Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord German and Lord Lilley

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, as he always is.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as set out in the register that I am supported by RAMP. I am grateful for the history lesson, but, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury told us, two wrongs do not make a right, and certainly it was without the history of my time in this House and beforehand. We are dealing with this issue, this country and a Bill about this country, and doing it in the right way.

These amendments seek to build on a view that this House has already taken. The fact is that the treaty is locked into the Bill and we are being asked to affirm that the treaty has made Rwanda a safe country. That is not the view of this House. This House made a determination that it should not ratify the Bill until such time as the conditions placed by the International Agreements Committee were put into operation.

This discussion has gone on through a variety of different parts of this House and its Select Committees, but the significant one was the Government’s response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I know Members hoped that the report would reach us before Third Reading, but in fact it did not. It was published the day after, so we did not have time to consider it at that point. What the Government said in response is something they have indicated in other statements:

“We will not ratify the treaty until the UK and Rwanda agree that all necessary measures in the treaty are in place”.


However, in subsequent discussions the Government could not tell us which measures were in place and which measures were about to be in place. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, said in one of his responses that we were “working towards” the country being safe. It is clear that the Government are asking Parliament not only to declare a fact contrary to a finding of fact by the highest court in the land but to believe in the effectiveness of measures set out by the Government to ensure safety that are not yet fully implemented.

For example, the Minister has already referred to the fact that domestic legislation has still to be passed in Rwanda, including and in particular laws on the processes for making immigration decisions and laws for dealing with appeals. These new laws are to be followed by appropriate training and guidance for practitioners before they can be put into operation.

We are also mindful that David Neal, the former Borders and Immigration inspector, gave evidence to a committee of this House yesterday. He told the committee there were pieces of work that the inspectorate did in relation to the safety of Rwanda that were not yet in the public domain. In particular, he referred to the Home Office’s Rwanda country information report, which was subject to Supreme Court scrutiny but, as we understand it, is complete but not yet published. Other material has also not been scrutinised by our independent inspector because there is no longer one in place.

We are told by the Government that we have sufficient material before us to judge that Rwanda is safe. Putting aside the question of whether Parliament is the right place for people to judge whether a country is safe—we think it might not be—we are being asked, with the Bill, to make that decision ourselves. That it is safe was not the view of this House, and the House made a decision on what it wanted to see before it could determine that it was indeed safe. Now the Government are intent on telling us to change our minds. That is what the Government have to convince us to do. This House has taken its view. That view is now before us and the Government are asking us to change our minds —without the exact evidence that the House required being provided.

These are all areas of concern that make it clear to us that the very basic safeguards that the Home Office has set out in the treaty need to be fully implemented before the Bill is passed. These amendments are crucial to making that happen because they would protect us both now and in the future. We on these Benches are pleased to support them.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord German and Lord Lilley

Report stage
Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I start by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that I have come to the same conclusion about these amendments, but perhaps from a different perspective. As noble Lords know, these Benches voted against the Bill in principle, but that does not mean to say, having not won that argument, that we will not support changes to the Bill in ways that mitigate the problems that we still see with it.

It is worth reminding the House of the decision that we took on the treaty—that we would not recommend the treaty being signed until certain conditions were in place. As noble Lords know, from the Standing Orders of this House, that that was a resolution of this House and is the view of this House. These amendments are simply seeking to amplify and recognise the decision of this House that is in place at present. If it is not in place, we are going to be asked to do that fictionalising thing, which is to change our minds from what we said before—that we need to see those conditions in place before we can see Rwanda as safe—simply because the Bill is before us.

This group of amendments recognises that we need to have those conditions in place before the consideration that this House has already given can be reversed. I must say to the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, that “safe” in respect of a country is not about the beauty of the country or the nature of its people; it is about the structures and the systems that it has in place to meet its obligations, including the obligations for refugees that we have laid out.

Given that the courts have given a decision of fact on the safety of Rwanda, it is deeply problematic that the Government want this Parliament to overturn its own decision and declare the opposite. We think that they would be better off going back to the courts to review the evidence and coming to a finding of fact, if they believe that the situation has changed. As the United Nations council responsible for public affairs said in its announcement last Friday, this Bill will

“unduly limit judicial independence by requiring judges to treat Rwanda as a safe third country now and in the future, regardless of any evidence to the contrary before them”.

It is clear that the terms of the treaty have not been met; that is what this House says, and that is the resolution of this House. They need to be met before the requirements of the treaty are satisfied. The mechanism by which the Government are asking Parliament to declare Rwanda safe is the treaty. The Minister confirmed in Committee that the safeguards outlined in the resolution of this House were not yet in place but were being worked towards. In Hansard for day one in Committee, 12 February, my noble friend Lord Purvis asked whether we could pursue the issue that the Minister had mentioned. He said:

“If the Rwandan Government are ‘working towards’ putting safeguards in place, that means they are not currently in place. Is that correct?”—[Official Report, 12/2/24; cols. 64-65.]


Hansard says that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, replied, “It must do”.

This afternoon, letters have been delivered to Members who took part in these debates. I apologise for having to look on my phone, because these letters which relate to Committee of this House on the Bill were delivered by electronic mechanisms only after we had started discussing Report. That is not the way this House should be treated. If we want the evidence on which we can make decisions, we should have it in time to be able to make further progress. Anyway, I have to turn my phone sideways because it is very small writing, but I will do my very best. It says in a paragraph about whether these matters are in sight:

“The UK and Rwandan Governments will continue to work closely together to implement all the measures under the treaty and prepare to operationalise the partnership”.


So quite clearly, the facts required by this House are not there at present. I like to cite the analogy from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. It is like saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going by plane and we are working towards making the plane safe”. If you think about it, that is where we are at the moment. Would you get into that plane? Probably not. You would be foolish to do so—but, if you did get into it, you would have no guarantee that it would be capable of flying and not dropping out of the air.

So these amendments are clear that we must put the conditions in place. They have already been agreed by this House. We have made it clear that the conditions we as a House place on the treaty are to be adhered to, and that the conditions and procedures must be adopted to satisfy the House both before and after deportations can take place. They are sensible. They are what the House requires in order to fulfil the requirements of the decision we took on the matters of the treaty. I support.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I do urge noble Lords to use some common sense. It is inconceivable, if this Bill is enacted, for the first few months—regardless of whether all the conditions of the treaty have been implemented—that Rwanda, under the full spotlight and glare of international publicity and the attention of the press, will not implement carefully and considerately or that it will refoule anyone that we send it.

The reason for having all the things in the treaty is for the period after the initial spotlight has been turned off and attention has waned. Then, it is important to have all those considerations in place; it is not initially. No one could really imagine that we will send someone out and within a few weeks they will be sent by Rwanda to some unsafe country. It will not happen. We know it will not.

But it is very important that we get this happening soon, and that we not only use common sense but are merciful, because the longer we delay, the more people will come across the Channel and the more people will die.

Immigration Act 2014 (Residential Accommodation) (Maximum Penalty) Order 2023

Debate between Lord German and Lord Lilley

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations are a regrettable consequence of our failure to prevent—it is extremely difficult to prevent—deter or remove illegal immigrants from this country. I hope that the Rwanda Bill, which we will consider shortly, will belatedly change that situation.

The reason why I have chosen to intervene briefly in this debate is to seek information. When I was the Secretary of State for DSS, I was told that it was impossible to work legally in this country without a national insurance number—a NINo. You cannot get a national insurance number unless you can demonstrate the legal right to work. It then emerged that there were far more national insurance numbers than people of working age in this country. Various explanations were put forward—they were numbers of people who had emigrated and the numbers were not rescinded, and so on.

First, I want to know whether that issue has been cleared up. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm that it is necessary to have a national insurance number to be employed? The employer has to ask for it and obtain it; it will then go into the system and, if the number is invalid, it will be thrown out. Secondly, is it possible in any way to obtain a national insurance number if you do not have the legal right to work? Are those two aspects effective in preventing illegal immigrants obtaining legal employment or accessing benefits? I appreciate that they will not stop people employing people illegally and failing to report that to the authorities, the tax authorities and so on.

I appreciate that my noble friend may not have the answers to those questions here and now but it would be helpful if we could clear this up and put on the record the precise effectiveness of national insurance numbers in dealing with these issues.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, the purpose of these two orders is to create a more hostile environment for those who seek to enter this country by routes other than the ones that are available to them, which are very limited indeed. I have a range of questions but my principal concern regards the perverse impact of these orders and how they will act as a deterrent to people who are legally entitled to stay in this country, have been given the right to remain and are seeking to establish themselves with a new life here.

My comment is based on the evidence provided to us. There is limited evidence that the current regime is not working. Of course, I understand that one might wish to increase the fees in line with inflation each year, which has not happened for 10 years, but one necessarily has to ask oneself this: if it is working, why does it need this extra change to make it happen? I will come back later to the evidence that the Government have provided. Without that strong evidence, there is an indication to me that this is an income stream for the Government. I am not necessarily going to complain about that but it certainly does not seem absolutely critical to the ambitions laid before it.

I want to look at the perverse impact on those who have been given the right to remain: those who are starting out on a new life here in the United Kingdom and are faced with the difficult, dual challenges of finding both a home and work. In the rented sector in particular, we currently have a housing crisis, with the private rental sector incredibly competitive for renters. Tenant demand for rental property was up by 54% in July last year. In that context, will landlords choose a tenant who may need to go through the right-to-rent checking process and risk a fine? Or will they opt for someone who has the right to rent, such as someone who has a passport versus someone who does not—or, more worryingly, someone who is of a different ethnic background?

This is a similar problem for jobseekers, who require an employer to check their right to work. We have to be live to the fact that certain profiles of people are at risk of discrimination as a result and will find it harder to find accommodation and employment than their white British counterparts. Protections and remedies need to be real and effective, and we need to consider whether this indirect impact is proportionate to achieving the stated aim of the policy: to deter irregular migrants.

The stated aim of the increase in these penalties is an effort to deter irregular migrants from entering the United Kingdom in the first place, as well as to encourage those without legal status to leave the United Kingdom. This policy has now been in force for 10 years, since 2014. Therefore, we should by now have some evidence of whether the policy works—that is, whether it has contributed to a reduction in people remaining in the United Kingdom after their leave has expired or to fewer people entering the United Kingdom without leave in order to work. My first question to the Minister is this: what is the evidence that this policy has had the desired impact on deterrence since it was introduced in 2014?