Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Lincoln and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

So the delay we were talking about is delay in the implementation of this legislation. I remind your Lordships of an example of that. The Human Rights Act passed in 1998. The point was made at the time that it would not come into operation until 2000, because it was accepted that there would have to be considerable training and learning before it could possibly take effect in the courts in a sensible way. We had to make sure that decisions would be made in a way that complied with that Act and the European convention. We recognised that, if you want to create change of that sort, there have to be concomitant changes in systems, training, lawyering and judging.

So I would certainly want to see evidence of more than four days of training. The International Bar Association is involved in training lawyers and prosecutors around the world in relation to, for example, coercive interrogation, as we politely call it, to prevent the torture of people who are arrested and to make sure that, to comply with the rule of law, we do not use those kinds of practices to extract confessions in our systems of law around the world, because we have learned that confessions extracted in that way are never reliable. Training takes place, but we all recognise that four days of training does not produce the goods. Two sets of four days of training, as we have had so far in Rwanda, do not create a change in the culture.

We are talking about something much more substantial and meaningful in changing systems. I remember, because I was in the radio studio with him at the time, when the Supreme Court’s judgment came out and Lord Sumption and I were asked, on the “Today” programme’s podcast, about the effects of it and the Government’s response that they were going to pass a Bill in which they said that the country was safe. He was absolutely shocked and said it would be disreputable to do such a thing. Why did he say that? He said it himself on the programme: it is the systems that are problematic here. The outcome of refoulement is a result of inadequate systems. To change them would be a substantial challenge, and not one that can be completed in a matter of months. The story is that somehow the evidence on which this was based was outdated, but we must have evidence of substantial change before we can possibly consider the Bill as an acceptable one to put through this House.

I certainly cheer on the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and any other amendments that may come forth that will delay this, but we know that this is really about an election that is coming up, in which this has become a very heated issue. There is a desire on the Prime Minister’s part to fulfil Ms Braverman’s dream: that she will see a flight go into the air to Rwanda, carrying on it some of these asylum seekers. That is the dream; that is the election flag that has to go up the flagpole. All I can say is that it would be unfitting, inappropriate and unworthy if this Parliament passed the Bill for that reason.

[Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I rise to speak because I suspect I am in a minority as one of the very few Members of this House who have had direct contact with Rwanda, having had 10 years’ engagement with the diocese of Kigali, the capital city, and the great joy of visiting the country and seeing life outside in the countryside. One of the most moving things of my nearly 40 years of ministry was praying at the national memorial for the holocaust in Kigali with a local bishop who had lost so many members of his family. He was still so distraught that I had to find the words for our prayer together.

I put on record that I have come across so many wonderful Rwandans who would be hugely great examples to us individually of the practice of forgiveness and trying to make life beautiful again after a terrible tragedy. I can think of one instance where I met a priest; most of his family had been murdered, and in an act of forgiveness he took the murderer of his loved ones into what was left of his family, because he felt there was a requirement upon him to demonstrate and show forgiveness in this terrible situation.

It is also true, in my experience, that Rwanda has done a remarkable job in developing its economy. I was going to say it was a “tiger economy”—that is perhaps the wrong fauna for the Great Lakes region, but there have been real strides forward in their economy. Of course, people have been very eager to support their President because he has largely delivered to them peace.

It is also my direct experience, relating to what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, that the institutions of civil society remain substantially undeveloped. It seems to me that, although we may agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and might want to say that Rwanda could in the future be a third-party partner in dealing with these issues, I would strongly say that that day has not yet come.

Of course, I am not in principle against the idea of third-party partnerships; it is very interesting what we hear about Italy. It seems to me that what is required is a real, dedicated commitment to a partnership among western nations in seeking to see how this could be done effectively and generously towards those whom we categorise as criminals, many of whom have suffered dreadful trauma and persecution in their homeland, which is the only reason they have taken the risk and put themselves in the hands of these dreadful criminal gangs.

It is also very important that we take account of the fact that, if we are going to even think about the prospect of sending people to a third-party country, there has to be a guarantee, as evidenced in Amendment 8, that people have a right to return and establish their claims here. If this is not allowed, it is simply a case of our throwing the problem away. That seems to me to be simply immoral, and not something that we as a nation should be contemplating.

We need to look very carefully again at putting this burden on the people of Rwanda and how we might think much better about working together with other nations in developing a pattern that will help us, in the longer term, cope with huge further migration through climate change, which we have not even contemplated yet and which will affect us very deeply.