in court? Is consistency observed between the original account and those given by various witnesses? Language is very important. We would all say so, but I would say it is even more important in an adversarial system, which sometimes seeks to cause inconsistency in the account that is given. This creates an even bigger burden for the system to make sure that the account of the language is of the highest standard available. It is important that the Government create such a system, so I support this amendment.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, only four months remain before we walk arm-in-arm to the sunlit uplands where the easiest deal in history will have been made and everybody will be happy—except we know that this is not the case.

Other noble Lords will concentrate on the details of the deal—a word I loathe because it reduces an existential question simply to a matter of trade and transaction—and the position in which it leaves us. I want to pick up on one line of the Prime Minister’s Statement to the House last week, which I questioned in the short debate on Thursday:

“If we get behind a deal, we can bring our country back together and seize the opportunities that lie ahead”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/18; col. 1982.]


I asked if the promise to bring our country back together was credible and achievable and, if so, how it was to be done. The answer was simply a repeat of mantras about the deal.

I thought I was being helpful to the Government by inviting a response such as, “The country is split down the middle and the language and behaviour around Brexit have become toxic even in this Parliament, so it is not going to be easy to reconcile people and parties in the wake of such a divisive issue—but, in acknowledging the size of the task, we intend to pay attention in due course to the language, symbolism and mechanisms of reconciliation”. Because this is the challenge here. The Government, by virtue of being the Government, have a primary duty to pay attention to such reconciliation: to the healing of relationships that have been fractured by this process and the restoration of trust as a public value.

I am not making a case for leaving, remaining, wishful thinking or dreaming. The referendum happened and the rest is history, or at least history in the making. However, the factual phenomenon of Brexit—its language and behaviours, its polarising aggression and its destructive reductionism—will not be addressed by statements about getting behind a deal and people romantically falling back into line. That line has been crossed in our public discourse and I think two things have exacerbated it: first, the repeated implication that the “will of the people” is immutable and clear; and, secondly, the fact that the nature of the split down the centre of the United Kingdom is being ignored.

This raises a question of honesty—honesty with the people of this nation. To ask for honesty is not to accuse anyone of dishonesty, but we hear little or no acknowledgment of the fracture that polarises our people: a fracture that will be neither addressed nor healed by the repetition of mantras about a glorious future. This is not about Brexit as a choice; rather, it is about Brexit as a cultural phenomenon and what has happened as a consequence of the referendum. Social media is not the most edifying place to seek enlightenment and calm reflection—you have to wade through acres of muck to find any gems. But where the gems are to be found is precisely where adults behave like adults: they face reality, whether or not reality reflects their own preferences; they moderate their language in order to prioritise relationships and values over conflict; and they show a willingness to listen before speaking and an ability to look through the eyes of their interlocutor.

I admire the committed resilience of the Prime Minister and the remarkable expertise of our civil servants, but I appeal again for those engaged in this debate to take seriously the language of the discourse, not least in how we speak of those in the EU with whom we deal. I appeal again to the Government not to dismiss with easy words the crying need for an honesty in discourse that sets people free to grow up and own the truth about the deep challenges that we face, and to offer the people to whom we are accountable, and whom we are called to serve, a model for reconciliation and hope.

Whatever happens, the Church is committed to stand with and serve those who suffer, especially the poor, marginalised and disenfranchised people in our communities, but we need an articulation of political vision that goes beyond economics and trade. So what will those in power do to offer language and symbols of reconciliation and hope in practical ways that recognise the divisions and take seriously the need to bring our country and our union back together?

Criminal Justice: Interpretation and Translation Services

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It is clearly critical to the administration of justice and to the issue of access to justice that full and adequate interpretation services should be available to the courts and to those who have recourse to them.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, there is clearly a difference between interpretation and translation. I speak as a former professional linguist. What about quality control? Will the Minister comment on that? Being able to deal with a language is not the same as being a competent interpreter, sometimes of very delicate matters.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I entirely agree with the observation made by the right reverend Prelate. That is why the present contract provision includes a quality assurance provision by the Language Shop, to ensure that not only are the appropriate levels of qualification available but also the appropriate skills.