Asylum: UK-Rwanda Agreement

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, as a member of the relevant committee, about which many compliments have been paid, particularly to the chair and the staff, I rise to support the two Motions in the name of our chair, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. I first make a point that I am not sure anyone has made, which is the dilemma with which the Government are faced. If we go back to the beginning, the whole reason for the proposal to send people to Rwanda was that it was going to be such a hellhole that nobody would want to get on a boat if they thought they were going to go to Rwanda. The dilemma the Government now face is that, because of the Supreme Court, they have to demonstrate what a wonderful, safe place Rwanda is. I wonder whether this might just be a moment for them to reflect on the purpose of their policy.

Recent events go either way. First, as noble Lords indicated, six people from Rwanda have had to be granted asylum here. I do not know why; I do not know whether anybody knows why. If that is the case, it may somewhat help the deterrent argument: the hellhole argument. Conversely, RwandAir for the first time last week commenced non-stop flights between Kigali and Heathrow. Whether that is in preparation for taking people, who knows—and which way that goes on the argument of deterrence or safety, again I am not sure. But it does seem to me and to many of us that this a classic case of two and two adding up to five.

There are a couple of peculiarities in the Rwanda treaty that noble Lords have touched on. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, the rhetoric of the Government in defence of their policy and of the treaty has been that a number of other countries have done and are doing the same. Italy is cited vis-à-vis its current negotiations, and of course in the Tory party the highlight would be Mr Abbott winning the election in Australia all those years ago on the basis of processing migrants in Papua New Guinea—and I think also in Nauru. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, indicated, there was a fundamental difference, in that they were being processed by Australians who decided whether they would be given asylum in Australia. That is not the case with this treaty. Anybody who is sent to Rwanda and is granted asylum there can only, as we know, be kept in Rwanda and certainly cannot come back to the UK, except in exceptional circumstances.

The second point, which I do not want to labour but which several noble Lords, going back to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, have touched on, is that there seems to be a strange interplay in this treaty between the asylum rules and the refugee rules. I am not sure exactly how that plays out, but it is a complication.

The Government’s policy says, and the evidence they gave to us is intended to show, that the new treaty contains significant new protections to meet the Supreme Court objections. A number of noble Lords have mentioned them, and the Government have listed the new protections: first, a new system for processing asylum claims, with new institutional structures and a provision for free legal advice; secondly, the establishment of a first-instance body to hear claims, as well as a new appeals body with judges from a mix of nationalities; thirdly, an independent monitoring committee that will be set up, bolstered by a support team; and, most particularly, the new domestic legislation that will be required in Rwanda to implement the new system.

As noble Lords and our report have indicated, a large number of actions are now required: a new asylum law, a process for making complaints to a monitoring committee, the recruitment of the monitoring committee support team independent of the establishment and the hiring of independent advisory experts, the establishment and appointment of co-presidents of the appeals body and other international judges, training for the new appointees and the recruitment of legal advisers and interpreters. All of this, as noble Lords have said and as our report indicates, takes time and, in the committee’s view, should be established before ratification.

Noble Lords who are hesitant about voting for the second Motion in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, should accept that this is not about the legislation, which has caused such rows in the Tory party; it is about the treaty. I remind noble Lords that none of the four Tory Members who have spoken—including the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who is in his place—have dissented from this recommendation. It is a unanimous recommendation. From publicity, we are all aware of how the Tory party in another place has been tearing itself apart over this issue, but it is the Bill, not the treaty, that it has been tearing itself apart over. Noble Lords really need to take that on board.

In any rational world, this would not happen and the recommendation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, would be followed. I wonder whether it is only the absolute determination of the Government to start flights to Rwanda before an election that is stopping this. I should add that I do not think our recommendation implies criticism of Rwanda in any way; we all accept, I think, that it has acted in good faith. It is a perfectly respectable member of the Commonwealth that seriously wishes to implement the desired protections.

My noble friend Lord Purvis referred to the best part of £400 million that we have committed to this project. In Davos, President Kagame indicated that, if no migrants from the boats were sent there, we could have the money back. I suspect that we will be asking him for it.