Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I feel like just moving Amendments 40 and 41 and sitting down. I probably should.

These amendments ask the Government to provide some facts with respect to the Bill. We believe that the Bill—as well as the various debates we have had about the rule of law, compliance with international law and so on—is unworkable. We do not think it will work. We think that, in the end, the real number the Government want is one; one plane. The symbolism of one plane taking off is what they want.

Let us just try some facts—how many thousands of people are waiting, under the auspices of the Illegal Migration Act, to be deported somewhere? How many people are the Government going to send to Rwanda? If it is over 300 by the way, it costs an extra £120 million. Where are all these people? We read that the Government have lost a lot of them; they do not know where they are. Can the Government explain why they overspent by £4.5 billion and why the Home Secretary had to ask for an emergency £2.6 billion? Can the Government explain why they believe there is a deterrent, when the Permanent Secretary had to receive a ministerial direction to carry on because he did not believe there was any evidence that there was a deterrent? Yet the Government continued to say that. Instead of a Safety of Rwanda Bill overturning a finding of fact by the Supreme Court, perhaps we could have a government amendment which says, “You have to believe that it is a deterrent”.

Number after number is not provided by the Government. Amendment 40 would require a report on how the Rwanda treaty will operate, and Amendment 41 makes a series of asks of the Government. I will press Amendment 41 to a Division, because I want to know how many asylum seekers there are with respect to the Illegal Migration Act? Where are they? How many are the Government sending to Rwanda? What is the timeline for that? Where is their evidence about deterrence? Why should we believe, without any figures, the Government simply asserting that this will act as a deterrent, and that it will work?

I go back to the point I made at the beginning, which was the brunt of all my remarks. Whatever amendments are passed, be it Amendment 41 or some of those which came earlier or will come later—for example, Amendments 42 and 44—they deserve to be properly considered by the Government, and this place given its due respect.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Before the noble Lord sits down—and I hesitate to interrupt what has been a wonderfully entertaining and accurate speech—would he like to remind the Minister that, according to the figures issued by the National Audit Office just two days ago, the total cost of sending 300 people to Rwanda would be £569,262,200, and the average cost per person would be £1.9 million? Does he agree that one of the responsibilities of this House is to make the Government literally accountable for the proper and proportionate spending of public money?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for reminding me that I have a copy of that National Audit Office report. He is right—the cost is astronomical, and that is before anybody has been sent. The cost will go up if anybody is sent. The Government have not come forward with those figures; the National Audit Office had to find them out. We have no idea about the number of asylum seekers that the Illegal Migration Act applies to, and we have no idea what the Government will do or how many they expect to send to Rwanda.

It is almost unbelievable that we have spent months debating a Bill that not only brings into question all sorts of constitutional principles that we have debated—and no doubt will come back to—but is unworkable. That is the whole point of my Amendment 41.