Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Scriven

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to this group of amendments; I apologise to the Committee that I could not be here for Second Reading. Even though I was on the estate, I had a bad chest infection. I was coughing and sputtering, which I did not think would add to the debate, so I listened to it in my office and have subsequently read the Hansard. I was also very proud to vote for my noble friend Lord German’s fatal amendment to the Second Reading Motion. I draw the Committee’s attention to my interests in the register on this issue. I will try not to do a Second Reading speech but to keep my comments to this clause and the amendments.

These amendments are quite important, based on what I would call this candyfloss clause. It is a bit like candyfloss because the Government are trying to make it big, enticing and sweet but, the moment you touch it, it starts to disintegrate as you realise that it is built on nothing. Clause 1(3) says:

“The Government of the Republic of Rwanda has, in accordance with the Rwanda Treaty”—


these are the important words—

“agreed to fulfil the following obligations”.

They have not yet done that, nor given an indication of how they will. It is therefore important, before any person is sent to Rwanda, that those obligations are fulfilled. There also needs to be some form of independent assessment of how that is done.

In the normal course of the rule of law, the courts of this land would make an assessment. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is trying to put in at least some form of independent assessment. People may argue about whether it is independent, but the UNHCR and its role in the legal understanding of refugees and safe countries is well understood. I have a slight problem with the amendment from the noble Baroness, as it involves just one set of evidence and, clearly, courts would normally look at a wider range of evidence. However, it is important that, in Amendment 34, there is a rebuttable presumption. I assume that it would, at some point, give some leeway and a doorway to the courts to test that, so the legality of the decision made by the Executive can be reviewed by the independent judiciary. It will be interesting to see that. That is the aim of the amendment from the noble Baroness.

I ask the Minister, when responding to these amendments, to pick up what my noble friend Lady Hamwee said regarding the incompatibility at times between Rwanda and the laws of this land, and the obligations and treaties that have been signed. Particularly, how will refugees’ claims be assessed in Rwanda? Where there is incompatibility between the laws or obligations of Rwanda and the UK, exactly how will those contradictions be dealt with?

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I think the majority of those who have spoken have apologised for not being here at Second Reading. I am worried; I think I ought to apologise for having been here at Second Reading and for having spoken then and a week earlier on the treaty. I have spoken about the apples and pears, the rule of law and our international reputation, and I do not want to bore the Committee on that anymore.

I think the aim shared by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, of making the Bill, if not pointless, harmless—or harmless though still pointless—is impossible in Clause 1. We are dealing with a Bill that is very hard to make acceptable.

I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is hoping to do in her amendments and I share that. We need to take account of the fact that we voted in this House, on the report from the International Agreements Committee, that Rwanda is not yet safe. We did that not in an off-the-cuff way but on the basis of a reasoned report, which was written on the basis of a stack of evidence submitted to the International Agreements Committee, of which I am a member. The House voted that it is not safe; therefore, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is completely correct: how can we possibly now stand on our heads and say that it is the judgment of Parliament that Rwanda is safe—as if we could do that anyway? We cannot legislate that apples are pears, or cats are dogs. We need to have some sort of triggering or commencement mechanism, which means that the Bill, when an Act, does not come into force until Rwanda can be seen to be safe. The International Agreements Committee set out the 10 areas in which change is required.

I am uneasy about conferring the role on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, although I think that the Government have now accepted that one of his roles is supervising and monitoring the operation of the refugee convention. I am not sure that it is right to ask UNHCR to undertake this task; we are only one of the signatories of the convention, and so is Rwanda. He said in the memorandum that he submitted in relation to the treaty:

“UNHCR has continued to engage bilaterally with the Government of Rwanda on specific incidents of concern, and will continue to offer technical advice and support to the Government of Rwanda to strengthen its asylum system and the protection of all refugees, as part of its mandated responsibilities”.


For us to ask it to act as advisers to us might seem to UNHCR to be difficult—I do not know. I note that UNHCR did not want to give evidence to the International Agreements Committee. It seems to me that it may well feel, “This is something you have to sort out for yourselves—don’t drag me in”. But we need to have someone.

In later groupings, we can consider the proposals for an independent reviewer, or the proposal in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for using the monitoring committee set up in the treaty for that purpose. I am not sure about that—I am for an independent reviewer myself—but that is for later groupings. But for now I utter a word of caution as to whether this is really appropriate, and whether we would not be talking about a forced marriage. The Government certainly do not want to involve the UNHCR, and I am not 100% sure that the UNHCR wants to get involved either.

For me, the important amendments in this group are Amendments 5 and 6, which say that, instead of having the Bill say that Rwanda is safe, the Bill would say that Rwanda will become safe when the conditions for safety, such as those listed by the International Agreements Committee, are met. That would change the tense from “is” to “will be”—it would be forward-looking. That is where I feel most strongly about the amendments in this group.