Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I wish to speak to the reasoned amendment that stands in my name and that of my hon. Friends.

Before I do so, I want to remark on the tragic news that has emerged that an asylum seeker aboard the Bibby Stockholm was found dead this morning. We do not know yet what the cause was, and we sympathise for that person and everybody who loved them, but what I do know is that our words and our policies in this place have consequences. We should all reflect on that in the debate.

The UK’s approach to migration, both legal and illegal, has been nothing short of chaotic, with poisonous rhetoric swirling around the plight of the world’s most vulnerable at the channel on a stormy night. Let me take a moment to reflect on how the Tories have brought us to this parlous state. A former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), doubled down on Labour’s hostile environment policy in a speech 11 long years ago. She promised to make life really difficult for those who came to our shores, deporting first and hearing appeals later. The Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 fostered a toxic culture of suspicion and disbelief in the Home Office, turning health staff, employers and landlords into border guards. That led to the Windrush scandal, the test of English for international communication scandal, and lives fractured and still not put back together. It led to “Go home” vans and the highly skilled migrants paragraph 322(5) scandal. It led to people being forcibly removed despite having done nothing wrong. It led directly to the dehumanisation found by the Brook House inquiry and to the rampant spread of covid and scabies in Napier barracks.

The Tories tightened up on the lorries, and then we had small boats. The talk got ever tougher. The cry of “Stop the boats” went out, and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 came and went. The boats kept coming. The Illegal Migration Act 2023 was passed and, oddly enough, did not prove to be much of a deterrent, either. Today, we have the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill before us, which the Tories claim will be the one to do it. Well, they think that the third time is the charm, so maybe it will or maybe it will not. I am not terribly convinced, but the permanent secretary told a Committee yesterday that there is no evidence that it will be a deterrent, either.

This is policy in a death spiral, tougher and tougher, turning the screw and threatening people with rendition flights to Rwanda. It will not work, because nothing the Government have done before has worked. Why? Because it does not deal with the reason why people are coming here.

People will continue to put themselves in small boats because they feel there is no alternative. They come to reunite with family because of historical ties and because of the English language. It is all too easy to dehumanise, to speak of scourges, swarms and hordes, to speak of those who try to come here with no papers as somehow wanting to cheat the system and skip the queue. As the MP with the highest immigration caseload in Scotland, I see many of those people referred to by Ministers at my surgeries week in, week out. I have to look them in the eye, as I know so many Tory Members do not have to. I have 138 outstanding immigration cases—would the Home Secretary care to look at his inbox once in a while?

I will speak instead briefly about some of my constituents. I will call the first constituent Mohammed, to protect his anonymity. He came here from Sudan and got refugee status. He applied for his wife to come and, after nine months of waiting for that application, he came to my surgery in March. In April, conflict broke out in Sudan. His wife’s family fled to Egypt, but, because her paperwork was in the closed visa application centre, she could not go. In May, I was told that the case was allocated to a decision maker but that the visa application centre in Khartoum was still closed. By October, the case was still with a decision maker, but there was no timescale for a decision, I was told.

On Friday, Mohammed came to my advice surgery to show me pictures of a gunshot wound to his wife’s leg and video footage of those who had been killed in the same incident. I ask Tory Members what they would do if it was their wife. There is no safe and legal route from Sudan, and the family reunion route is demonstrably not working in the face of an ongoing conflict. Would they advise her to sit tight and wait for a year and a half for the appropriate paperwork, or should she try to cross international borders, by whatever means, to get to her husband and to safety in Glasgow? She is not wanting to skip the queue; she just wants the paperwork done by the Home Office.

How about the constituents who I will call Mr and Mrs R? They were unlucky enough to be visiting family in Afghanistan with their five children when it fell. With significant difficulty and scant assistance from UK officials, they were eventually able to return to Glasgow several months later, yet they contact me regularly about the family members they had had to leave behind. Despite the much-touted Afghan schemes, there is no route for them. Their relatives fled to Pakistan and had to leave everything behind, including their paperwork. The Government of Pakistan are now sending people back to Afghanistan—into the hands of the very Taliban they fled from. I ask Tory Members again: what would they advise Mr and Mrs R’s family to do? Should they ask the Taliban for a passport, wait for the Taliban to come to their door, wait for the Pakistani Government to arrest them, or should they try another route?

It is no accident that Afghans make up the greatest number of people in small boats. As Safe Passage has pointed out, in the first nine months of this year, just 279 Afghans came through official routes. For every person arriving through the Afghan schemes, 17 Afghans are crossing the channel in a small boat. This week, we have heard about how the Afghan relocations and assistance policy is leaving those who served with our armed forces at risk of execution.

I recently travelled with the Home Affairs Committee to hear more about what is happening in France and Belgium and their response to small boat crossings. The French Red Cross said that it works with the young unaccompanied asylum seekers it finds who are trying to cross the channel to reach family members in the UK. It tries to convince them of the merits of a family reunion application, but the backlog is so long and the casework so slow that they will inevitably wait for many months. Members in this place tend to forget that the channel is not the beginning of somebody’s journey but the end; it is the last leg. The channel holds little fear, given the dangerous journeys that some have already made to be here. It could not be more tempting to know that they are so nearly to safety.

If a humanitarian travel document existed, those same young people could avoid the perilous journey in a leaky rubber dinghy. They could get the same train or ferry that many millions of travellers do every year. They would not need to pay people smugglers at all—that would kill the business model at a stroke. It is the denial of that logical option that is placing people in danger. What are the Government offering instead? They are saying, “If you make that long and dangerous journey to our shores, your case will not be heard at all and you may be sent to Rwanda.”

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech and bringing real humanity to the debate. Is she aware that the people in Calais who are trying to cross the channel are homeless, poor, desperate, and often victims of war and human rights abuses, and that walking away from international law and international conventions will not offer protection to them or to any other desperate people in the world and will send a terrible message to the rest of the world that this country is turning its back on the international law that it established in 1948?

[Alison Thewliss]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Through the Bill, this country is turning its back on its international obligations. It is a pathetic excuse for policy—a foghorn signalling to the far right. It is too weak for some of the Home Secretary’s colleagues, but too harsh for a few exceptional others. For all the talk of full fat versus semi-skimmed, it is more akin to milk that has gone stagnant and sour—utterly repellent to decent people and best binned altogether, for everyone’s safety. For the SNP, the Bill is an abhorrence that undermines the UK’s international obligations and the principles of human rights. It costs a fortune and it is highly unlikely to achieve even its tawdry aims. We shall be tabling a prayer against the Rwanda treaty.

The legal experts I have heard from are appalled by the implications of proceeding with a Bill that, by the Home Secretary’s own frontispiece to it, cannot be declared compliant with the ECHR. The Home Secretary claims that he respects the Supreme Court’s decisions, but he comes here today with the sole purpose of overturning them and preventing the Court from ruling on anything ever again. For a Government to disapply human rights when it suits them, and instruct courts and public bodies to do likewise, is deeply troubling.

Liberty has stated that the Bill will

“tie the hands of every court in the UK while also abandoning the UK’s international commitments”.

Far be it from me to be concerned about the UK’s constitution or standing in the world, but I note that the Law Society of Scotland has questioned the UK’s rationale in disapplying a range of human rights agreements dating back 70 years, and the global implications of that departure from the international rights order. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, Justice and Freedom from Torture say that the Bill

“sends a devastating signal to the world about the UK’s reliability as an international partner”.

The Bill also begs the question whether breaking international law is something that the Rwandan Government would accept. Minister Vincent Biruta reportedly said:

“Without lawful behaviour by the UK, Rwanda would not be able to continue with the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.”

It is beneath contempt for the UK Government on the one hand to say, “We are presenting a treaty with Rwanda—marvel at how solid and unbreakable it is,” while, on the other, to tell us that they want to breach the human rights convention, the refugee convention, the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights, the 1984 United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings agreed at Warsaw on 16 May 2005, as well as customary international law and any other laws that might get in their way, including from the European Court of Human Rights.

International law is binding: no welching, no backsies, no keys up. The Government are supposed to adhere to it; that is why they signed up to it in the first place. This is abject nonsense. The Law Society of England and Wales goes further, stating clearly that

“domestic legislation cannot immunise the Government from the enforcement of international law. To claim it can is disingenuous”.

It also states that refusing to comply with an interim measure would be a

“clear and serious breach of international law.”

It accuses the UK Government of using law to manufacture a reality. It is the time of year that we all indulge in some Christmas magic and imagine reindeers on the roof, but this UK Tory Government have asked the entire United Kingdom legal system to engage in a far more dangerous pretence.

The UK Supreme Court sought out the facts for itself and, upon clear and substantial evidence, found Rwanda to be unsafe. That seems most likely why the Government want to ban courts from doing that again, via this legislation. The Court spoke of the risk of refoulement and of sending people back into harm’s way. Indeed, if Rwanda were safe, why would it be able to send asylum seekers to the UK as part of the deal? The Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza was sentenced to 15 years in jail for speaking out against the Rwandan Government. Despite being released in 2018, to this day she still cannot exercise her political rights. She had to criticise the deal in the international media, because she says that the local media dare not give her a platform.

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

[Alison Thewliss]

If the right hon. Member can explain how Rwanda is safe, I will certainly give way.

[Sir John Hayes]

The key thing about this whole debate is the tension that the hon. Lady has described. Is she familiar with the rulings of Lord Denning, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Bingham and, more recently, Lord Reed, all of which directly contradict what she said about the balance between international law and laws passed by this Parliament? Does she acknowledge the truth that all those very distinguished jurists say the opposite of what she said?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

I acknowledge that different lawyers will have different opinions. In its briefing, the Law Society of England and Wales says that the Government are being disingenuous in what they are claiming, and I will take their word for it.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) cites various judges, but the most supreme court in the United Kingdom is the UK Supreme Court, and it was very clear in the first Miller case that, although parliamentary sovereignty might mean that the law can be changed internally, this Parliament cannot legislate its way out of its international obligations. Does my hon. Friend agree that, no matter what various judges may have said at various times, it is a recent massive constitutional case of the UK Supreme Court that we should look to on this issue?

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct, and has knowledge of many of these issues. It is important to reflect on those cases and what they actually mean, rather than what Government Members wish they meant.

The Bill declares Rwanda safe in all circumstances. In so doing, it undermines the rule of law and the separation of powers, preventing the courts from establishing their own facts and driving a sleigh and a squad of reindeer through the principle of restraint. My tortured metaphor ends here because, far from being Santa, the Home Secretary makes the Grinch look generous; he truly does have a heart that is two sizes too small.

The treaty creates new rules for Rwanda but, in reality, nothing has changed in the weeks since the judgment. Lords Reed and Lloyd-Jones said that

“intentions and aspirations do not necessarily correspond to reality: the question is whether they are achievable in practice.”

The Supreme Court found that Rwanda has thus failed to meet international obligations and is unlikely to meet additional ones. There is no evidence that the long-term culture shift required is likely to happen quickly. Rwanda processed only 228 decisions on asylum claims in 2020, and rejected claims from countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran and Eritrea.

I do not want to get dragged into the merits or otherwise of Rwanda as a nation, as there is a far broader principle in play. If we start to offload our international responsibilities to a third country—any third country—we are effectively surrendering our influence over what happens next. This Government themselves have become the people traffickers, sending human beings offshore against their will as if they were some kind of waste to be processed rather than human beings alike in dignity. There are real concerns about the impact that this flagrant disregard for international co-operation could have on trade policy, the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework. The implications of what is happening here today could be far-reaching and long-lasting across many aspects of all our lives.

Let me move to cost. Quite typical of the way that this Tory Government run their business, there has been secrecy over the cost. Yesterday, the permanent secretary was finally forced to reveal the additional £100 million payment to Rwanda, after the figures showed up in some International Monetary Fund paperwork. That is on top of £140 million the previous year and £50 million to come next year, for a scheme that thus far has seen more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers flown to Rwanda. It will cost £169,000 per asylum seeker—significantly more than if they were processed in the UK and allowed to rebuild their lives here and contribute to society, as so many dearly wish to do.

We all know that the capacity of the deal makes it practically impossible. The estimated capacity of around 200 would mean that the probability of being renditioned to Rwanda is one in 230. If the UK Government were to remove everyone who crossed in a small boat last year, it would cost £7.7 billion. That would be an obscene use of public funds at any time, but particularly so in a cost of living crisis. Then there is the ongoing problem, which the Government are failing to address, of those people who have arrived and will not be removed. They are forever stuck in immigration limbo, with their cases deemed inadmissible. At what cost? Where will they stay? What will they do for the rest of their lives?

A further danger of the Bill is that it will force people into even riskier behaviour. The Refugee Council has stated that almost everyone who arrives in the UK does so after being intercepted by the UK coastguard, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution or Border Force, and many actively contact those agencies asking to be rescued. The Bill makes it far less likely that they will do so. They will take more dangerous routes and they will not seek assistance, and the inevitable result is that many more will die in the channel or in the back of refrigerated lorries. The Bill will also leave people at the mercy of exploitative people traffickers. The Home Affairs Committee has already found that

“the fight against human trafficking is, in practice, no longer a priority for the UK Government”.

The Bill, and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 that came before it, make that worse.

The treaty also states that there is nothing to stop people leaving Rwanda once they are removed there, regardless of anything Ministers may claim. The BBC, on its visit to the Gashora refugee camp in Rwanda, found that those who had been moved there under other schemes did not wish to stay:

“Of the almost 2,000 people who have been relocated to the transit camp in Gashora since it was set up in 2019, none opted to stay in Rwanda when given the option, preferring instead to move to another country.”

So what do we have? We have endless failed policies. We have the ramping up of tensions through rhetoric. We have ineffective legislation. We have the overruling of judges. We have the abolition altogether of the asylum system. We have the undermining of human rights. It is like the TV series “Years and Years” on steroids.

It does not have to be this way. Together with Refugees published this week a clear alternative to fixing the broken system and keeping people safe. Ministers could not be less interested. The response from the right wing? To pillory Gary Lineker for having the temerity to speak his mind. The Scottish Government recently published a paper setting out an alternative in Scotland to this ineffective and failing system, ending the hostile environment and ensuring that humane, fair and compassionate refugee and asylum policies are a priority.

We should never forget the traumas and unimaginable suffering that lead people to flee their homes. They are people, just like us. Were it happening to us, we would all hope to be treated far better than those on the Government Benches would have it, and to find safety and sanctuary when we needed it most. It was on that principle that the refugee convention was created. We should stand up for that principle today and reject this cruel, unworkable and illegal Bill.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 45, page 2, line 33, leave out “a safe” and insert “an unsafe”.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 1, page 2, line 34, at end insert—

“(1A) The Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament no later than one year after this Act is passed, and at least once in every subsequent calendar year, on whether in the judgement of His Majesty's Government the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country.”

This amendment requires the Secretary of State to monitor on an ongoing basis whether Rwanda remains a safe country and to report the outcome to the House.

Amendment 46, page 2, line 41, leave out “not”.

This amendment would require a court or tribunal to consider review or appeals of decisions relating to the removal of a person to Rwanda.

Amendment 47, page 3, line 3, leave out “not”.

This amendment would require a court or tribunal to consider claims about actions of the Republic of Rwanda.

Amendment 35, page 3, line 4, leave out paragraph (a).

This amendment would permit courts and tribunals to deal with systematic risk of refoulement from Rwanda.

Amendment 56, page 3, line 12, at end insert—

“(d) any claim or complaint made by a person on the grounds that the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country if the person has—

participated or engaged in any activity, or made any communication containing serious allegations, which has led directly to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in general or in relation to that person, or

(ii) colluded or conspired with any other persons who have participated or engaged in any activity, or in any communication containing serious allegations, which could lead directly to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in general or in relation to those persons.”

This amendment would prevent a court or tribunal considering a claim that Rwanda is not a safe country from persons who deliberately tried to put themselves in jeopardy if they were removed to Rwanda.

Amendment 10, page 3, line 13, leave out subsection (5) and insert—

“(5A) This Act and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 will have effect in relation to removals to Rwanda notwithstanding—

(a) any provision made by or under the Immigration Acts,

(b) the Human Rights Act 1998,

(c) EU derived law and case law retained under sections 2 to 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018,

(d) any other provision or rule of domestic law (including any common law), and

(e) international law, including any interpretation of international law by the court or tribunal.

(5B) Nothing identified in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (5A) may prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, or affect the interpretation or application of any provision of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, including the actions or policies of public authorities, in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda.

(5C) To the extent that any provision or requirement included in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (5A) has been given effect to in legislation (including the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004), that legislation does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to the removal of an individual to Rwanda, and shall not prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.

(5D) A person or body to which subsection (5E) applies may not have regard to international law, in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (5G).

(5E) This subsection applies to—

(a) the Secretary of State or an immigration officer when exercising any function related to removing, or considering for removal a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023,

(b) a court or tribunal when considering any application or appeal which relates to a decision or purported decision to remove, or to consider the removal of a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.

(5F) No inference is to be drawn from this section as to whether or not a person or body mentioned in subsection (5E) would otherwise have been required to have regard to international law.

(5G) The Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 is amended as follows.

(5H) In section 2 at the end insert ‘except in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda under the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023’.”

This amendment specifically excludes the legislation raised in AAA v Secretary of State of the Home Department [2023] UKSC 42 as potential blocks to removal and excludes from consideration any international law (including the ECHR and anything put out by its court).

Clause stand part.

Amendment 19, in clause 4, page 4, line 11, leave out from “whether” to the end of line 14 and insert

“and in what manner a person is to be removed, or considered for removal, to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023”.

This and other amendments to Clause 4 are intended to remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel.

Amendment 48, page 4, line 13, leave out from “circumstances” to end of line 14.

This amendment is intended to allow the decision-maker to consider whether the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country in general.

Amendment 20, page 4, line 18, leave out from “that” to end of line 22 and insert

“are expressly permitted by this Act or by the Illegal Migration Act 2023”.

This and other amendments to Clause 4 are intended to remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel.

Amendment 49, page 4, line 20, leave out from “circumstances” to end of line 22.

This amendment is intended to allow the court or tribunal to consider whether the Republic of Rwanda is not a safe country in general.

Amendment 37, page 4, line 23, leave out subsection (2).

This amendment ensures that decision-makers are still able to consider the risk of refoulement when making individual decisions on removals to Rwanda.

Amendment 50, page 4, line 23, leave out subsections (2) to (7).

Amendment 2, page 4, line 27, at end insert —

“(2A) Any review or appeal under subsection (1) may be considered only after the person in question has arrived in Rwanda.

(2B) The Secretary of State may provide any necessary technical assistance, including access to video-links, to the person in question if it appears reasonable to a Minister of the Crown that such assistance should be provided in order to enable the person in question to request a review or make an appeal after their arrival in Rwanda.

(2C) The Secretary of State may provide any necessary incidental or medical assistance to the person in question if it appears reasonable, in the circumstances of that individual person in question, to a Minister of the Crown that such assistance should be provided in order to enable the person in question to travel to, and if necessary to be looked after or quarantined following arrival in, the Republic of Rwanda.

(2D) Any decision by a Minister of the Crown in relation to subsection (2B) or (2C) shall be final for all purposes and may not be considered or questioned in any tribunal or court.”

This amendment would allow reviews and appeals to take place only after the person had reached Rwanda; allow video-links for an appeal made from Rwanda; authorise the provision of any necessary medical help or quarantine on the way and if necessary after arrival in Rwanda; and prevent the courts from questioning decisions on assistance made by Ministers.

Amendment 3, page 4, line 28, leave out subsections (3) to (6) and insert—

“(2E) No order for an interim remedy under this section may be made by any tribunal or court.”

Amendment 21, page 4, line 34, leave out from “is” to end of line 37 and insert

“expressly permitted to do so by this Act or by the Illegal Migration Act 2023”

This and other amendments to Clause 4 are intended to remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel.

Amendment 57, page 5, line 1 , at end insert—

“‘compelling evidence’ may not include foreseeable risk of any kind of harm to a person if that person has—

(i) participated or engaged in any activity, or made any communication containing serious allegations, which has led directly to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in the particular individual circumstances of that person, or

(ii) colluded or conspired with any other persons who have participated or engaged in any activity, or in any communication containing serious allegations, which could lead to bringing into question the safety of the Republic of Rwanda in the particular individual circumstances of that person.”

This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State, an immigration officer or a court or tribunal considering a claim that Rwanda was not a safe country for the particular individual circumstances of a person if that person had deliberately tried to put themselves in jeopardy if they were removed to Rwanda.

Amendment 22, page 5, line 7, at end insert —

“(8) The Illegal Migration Act 2023 is amended as follows.

(9) In section 8 at the end insert—

‘(18) In relation to notices under subsection (2) which specify Rwanda as the country of destination —

(a) paragraph 2(b) does not apply, and

(b) subsections (3) to (7) do not apply.’

(10) After section 8 insert—

‘8A Finality of decisions

(1) Subsections (2) and (3) apply in relation to persons named in notices as described in subsection 8(18), and all matters, decisions, or conclusions reached in relation to their selection, processing, detention, and removal.

(2) These matters, decisions, and conclusions are final, and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court or tribunal.

(3) In particular—

(a) the decision maker is not to be regarded as having exceeded its powers by reason of any error made in reaching the decision;

(b) the supervisory jurisdiction does not extend to, and no application or petition for judicial review may be made or brought in relation to, the decision.

(4) Subsection (5) applies only in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel to Rwanda.

(5) Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply so far as the decision involves or gives rise to any question as to whether the decision maker is acting or has acted in bad faith.

(6) The court of supervisory jurisdiction is not to entertain any application or petition for judicial review in respect of a decision relating to a removal or proposed removal to Rwanda that it would not entertain (whether as a matter of law or discretion) in the absence of this section.

(7) In this section—

“bad faith” means dishonesty or personal malice, and does not include unreasonableness or actions taken which are inconsistent with international law;

“decision” includes any purported decision;

“first-instance decision” means the decision in relation to which permission (or leave) to appeal is being sought;

“the supervisory jurisdiction” means the supervisory jurisdiction of—

(a) the High Court in England and Wales or Northern Ireland,

or

(b) the Court of Session, in Scotland,

and

“the court of supervisory jurisdiction” is to be read accordingly.’

(11) After the cross-heading ‘Entry, settlement and citizenship’, insert—

‘29A Exclusion of certain provisions relating to entry, settlement and citizenship

Sections 30 to 37, and the other legislation therein mentioned or referred to, shall not apply if they have the effect of preventing or delaying any removal notified under this Act to Rwanda.’

(12) After the cross-heading ‘Legal proceedings’ insert—

‘37A Exclusion of certain provisions relating to legal proceedings

(1) Subsections (2) and (3) apply in relation to persons named in notices as described in subsection 8(18).

(2) Suspensive claims, as defined in section 38, are not available in relation to such persons.

(3) Where suspensive claims (including any appeals) have been commenced prior to the giving of notice, such claims and any pending appeals are null and void and shall not prevent removal or have any other legal effect.’”

This amendment limits the ability of courts to review, and restricts suspensive claims that may be made, in relation to the decision to remove a person to Rwanda.

Clause 4 stand part.

New clause 6—Changes to the classification of Rwanda as safe—

“(1) A Monitoring Committee overseeing removals to Rwanda must be established

and maintained in accordance with Article 15 of the Rwanda Treaty.

(2) Section 2(1) of this Act does not apply if—

(a) the Monitoring Committee established under subsection (1) has formally concluded that the Republic of Rwanda is in breach of its obligations under that Treaty,

(b) the Secretary of State has advised against travel to the Republic of Rwanda, or

(c) if a court or tribunal has found the Republic of Rwanda to be unsafe in accordance with subsection (3) below.

(3) On an application for judicial review, if a UK Senior Court determines that credible evidence exists that the Republic of Rwanda is no longer safe on the basis of non-compliance with its obligations under the Rwanda Treaty, nothing in this Act shall prevent a court or tribunal from further considering an application for judicial review brought by an individual so affected.”

This new clause places the Monitoring Committee for the Rwanda Treaty on a statutory basis, and places conditions on when the classification of Rwanda as ‘safe’ can be suspended in accordance with material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations under the Rwanda Treaty.

Amendment 28, in clause 9, page 6, line 38, after “Act” insert “except section 2”.

This is a paving amendment for Amendments 29 and 30.

Amendment 29, page 6, line 39, at end insert—

“(1A) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument bring section 2 into force.”

This Amendment makes the commencement of Clause 2 (Safety of the Republic of Rwanda) subject to a commencement order.

Amendment 30, page 6, line 39, at end insert—

“(1B) The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (1A) before—

(a) at least 30 days have elapsed since the Rwanda Treaty entered into force, and only if

(b) the Secretary of State is satisfied with the extent of the implementation by Rwanda of its domestic obligations under the Rwanda Treaty since the Treaty entered into force.”

This Amendment makes the commencement order for Clause 2 (Safety of the Republic of Rwanda) contingent on the Secretary of State being satisfied with the implementation by Rwanda of its domestic obligations under the new Treaty.

[Alison Thewliss]

The SNP has brought forward these amendments to this appalling Bill not because we really believe that there are improvements that can be made to it, but because that is the limitation of the process we have in front of us this afternoon. The Bill is irredeemably awful in each and every provision and clause, and in the intent behind it. And it will not work. Like the hostile environment that came before, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which got Royal Assent only 180 days ago, it will fail to reach its objectives because it fails to engage with reality. The more I hear from Members on the Government Benches on the issue, and from the many Home Office Ministers who have come and gone, I can only feel that they just do not understand why people seek sanctuary on our shores. They are astonishing in their ignorance and baffling in the lack of effort they put into understanding.

One reason people come to the UK is its—now clearly defunct—reputation for fairness and the rule of law, which the Bill comprehensively shreds. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has highlighted the impact that all of that has had on the people it deals with, and told me about a Kurdish client who fled Iran under a death sentence from the Iranian Government. On arriving in the UK, he was issued with a removal notice to Rwanda. He said:

“The reason I came to England was that I knew I will be safe in the UK, and also, I was trapped by the smugglers…When I received the news”—

that he would be sent to Rwanda—

“it felt like death again to me.”

He was relieved by the Supreme Court ruling because he thought he would be safe, but now he has had the rug pulled from underneath him yet again.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Chairman. The hon. Lady’s speech seems more appropriate for Second Reading. It would be helpful if she could direct her attention to the amendments, about which we are interested to hear what she has to say.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

It is actually amendments and clause stand part, so that gives a wider scope than perhaps the right hon. Gentleman realises.

[Alison Thewliss]

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has had your advice, Dame Rosie, on the subject of the debate.

To put the issue into context, every single week I sit in front of people at my advice surgery and listen patiently to the stories of the constituents who come to see me. I have read their Home Office statements: they have been through trauma, made perilous journeys at unimaginable cost, been tortured and bear the scars, both physical and mental. They have seen their relatives murdered, run rather than be forcibly recruited into an army that would kill and rape their loved ones, and been victims of trafficking and slavery. They have been unable to hide their views or their identity from those who would persecute them, and seen the stable life they had built crumble before their eyes. They never planned to be sitting on a random Friday morning in a community centre in Glasgow, in tears, before a Member of some other country’s Parliament. They do not understand why this UK Government treat them so poorly, disbelieve them, force them to wait, prevent them from working and keep them apart from the only loved ones they have left. I cannot comprehend it either.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I will if the hon. Gentleman can tell me why the Government treat people so cruelly, I will.

[Michael Fabricant]

I have been listening with interest to the compassion that the hon. Lady is expressing, but could she tell me how many illegal asylum seekers per head of population Scotland is accommodating, and how many illegal asylum seekers per head of population England is accommodating?

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman should inform himself, because there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker in the first place.

[Michael Fabricant]

rose—

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman can sit down; he has made his point.

Fellow human beings, from Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon, Tamils from Sri Lanka, Ahmadiyyas from Pakistan—all of those and more—have given me just the tiniest of insights into their lives. It is a privilege to know them and to help them as much as I can as their MP.

Glasgow is home to many different nationalities and it gives me great pleasure to attend community events and celebrate the diversity that enriches us: to learn to dance the attan sway and to teach Afghan Scots to do the Gay Gordons and Dashing White Sergeant in return; to sing, very badly, alongside the wonderful Maryhill Integration Network Joyous Choir; to share the most delicious food with AfricAlba and Africa Future; or to play football, as badly as I sing, in the refugee football tournament that is held every year in Scotland, organised by Councillor Abdul Bostani.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

On a point of order, Dame Rosie. I do not want to try your patience, but clause 2 is about the safety of Rwanda and what the hon. Lady is saying has nothing to do with that at all.

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[The First Deputy Chairman]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Please can he leave it with me? It is rather discourteous to keep disrupting the debate. I assure him that I will keep a close eye on proceedings. If the hon. Lady veers off track, I will make sure she gets back on track, but can we not have the debate disrupted constantly like this?

[Alison Thewliss]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to come along to listen to Olivia Ndoti and the women at the Women’s Integration Network in Glasgow. Perhaps he will hear from people from Rwanda—this Government grant asylum to people from Rwanda, because their country is not safe.

I do not believe that anyone who supports this awful Bill can do so knowing the people it will affect. It is laid out in such cruel terms that they would remove the rights of our fellow human beings simply for seeking sanctuary and safety. It undermines our obligations under international law and denies the need for individualised protection, which is guaranteed under the anti-trafficking convention. That this Government seek to declare a country safe by legislating for it to be so is an absolute affront. Amendment 48 simply seeks to change “safe” to “unsafe”. For every decision maker to be forced to declare any country safe—regardless of the facts in front of them, regardless of their own knowledge and regardless of circumstance—flies in the face of the justice and the rights that the UK is supposed to stand for. It is illogical. Amnesty has called this “treating fact as false”.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Amendment 45, as the hon. Lady has just said, would permanently designate Rwanda an unsafe country. She has just complained about decision makers having to designate it the other way. Therefore, first, what is the difference? Secondly, is that not offensive to Rwanda? Thirdly, is that not worrying to the 100-plus refugees from Libya whom the UN recently settled in Rwanda? Under what circumstances would she then agree to legislation that recognised Rwanda again as a safe country?

[Alison Thewliss]

I believe that it is fundamentally unwise to recognise countries as safe in perpetuity, because things are unsafe. This amendment highlights the illogicality of this Bill. These things should not be legislated on at all. The hon. Gentleman mentions the Libyans who are being transited through Rwanda. They are not settling in Rwanda; they are being transited through Rwanda to other countries such as Canada.

[Tim Loughton]

rose—

[Alison Thewliss]

I wish to make some progress. The hon. Gentleman will be able to contribute later on.

I wish to touch on what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said about this. It has reviewed the updated UK-Rwanda scheme and it says:

“It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated in the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme, does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible”—

it is not compatible—

“with international refugee law.”

Equally, this Bill does not have any kind of sunset clause, or a set of circumstances by which it can acknowledge a change in the situation in Rwanda. That is foolhardy, and it is bad legislation. The clauses that talk about mere monitoring of the situation do not go far enough. That is a prime example of the incompetence of this legislation and how it cannot really be made to work.

There has been ongoing tension, for example, with the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where recently re-elected President Tshisekedi has been quoted as saying in relation to Rwandan-backed M23 rebels:

“If you re-elect me and Rwanda persists…I will request the Parliament and Congress to authorise a declaration of war. We will march on Kigali. Tell Kagame those days of playing games with Congolese leaders are over.”

I ask Conservative Members what would happen to their precious treaty and to this legislation should such a situation escalate. None of us wants to see that, but it could happen. More importantly, what would happen in the interim to anybody the Home Secretary had sent to this unsafe situation in Rwanda? They would not be able to bring them back. That person would be stuck in a situation of conflict.

It is beyond me how Conservative Members, including former Ministers and members of the legal profession, can sign up to amendments shredding the rule of law and human rights. Our amendments 46 to 50 are, at the very minimum, an attempt to reinstate the powers of our courts and tribunals to do their work. They are the people qualified to make these decisions, and they do so for the most part with great diligence. Their services are stretched and there is much more that could be improved were the UK Government not chucking away hundreds of millions of pounds on distractions such as this legislation that they bring here today.

The Government have recently published their consultation response on safe and legal routes, following the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and it offers nothing. It offers no change whatsoever—no new safe and legal routes that would help to resolve the situation. The Refugee Council has presented a credible alternative, and the Minister could not be less interested.

I honestly do not know what to say about the amendments of the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and his cabal. It sickens me that they would treat people in this way. Surely the only way in their minds that they can justify treating asylum seekers in this way is if they consider them to be less. If they do not matter, they can therefore be shipped off as if they were some kind of inconvenient waste. This is stirring up fear and hatred of people who only came here to ask for our protection. These are real lives; it is not some political game. I say to Conservative Members who are focused on this Tory psychodrama that this is about real people and real people’s lives. We on the SNP Benches see them as humans, just like us. Shame on all those Members.

--- Later in debate ---

Alternatively, they can easily concoct a history of mental illness—that is so subjective. It is easy enough to find a doctor to sign a medical certificate saying that someone has a history of mental illness. It is easy to concoct a personal history. For instance, if someone comes from Iran, they can allege that they are gay. Again, no tribunal would export someone to Iran if they say that they are gay. If someone comes from Iraq, they can say that they are an activist Christian, whether or not they are. I cannot see how anybody who has the right to go through the judicial process will not do so, and given the ease with which they can create a personal history that will make their own personal circumstances impossible in Rwanda, I cannot believe that any court or tribunal will export them to Rwanda.

[Alison Thewliss]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking, quite ridiculously, about people concocting stories—I feel that he is perhaps concocting one himself. Will he tell me when he last spoke to an asylum seeker?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

They may not concoct it; it may be entirely true—we do not know. However, what we all know is true is that every asylum seeker who arrives in Dover will say that they cannot be sent to Rwanda because of their own personal history, and every single one of us would do the same thing.

Last year, we had the farce of the judgment issued by the Council of Europe, which we will be discussing in more detail later. I have been a member of the Council of Europe for 14 years. We now know that this ex parte judgment, this rule 39, was perhaps not delivered according to international law, and apparently, in discussions with the European Court of Human Rights, we have now sought assurances that it is going to be tidied up. But even if our own courts allow somebody to proceed through them, with their case to be heard, even if we manage to appoint a sufficient number of judges, even if the person does not create a history and even if our own courts allow them to be put on a flight, there is this right of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. We therefore have no certainty that these cases will not be heard and delayed.

I accept that this is the toughest Bill we have ever had. It is a good Bill in its own right. If we had produced it two years ago, we may have been getting people to Rwanda by now, but time is running out. We have perhaps nine months until the next general election. If we do not amend the Bill, we could end up in the worst possible situation, where we, as a Government, say that we are committed to stopping the boats, we have passed the necessary legislation and then we have egg all over our face because nobody is actually put on the flights. We will look extremely stupid.

In my view, the only solution is that when people arrive here, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark said, they are detained, but within a matter of days they are offshored, and the only justification for not being put on a flight is a proper medical condition. That is the only way we will get people on these flights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). Those of us in this place who are not learned Members have had interesting conversations in the past weeks and months with learned colleagues on both sides of the argument on the Bill. Some want it toughened and some want it slightly softened, but all of us are united in wanting a Bill that works and allows the Prime Minister to deliver on his promise.

I absolutely trust the Prime Minister’s commitment to ensuring that we can stop the boats. I believe that the Rwanda policy can be a deterrent to people. If their expectation is that they will not succeed and they do not have a right to remain in the United Kingdom, they will not pay their money to a person who promises they can succeed. I am grateful to my learned colleagues for putting forward their opinions. If that has shown me anything, it is that lawyers like to talk and argue, and it is in their interests to do so, so we cannot pass a Bill that enables lawyers to bat cases around indefinitely and allow appeals to be lodged—enough to make the policy ineffective.

My constituents find it ludicrous that they elect Members to come to this place and act in their interests, yet we do not seem to be able to do that. I think the small boats trade is raised with me on the doorstep more than any other issue. It is an evil practice on so many levels. These are people making money from others’ misery, and they are putting lives at risk. As I have said before, it is perverse, because a fair and just asylum system should not be reliant on a person’s ability to scramble thousands of miles—across a continent—and to pay people smugglers. It is absurd to any rational person.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady says that the asylum system has limitations, but does she accept that the only way legally to claim asylum in the United Kingdom is to put feet on these shores? There is no asylum visa, and the Government have not proposed any new safe and legal routes to allow people to come here.

[Jane Stevenson]

Another absurdity that my constituents raise with me is that Opposition parties seem to speak for the rights and interests of 8 billion in the world above the rights of the people who elect us to serve here. I invite the hon. Lady to intervene again, because I do not ever hear a sensible limit. I will come to international development later in my remarks, but undoubtedly, many more people would have the right under the current framework to claim asylum here than we could ever possibly hope to accept into the United Kingdom. Does she have a number that she thinks would be acceptable? At what point is this argument exhausted?

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady’s point is quite absurd. Nobody is saying, realistically, that 8 billion people are coming to the UK. The vast majority of people who flee their countries stay in a neighbouring country. They do not go any further because they want to return home. The UK takes a very small percentage of that number, and those who come often do so to reunite with family and for safety, because there are people already here who can look after them and support them.

[Jane Stevenson]

I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady. Scotland does not have the same issues as many English places, and I do not think that Scotland has taken its fair share of asylum seekers in recent months. Globally, we need to look at a bigger reality. Our responsibility in this place is to look forward. The Rwanda Bill will be a deterrent. If it succeeds, it will put people off making those perilous journeys and break the evil, perverse model of people smuggling.

We need to look at the wider framework as well. I had an interesting visit to Washington last year, when I met many people, including from the Word Bank. If anyone has not read its report last year on global migration trends that it anticipates over the coming decades, I invite them to read it. We also met the United States Agency for International Development. My profound belief is that the answer for the world is not to empty the less affluent bits into the stable, affluent bits. Mathematically, if nothing else, that cannot work.

Now is the moment for us to consider a much wider picture and to question the whole framework, much of it devised for a European issue 70 years ago. We live in a very different world. Twenty years ago, information was not available to people living in developing countries. The internet was not there. They had no idea how to get from point A to point B, who to pay, what to say and what to expect when they arrive. We are living in a totally different world. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to dealing with that. In December, he spoke to the Fratelli d’Italia conference in Rome, where he was quite clear, on breaking the business model of the criminal gangs, that

“if that requires us to update our laws and lead an international conversation to amend post-war frameworks around asylum, then we must do that. Because if we don’t fix this problem now, the boats will keep coming and more lives will be lost at sea.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

I am well known in Wolverhampton for telling my Labour council to get a move on, and on this issue I turn my fire, briefly and in a friendly way, on the Prime Minister. He should get a move on. He should be leading that global conversation. It is one that so many countries are ready to have. The United States is ready to have it, and most European countries are looking to our policy to see if it will work, They accept the mathematical and social reality, and that is what our constituents want.

I will conclude, as I do not wish to speak at great length. I thank all colleagues who are trying to strengthen the Bill. I want it to be as robust as possible, because we need it to be fit for the crisis we face. It is a crisis and my constituents certainly want to see results, so I will support the amendments. I also want to put on record my wholehearted thanks to the Prime Minister for his determination to sort this issue out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend might have been a touch facetious in her intervention—she herself said it, otherwise I would not have dared to say it—but I understand what she says. Suffice to say, we are confident in the safety of Rwanda and the aim of the Bill is to prevent domestic courts and tribunals from considering claims that relate to the general safety of Rwanda, hence clause 2 and the points raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon about the evidence, the treaty and the fundamentally changed situation.

Let me turn to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central and her amendments. She is right that the amendments seek to undermine the core objectives of the Bill.

[Alison Thewliss]

indicated assent.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady has been straightforward about that; she is nodding. We are agreeing yet again during the course of these exchanges. It will do nothing for her street credibility in her constituency, but we are agreeing at least on that point. Her amendments would undermine the provisions aimed at narrowing the grounds on which people can challenge their removal to Rwanda in courts or tribunals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his intervention. When he was setting the policy out in his opening remarks, he said that it would invite further legal challenges. Those of us on the Conservative Benches want to shut out legal challenges; those on the Opposition Benches want to encourage further legal challenges.

The Government have delivered a plan for immigration that will work. It builds upon the excellent work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel)—the champion of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022—and of my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham, who worked incredibly hard to deliver the long-awaited Illegal Migration Act, the toughest piece of immigration legislation until the Bill before us.

Just look at Albania. Our successful deal with Albania, which started with small numbers, has now removed nearly 6,000 people with no right to be here. We know that deterrence has worked because small boat arrivals from Albania are down by 94%. Legal challenges have not successfully stopped the flights to Albania. Those flights have not been stopped; in fact, not a single case of Albanian small boat arrivals has reached a substantive hearing at the upper tribunal in the past year.

We on the Conservative side of the Committee are united in our determination to ensure that the Bill works. As drafted, it creates an ever-tighter test than for illegal migrants facing removals to Albania. Our Rwanda Bill is tougher, tighter and goes further. We have a plan to stop the boats, and I invite hon. Members to back it.

[Alison Thewliss]

What a despondent, pathetic, ridiculous Bill this has been, and what a grim debate it has been to listen to. We have heard a wide range of speeches, most of which, I am afraid to say—I am putting it politely—were absolute guff. The UK is not looking to accommodate 8 billion people—of course it is not. Most people in small boats are not economic migrants; we know that, because the Home Office grants them asylum.

The only Member, I believe, who mentioned the people whom this Bill will affect was my friend the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), who talked about the impact it will have on real people, on their lives and their futures. As far as I can establish, not one of the Conservative Members has ever met or spoken to an asylum seeker, or has any conception of the struggles they have been through, because they were not able to cite a single one sitting opposite them in their surgeries. Asylum seekers have done them no personal harm, yet they seek to ruin their lives. To make it light for a second, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), who ended up being crocked at the refugee football tournament he played in, does not bear any ill will towards the asylum seekers who played in that game. I think he mostly bears ill will towards me for forcing him to play in it, not the asylum seekers and refugees whose silky skills outclassed us on the football pitch. I encourage Members who want to learn a little bit more to sign up for the refugee football tournament, which will be coming up before we know it.

The UNHCR does not buy the Government’s assurances. It has been very clear that nothing that has been said or done has changed the situation. The UNHCR says that the Rwanda partnership treaty is not compatible with international refugee law, and that we cannot declare Rwanda a safe country in perpetuity. I do not believe that we should be declaring any country a safe country in perpetuity, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) said in relation to India, where Jagtar Singh Johal is still being held in arbitrary detention with no effort from this Government to see justice done for him.

This scheme fails in many respects. It is an affront to human rights, to the dignity of individuals and human beings, and to the international obligations that this Government have claimed they hold dear—they ask other countries to abide by international conventions and rules, yet undermine those rules when it suits them. There is a practicality issue as well. The Independent has just published some figures that the Committee may find interesting. Over the past five years, Rwanda has assessed only 421 asylum cases in total, and has refused two thirds of those cases. Many of those people are from Afghanistan and Syria, and have an indisputable case for their asylum claim to be heard. We know that Rwanda has form in not upholding its obligations: when it had a deal with Israel, it did not uphold those obligations, and nobody has given any evidence that anything has changed since the Supreme Court’s ruling on this issue last year.

Turning to the issue of deterrence, which many Conservative Members have mentioned, 70,000 people have crossed the channel since the Rwanda deal was signed. If that deal were any kind of deterrent, it would have had some kind of effect, would it not? That has not happened, and in any event, this Government seek to remove to Rwanda only a couple of hundred people out of that 70,000. They are absolutely incompetent in bringing this Bill before us today. It is a toxic distraction from a failing Home Office and a failing Government. They should do the work, process the cases, and give refugees and asylum seekers the dignity and safety that they so richly deserve.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I will be slightly unfashionable and talk to the amendment, rather than regurgitating some of the Second Reading speeches we have had. I do so with some trepidation because sitting to my right is a trio—a former Lord Chancellor, a former Attorney General and the Justice Committee Chair—who speak with much greater legal gravitas, and much more expensively. Perhaps the only upside is that my advice and my talking to the amendment comes for free.

In contributing to the debate, I am largely speaking to the Government side of the Committee. In all the speeches we had yesterday, when the Opposition could not fill the full allotted time for the debate, having complained about the lack of scrutiny—and I guess they may not be able to fill the full time given to them today—we heard speech after speech emulating their Front-Bench team that told us what they do not like, what they are not supporting and what they are not voting for. At absolutely no point did they come up with a practical solution for the very real everyday problems we aim to deal with here. Although we have disagreements on our side as to the methods, what we want to achieve is in common. That goal is something that needs to be tackled, and we are having an honest debate about it. The official Opposition are playing absolutely no part in that debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who has left his place, started the debate by talking to amendment 23 in particular. He described the problem as like pulling the pin out of a grenade but then not throwing it. I do not think that was helpful language, and he then quit the Chamber having thrown the grenade behind his own lines. We need cool, calm consensus to come up with practical, workable, acceptable and legal solutions.

The Rwanda scheme is not perfect—all of us will agree with that—but frankly it is the only real show in town at the moment to answer this essential question that I raised last week in the Opposition debate, which, again, they struggled to fill with their own speakers. That question is: how do we deal with the people who have come to this country, mostly by small boats, having paid criminal gangs, with no credible prospect of being able to lodge an acceptable asylum claim, but who come from countries to which it is virtually, if not completely, impossible to return them, so they know that once they have made it across the midway of the channel and are in British territorial waters, they are effectively in the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future? That is absolutely the question at the heart of this Bill and the debate today and yesterday.

[Alison Thewliss]

I have heard the hon. Gentleman make that point before about people who come and cannot be sent back to whatever country because of the situation there. That has occurred within my own casework, and at the moment it appears that the Home Office grants people temporary leave for perhaps a year at a time, which gives no certainty to the person affected but does I suppose give the Home Office discretion to reconsider, rather than giving them permanent status. That already happens, so I would say it is not something he should really be so concerned about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

The debate on the Government side of the Chamber, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, is not on a difference in aims or ends; it is about the means to those ends. Government Members want to travel to the same destination; what we are debating is the journey to get there. So let us not exaggerate the differences between us. I know that the Minister shares that view. We have engaged with him and hope to continue to do so, even at this late stage, to improve the Bill and realise the delivery of those intentions—the journey to that end.

We have to do so, because mass migration is perhaps the biggest existential crisis facing this country. I do not say that blithely—unfortunately, people say things in this Chamber as though they were definitive and use all kinds of superlatives; indeed, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has made a brand out of that, as we heard earlier. That view would be shared by a large number of my constituents and, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham also said, it is now widely shared in other countries. The Bill and the amendments to it therefore affect our constituents directly and personally, contrary to the contribution of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who claimed that it is a distraction. Far from it; we cannot absorb into this country the number of people who are coming as a consequence of both legal and illegal migration in a short period of time without a devastating effect on public services, a displacement effect on investment in the skills of our own people, a displacement effect on the need to reform welfare and, beyond all that, the ability to integrate those incoming people into cohesive societies in which we all share a common sense of belonging.

In dealing with the amendments, we need to be realistic about the scale of the problem and the British public’s view of that problem. They know that the vast majority of people arriving here on small boats—about 75%—are men under 40. By the way, about nine out of 10 arriving are male, which is far from the picture painted by some of the critics of the Government and our policy. They know, too, that large numbers of those people are not genuine asylum seekers but economic migrants. That truth is so evident to the electors of this country that they look with bemusement at this place where it is not widely recognised. We hear speech after speech—from Opposition Members in particular, I must say—that seems to be either ignorant of those facts or unwilling to face them.

[Alison Thewliss]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady is the first or the second, but I happily give way to her.

[Alison Thewliss]

Perhaps the right hon. Member would like to correct the record. Most people who come on small boats are in fact refugees, because the Home Office grants them that status. They are not economic migrants as they do not get economic migrant status; they get refugee status.

[Sir John Hayes]

What we certainly know about them all is that before they got here they have travelled through safe countries—more than one in many cases—and failed to claim asylum. The hon. Lady is right that we are probably too lax in how we process claims. Certainly, we offer asylum to more applicants than France. On average, we grant a higher proportion of asylum claims than most European countries.

We know, too, that the failure to remove those people costs the British taxpayer an immense amount of money. When I looked at the figures, I was staggered. The cost of asylum is now £3.97 billion. It is extraordinary that a single matter should cost so much. The need for the Bill is justified alone on the basis that we can no longer afford to deal with the current scale of illegal migration. We simply cannot afford for it to continue, as the British sense of fair play has been tested to its limits. The public see that, and they are increasingly disillusioned by the apparent inability and unwillingness of the political elite in this country—we are the political elite, like it or not—to accept the facts.

Progress has been made in clearing the backlog, largely as a result of the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman). During their stewardship of the Home Office, they focused resources on processing claims more quickly and had considerable success in doing so. But the problem is that as fast as we process people, more arrive.

Until we deal with the root of the problem, we can never really tackle the cost I described nor the disillusion felt by our constituents. That is why the Prime Minister pledged to stop the boats. In order to do so, we need an Act that is as effective as possible. The amendments in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, which I strongly support, would ensure just that. Amendments 11 to 18 deal in particular with the Human Rights Act 1998. Taken together, they would fully disapply the Act from the Bill and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, particularly in relation to removals to Rwanda.

A lot of nonsense was spoken earlier about rights; indeed, a lot of nonsense prevails in this House about rights. Rights are fundamentally important. We believe in the essential rights that characterise our country: the right to a fair trial; the right to go about one’s business freely and unimpaired; the right not to be arrested without cause; the right to vote in free and fair elections. Those are important parts of what it is to be British, but they do not spring from the ether. They are not a given—it is a liberal myth that rights are natural. Rights are the product of decent Governments in decent places doing the right thing. They are special because we have chosen them, not because they were given to us by some ethereal source. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), whom I like and respect, will know, because he knows scripture even better than me, that rights do not get a mention in the ten commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps he can find a part in either of those to contradict me.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I am not a lawyer, but I served as a magistrate in this country. It is always my pleasure to say that I belong to that even more despised race of human beings, the Tory MPs, and that I was formerly a banker.

I think we are right to have some degree of concern in respect of what is said in the Bill and the amendments about the Human Rights Act. This House needs to strike the correct balance. It is a fundamental principle of British justice, which dates back at least as far as the Saxons, that people may not be subject to a penalty unless they have had the opportunity to be brought before a court, a properly composed judicial authority. Therefore, we should be concerned at the idea that in the United Kingdom we would exempt a group of people from access to our law on the basis of the method of their arrival here.

However, we need to balance that against the fact that people are dying in the English channel, drowning in cold water, and gangs are profiting hugely from that, which is fuelling all kinds of other types of crime. To an extent, we are a victim of our previous success in that the improved security in northern France has created and massively exacerbated the problem we face. That, for me, balances up the risk to a loss of human rights: we need to ensure that we have a really effective deterrent in place to address the problem that has arisen from that earlier success.

It is and remains my view, which I expressed in the debates on the then Illegal Migration Bill, that the point at which we will establish full control of our borders is the point at which we add an asylum visa to all the other types of visas we have, so that there is a single safe and legal route, controlled by the British Government and the rules set by this House, and if people arrive on our shores to claim asylum without having gained that permission first, they are automatically ineligible regardless of their method of arrival. That would mirror the process we already have in place for people who want to come here to work, to study, to marry or to invest in the United Kingdom. We still have not yet put in place an effective process and system that would enable us to do that.

It is clearly crucial, as the weather will soon begin to improve, the smugglers will soon be looking to invest in their stock boats and more people’s lives will soon be put at risk, that we keep our eyes on the objective of returning to something more like the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which was described by the UNHCR as a “gold standard” of international refugee resettlement. That is the model on which we based our Afghan resettlement scheme, whatever logistical problems that experienced, and this House has recognised it as the way in which the UK wishes to play a part in refugee resettlement around the world. However, we need to ensure that we deal with the specific problem that arises: small boats in the channel. For all the debates and well-intentioned arguments that we have heard, the Bill, in its unamended form, strikes the best balance available to address that particular problem and ensure that no one else dies en route to seeking asylum here in the United Kingdom. For that reason, I will support the Bill, unamended.

[Alison Thewliss]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). It was refreshing to hear somebody on the Conservative Benches talking up the merits of an asylum visa. That would break the model of the people-smuggling gangs because it would give people a safe and legal route and safety and certainty. Nobody need be exploited by paying over everything that they own to get into a leaky dinghy in the channel if they could come here for safety and sanctuary by travelling as any of us would travel.

I understand from others in the Committee that Conservative Members are quite keen to wind up the debate early tonight because they are going to a Burns supper. I am not sure whether that is true, but it is certainly a rumour that I heard earlier. It made me think of some of the things that Robert Burns—I am a big fan of our national bard—might have to say to the Conservative party about the way in which it conducts its business. Let me start with:

“Man’s inhumanity to man,

Makes countless thousands mourn.”

I commend to the Committee the amendments tabled in my name, as well as those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I will first address clause 3 on the disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998. That Act was landmark legislation. It is woven into the fabric of our devolved institutions, and it underpins the Good Friday agreement. It should concern us all that a Government without any kind of mandate to do so start picking away the stitching. The Law Society said that the exclusion of the Human Rights Act to this extent is unprecedented.

Speaking of defending the rights of people to migrate, Robert Burns, who has a verse on just about everything, has one on the rights of highlanders against their lairds, who were not allowing them to migrate to Canada. He said:

“They! an’ be damned! what right hae they

To meat or sleep or light o’ day,

Far less to riches, pow’r or freedom,

But what your lordships please to gie them?”

We should give asylum seekers far more than this Government think they have a right to gie them.

Disapplying section 6 removes the obligation for courts and immigration officials to take into account human rights when assessing the safety of Rwanda. Disapplying section 3 limits the protections that courts can provide. Disapplying section 2 forces courts to ignore any European Court of Human Rights rulings of Rwanda as unsafe. Those are important protections: not only do they ensure people’s safety from Government, but they act as a check specifically on the Home Office—a Home Office that we know has long and consistent form in making serious mistakes with long-lasting and life-changing consequences. One need only reflect on the legacy of Windrush, TOEIC—the test of English for international communication—and the highly skilled migrant scandal to know the scale of Home Office incompetence. We need the courts to offer protection against the Home Office’s instinct to deport first and ask questions later.

Amendments 11 to 18 in the name of the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) make an already unjustifiable situation much, much worse. Liberty has stated that they effectively remove the possibility of securing any remedy—much less an effective one—for the breach or threatened breach of rights arising from removals to Rwanda on the basis that it is an unsafe country. Robert Burns said in his “Slave’s Lament”:

Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;

And alas! I am weary, weary O.”

I think we all feel that weariness about the circularity of the Government’s ridiculous arguments. It is unsafe for the refugees who get to come here from Rwanda, but somehow, it is safe enough for us to send people to Rwanda. It makes absolutely no sense.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The front page of this tawdry, pathetic piece of unworkable legislation says, in the name of the Home Secretary:

“I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.”

It is another illegal Bill that will not work and will not fix the problem. It is a Bill for which the Government have no mandate. The 2019 Conservative manifesto said:

“We will continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution, with the ultimate aim of helping them to return home if it is safe to do so.”

Nothing about flights to Rwanda, nothing about extradition, nothing about ripping up people’s fundamental human rights. Since then, there have been two unelected Prime Ministers, four Home Secretaries and no mandate for this Bill.

The UNHCR’s assessment of the Bill states:

“It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated and the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme, does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible with international refugee law.”

Rwanda has been clear that it does not want to sign up to an agreement that breaches international law. The Bill breaches international law. That is very clear. It is very dangerous that the Government are going down this road. We cannot make a country safe simply by legislating that it is so. This Government are engaged in a fantasy. More dangerous than that, they ask the courts, public servants and all of us to engage in that same fantasy. It becomes upside down and topsy-turvy—right is wrong and wrong is right. All those things make no sense. We cannot make a country safe simply by legislating it so.

We know that the Bill is no deterrent, because the supposedly harsh Bills that came before it have not been a deterrent either. It has been 181 days since the last tough, harsh and difficult piece of deterrent legislation was passed, and measures are not yet even in force from the Government’s previous tough, difficult harsh Bill that was supposed to be a deterrent, so we cannot believe them now.

We also find that the tiniest number of people will sent to Rwanda anyway. Less than 1% of those crossing this year will be sent to Rwanda. What happens to the rest of the people left in immigration limbo to wander the streets of these islands? The Government cannot say, they do not know and they have no idea what they will do when people have no rights and are out looking for assistance.

The Bill amounts to nothing more and nothing less than state-sponsored people trafficking. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not like to hear it, but it is the truth. I will explain to them exactly why. They should listen to my description and see what they think. Far from dismantling criminal gangs, this Government have become a criminal gang, breaking international law and moving vulnerable people across the world without legal process—no right of appeal and no concern for the safety or human rights of asylum seekers—to a country they do not know, involving money and involving profit. It involves people this Government will never meet and never look in the eye. They will never sit across the table and watch them in tears because they cannot be safe.

Robert Burns, that great humanitarian of Scotland, said:

“Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!”

I mourn what this Government are doing to human rights, and the undermining of international law and international principles, and I give this assurance: when Scotland gets its independence we will take our place in the world, we will take our responsibilities seriously, and we will play our full part in the world as an independent nation.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am afraid I do not accept what the hon. Lady says. First, as the Minister made clear, the Government have not ignored the conclusions of the Supreme Court, which we must remind ourselves were made in 2022: they have responded to those concerns and new information is now available for Parliament to consider. My point is that this is, on the Government’s invitation, for Parliament to decide. It is for Parliament to determine whether we consider that Rwanda is, on the evidence available to us, a safe country. We may all reach different conclusions about that but the premise of this legislation is that, taking into account the concerns the Supreme Court has expressed, it is none the less for Parliament to determine whether Rwanda is a safe country for the purposes of the legislation. But it is simply not sensible for Parliament not to be able to say differently, save through primary legislation, if the facts were to change. We all hope, perhaps expect, that Rwanda will remain a safe place for migrants to go, but if we could guarantee that indefinitely we would not need the treaty the Government worked so hard to secure or the monitoring committee designed to scrutinise compliance with it.

Although the Government are entitled to reject the amendments, they should give some thought to the situation of the Bill, because it breaks new ground by giving Parliament specific authority over a judgment that will bind many but that Parliament cannot easily revise even if it comes to believe that revision is necessary. The treaty and the monitoring of its terms provide a mechanism for Parliament to be alerted to significant changes in compliance, and I ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the other place to consider how Parliament might be given further scope to engage with that judgment if the need arises. I do appreciate that the Government retain means by which they can revise their judgment of the safety of Rwanda, but the Bill clearly and deliberately transfers the judgment on safety to Parliament. If it is a judgment in Parliament’s name, it must be right for Parliament to retain the capacity to reconsider and if necessary revise it.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It remains the position of the Scottish National party that this is an irredeemably awful Bill. We do not support the Rwanda plan; we think it is both an offence to humanity and an egregious waste of public money, particularly at a time when many of our constituents are struggling to feed themselves. I thank the Lords for their work on the Bill and for at least trying to make it in some way better, and we would support all the Lords amendments and what they attempt to do with the Bill.

Lord Coaker’s Lords amendment 1 would add a measure to comply with domestic and international law. That should be basic; any legislation in this place should abide by domestic and international law. It seems ludicrous that we have a Bill before us that does not abide by international and domestic law. It is a bit of a cheek for the Minister to talk about Rwanda abiding by treaties and its loyalties while at the same time the Tories go about the business of undermining the UK’s own international commitments in international agreements that we helped to draft. The European convention on human rights, the refugee convention, the international covenant on civil and political rights and the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, as well as customary international law and domestic laws, are all things we have created here that the Government have set about undermining. It is absolutely ludicrous. It brings into question the Government’s commitment to international agreements, and particularly the European convention on human rights, which underpins so much. We have heard from Members about the significance of some of the legislation to the Good Friday agreement and Scotland’s devolution settlement. The Government see fit to undermine all that through their actions.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will have read the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Bill. We noted that other nations may be influenced by how the UK treats its international treaty obligations. In particular, we noticed that the Prime Minister of Pakistan has referred to the UK’s Rwanda policy in defence of his country’s decision to expel from Pakistan hundreds of Afghans who had fled from the Taliban regime. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is most regrettable that he can refer to the UK’s cavalier attitude towards international law in support of his own cavalier attitude?

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree. Other countries around the world have looked to the UK as an upholder of rights—as a beacon of democracy and human rights— but following this tawdry Bill, we can see other countries looking at the UK’s dissent from international norms that we set up.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I will make a little progress, because I am mindful of what Mr Deputy Speaker said about time. I want to touch on the misinformation that the Minister put forward about Rwanda and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The transit agreements are not the same at all as people being permanently relocated to Rwanda. The UNHCR has mentioned that Norway, Sweden, Canada, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and the USA have taken people from the transit camps. People have come from 10 countries, including Sudan and Cameroon, to Libya and to the transit camps in Rwanda, and then are being moved on elsewhere. They are not staying in Rwanda permanently. Indeed, reports from the transit camp have highlighted that people have no desire to stay in Rwanda in transit camps, because of the conditions in which they are living, so the Government are not at all talking about the same thing there. They should be absolutely clear on that and not mislead the House with points that suit their arguments.

Lords amendment 2 in the name of Lord Hope of Craighead would ensure that Rwanda could be designated as safe only if the treaty was adhered to. It states that Rwanda

“will be a safe country when, and so long as, the arrangements provided for in the Rwanda Treaty have been fully implemented and are being adhered to in practice.”

Among the Supreme Court’s concerns about the matter was the fact that Rwanda is not yet in a place where it can adhere to all those arrangements in practice. Perhaps it will in future, but it is not safe now. To declare it completely safe in all circumstances right now is a false argument.

Lords amendment 3 would create an obligation on the Government to report to Parliament on the terms of the treaty and how those are being monitored. That is perfectly reasonable. What are the Government afraid of? After all, if they think Rwanda is safe and fine, why do they not want scrutiny of the situation? It needs monitoring. There are continued reports of what the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels are doing on Rwanda’s borders. This legislation is a poor way of gauging safety. It is not flexible or reasonable, and cannot take account of changing circumstances. Circumstances can change rapidly and unexpectedly, but we are legislating to say that Rwanda is safe in all circumstances in perpetuity. That is clearly ludicrous and giving a hostage to fortune; the Government should be aware of that.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes the point that things change with time. Does she accept that many measures have been put in place by the UK Government and the Rwandan Government since the judgment of the UK Supreme Court last year?

[Alison Thewliss]

It is difficult to tell, because scrutiny mechanisms are not in place that would allow Committees of this House to ascertain whether that is entirely the case. The Committee that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) is on has been to visit Rwanda, and she has information about that visit that she hopes to share with the House. I understand that the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) was on that trip, too, but that is not good enough. There needs to be further, continued scrutiny, and it is important that Parliament has the opportunity for that.

I know from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), that even information on the deal has been difficult to come by. Last week, in the Chamber, we discussed the obfuscation and secrecy surrounding the costs of the plan. If this is how the Government are beginning this journey, we can have no confidence—on this side of the House, certainly—that they can be trusted, which is why Lords amendment 3 is so important. The House needs a scrutiny mechanism.

[Dr Johnson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I am conscious of what you said about time, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I should like to make some progress.

In Lords amendment 4, Lord Anderson of Ipswich proposes to add to the words

“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”

the words

“unless presented with credible evidence to the contrary”.

I agree that evidence is important. If judges and other decision makers are not allowed to make decisions on the basis of evidence, rather than relying on a bit of legislation drawn up in a short period, the Government have zero credibility. They are asking people to blindfold themselves to any other circumstances, and not to heed any evidence or proof. There must be an opportunity for every decision maker to treat the evidence with the due diligence that we would all expect.

Lords amendment 5 would remove the parts of the Bill that state that Rwanda should automatically be considered a safe country; it provides a rebuttal mechanism for the assertion of safety in Rwanda. Liberty says that the amendment corrects

“a deficiency in the Bill whereby Parliament is asked to state that Rwanda is and will continue to be safe, and there is no mechanism by which this can be revisited. This is a moderate safeguard”.

If the Government thought about this fully, they would surely conclude that the amendment would enhance the Bill; but they are, of course, rejecting all amendments, regardless of their source.

Lords amendment 6 effectively restores the power of the courts to make a factual judgment on the safety of Rwanda in an individual case, or for a group of people who share characteristics, such as LGBTQ people. I think it telling that the Minister said that it completely undermined the purpose of the Bill. “Well, good,” is all I can say in response. We should be trying to undermine the purpose of the Bill if its aim is, for example, to ship LGBTQ people off to a country that may not welcome them in all circumstances, without allowing them to check the position first. I think it perfectly reasonable to provide the ability to make judgments of this kind. I recall that at the back of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 was a list of countries with exemptions for particular groups of people—in some cases specifying men or women—but the Bill does not even do that. I think it entirely reasonable for there to be some way of questioning this power in the Bill.

Lords amendment 7, tabled by Baroness Lister, concerns issues related to the age of unaccompanied children, which I consider to be of the utmost importance. The treaty makes provision for what happens if a child somehow mysteriously ends up in Rwanda by mistake, but that only happens if the Home Office has made an error of some kind in sending the child there in the first place. We know from medical professionals that some of the age assessments are effectively pseudo-science. We know that when children have come here, having crossed seas, continents and war zones in very difficult circumstances, it may be more difficult to assess their age, because they have had a much tougher paper round than my son, for example. We also know that not all children look exactly the same or present themselves in exactly the same way, although they may be the same age. We can all remember that when we were at school, there was always some great big guy with a beard and a hairy chest when the others were knee-high to a buttercup.

[Joanna Cherry]

Not at my convent school.

[Alison Thewliss]

That is another question, I suppose. The point is that everyone is different. We cannot reliably look at someone and tell their age. The Bill should contain more protections to ensure that children who have already gone through incredibly traumatic experiences are not sent to Rwanda.

[Mrs Elphicke]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

As I have said, I am conscious of what we have been told about time. I am sure that if the hon. Lady wants to make a speech on this subject later, we will all listen to it.

Lords amendment 8 adds a mechanism for a report to Parliament. Under the heading

“Removals to Rwanda under the Illegal Migration Act 2023”,

it states:

“Within 60 days of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement”.

Again, that is an important scrutiny mechanism. We in this Parliament should know who is being sent to Rwanda and the timetable for those removals, as this Lords amendment suggests.

Most importantly, proposed new paragraph (c) in amendment 8 deals with the arrangements in place for people not sent to Rwanda. We know that only the tiniest percentage of people who end up here will be sent to Rwanda; it is entirely unrealistic to suggest that more than a few hundred people will ever get sent there, so we need to know what happens to the people who end up in immigration limbo—those who are inadmissible. Where are they? Who looks after them? Where do they live? How do they survive? What do they eat? We need to know what happens to the people this Government are committing to immigration limbo; it is important, and the Government should update Parliament on it. The Minister talked about publishing immigration statistics, but I think we need more than that; this House needs to hold the Government accountable for the people they send to Rwanda, and the people they do not send there.

The point about the timetable of removals is also important, because I am aware of people in Dungavel who are keen to leave the UK, yet the UK Government are taking an age to arrange the mechanisms for them to do so. Even when people want and have reason to go somewhere else, the Government are not facilitating that. Worryingly, the Minister said it was not necessary to report on that to Parliament. I disagree; it is entirely important and necessary to report on that to Parliament, so that we can hold the Government accountable. Again, if they think that this will go so well, surely they will want to tell us how many people they have sent away, rather than about those they have not.

Lords amendment 9 is about victims of modern slavery and human trafficking being removed without their consent. That is a deep concern for many organisations who support people who have been trafficked and have been through absolute hell. It is important that those people are not removed to Rwanda without their consent. Redress has provided a briefing about torture in Rwanda, and it highlights that there have been cases of it. Human Rights Watch’s reports on Rwanda, published in 2023, 2022 and 2021, all include examples of torture. There is list in the Redress briefing that I urge all Members to have a look at, although I will not detain the House with it now.

The briefing highlights that in the Supreme Court case, it was pointed out that

“evidence of human rights violations ‘raises serious questions as to its compliance with [Rwanda’s] international obligations’, since this has occurred despite the country having ratified many international human rights agreements”.

Furthermore, the British Medical Association’s briefing raised concerns about the ability of Rwanda to support those who have been victims of torture. Rwanda is on the list of countries experiencing a healthcare worker crisis; it is on the list of countries that the UK is not supposed to recruit from. Again, that calls into question whether people can be supported when they go to Rwanda. The BMA briefing states:

“Medical reviews of 36 people under threat of removal to Rwanda revealed that 26 displayed medical indicators of having been tortured, with 15 having symptoms or a diagnosis of PTSD and 11 having experienced suicidal thoughts while in detention.”

We are talking about an incredibly vulnerable group, and they deserve specific support. It is important that we recognise that Lords amendment 9 should stay in the Bill

I come to Lords amendment 10, in which Lord Browne of Ladyton proposes a change to protect supporters of the UK armed forces and their families from removal to Rwanda. That is a significant amendment, particularly in the context of Afghanistan. I have talked many times in this House about Afghans, such as the Triples, who supported the UK’s endeavours in Afghanistan and have been despicably left behind. I continue to get regular emails from a woman who was trained by UK forces and worked alongside them in Afghanistan. She is increasingly frustrated and terrified, but most of all she is despondent that the UK has let her down and has not kept the promises that she felt she had been made.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

On the hon. Lady’s point about the UK letting down people who were working for us and with us, that is all because of this gimmicky legislation, which is designed to appeal to a certain percentage of voters, from a Government who are bankrupt of any real ideas for tackling the real issues of concern in our country. This legislation is just a gimmick.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady is correct: it is a gimmick. It has no basis in fact and there a lot of doubt about whether it will even work, but it appeals to a certain section that the Government think need to be appealed to. It is not so much a dog whistle as a foghorn, but it is definitely there.

To continue with the point about Afghans, the Migration Observatory at Oxford University has pointed out that more Afghans have come by small boats than in any of the UK’s schemes. In fact, between 1 January and 30 June last year, nine times as many Afghans arrived by small boats as under the routes that the Government specifically set up. The ARAP and ACRS are failing to deal with this issue; they are supposed to be safe and legal routes that prevent and dissuade people from getting in small boats, but they do not work. They take too long, they are inefficient, and they do not provide the security that people require to come here, so people take things into their own hands. Who can blame them in the circumstances?

I have seen far too many cases in my constituency. When Afghanistan fell, we had about 80 people in touch who had relatives in Afghanistan, but I know of only a handful who managed to get their family over here. That is despicable. I worry about those people all the time. I do not know where they are, and I do not know whether even their families know where they are. It is telling that so many people will come by small boats because they cannot rely on UK Government schemes to get them here safely.

The Bill is full of contradictions: it is a deterrent, but Rwanda is also safe; it undermines our own obligations internationally and our domestic courts while telling Rwanda that it must keep to its obligations; it is not tough enough for the far-right of the Tory party but too harsh for the more reasonable wing. It is a circus. It is a deflection from a broken Home Office that cannot even get the basics right—that is beset by delays, under investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office and wasting money hand over fist.

The Rwanda Bill is not Scotland’s values. In Scotland, we see the humanity in people. An alternative is set out clearly in the Scottish Government’s papers on the issue. We cannot trust the failed Westminster parties to dismantle the hostile environment that they created. Scotland must have these powers urgently. We must have independence to play our part in the world.

[Sir William Cash]

I signed the Government’s motion to reject Lords amendment 1 and am happy to support them in it. The fact is that the Lords amendment would add to clause 1(1) the words:

“full compliance with domestic and international law.”

The problem is that that would make the clause one of the most serious and dangerous clauses I have seen in recent statutory history. It would contradict one of the most fundamental principles of our constitutional law.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration said, we have a dualist system—I have referred to it several times in the past—and it is fundamental. That is unlike Germany, as article 26 of its constitution states that international law is the most fundamental part of its constitutional arrangements; articles 65 and 66 of the Dutch constitution contain a similar provision. We have a dualist system, and the sovereignty of our Parliament is imperative. Over many generations—in fact, going back centuries—all the court cases, whether in the House of Lords or in the Supreme Court, make it absolutely clear that where words used in statute are clear and unambiguous, and where Parliament’s explicit intention is clear, parliamentary sovereignty means that the supremacy of Parliament can override international law and should do so. The “should do so” is equally important. Indeed, I would go further and say that in our courts, sovereignty—with those clear and unambiguous words—trumps international law.

As I mentioned in an intervention on the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), the House of Lords Constitution Committee, including the likes of the noble Lord Falconer, Lord Robertson and various others, clearly stated in paragraph 58 of its report last year on the rule of law:

“Parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament can legislate contrary to the UK’s obligations under international law.”

That fundamentally disagrees with what is contained in Lords amendment 1, so what—if I may say—the heck is going on? The Lords had a very important decision to take, and paragraphs 54 to 60 of that report contain the very carefully detailed reasoning that led the Committee to the conclusion I have just read out.

I have mentioned in a previous debate the judgment of Lord Hoffmann in a case called R v. Lyons. I want to quote from it, because he clearly says that international law is trumped by the supremacy of the sovereignty of Parliament. Parliament has to be the key determinant. What he says is so important—I would not bother making my point in this way if it were not for this amendment. I am not sure whether the Leader of the Opposition really intends to achieve the objectives set out in clause 1; it worries me very much indeed if he is complicit in this operation. This was a Labour amendment and had a majority of 102 in the House of Lords, so we are going to have to take it seriously, which means we also have to deal with it seriously.

Lord Hoffmann said,

“English courts will not (unless the statute expressly so provides) be bound to give effect to interpretations of the treaty by an international court, even though the United Kingdom is bound by international law to do so.”

He went on to say,

“The sovereign legislator in the United Kingdom is Parliament. If Parliament has plainly laid down the law, it is the duty of the courts to apply it, whether that would involve the Crown in breach of an international treaty or not.”

Nothing could be more explicit. Nothing could be clearer.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Here we are again, debating this outrageous and unworkable Bill. We are no further forward, and the Government will fail to get any further forward, because the Bill is a complete waste of time and money. It is a ruse to get tabloid headlines, and at this stage I am not even sure whether the Government have any intention that this plan will work at all, given the incompetence they have shown so far. They are scrabbling around this week, trying to find airlines, because not one single responsible air carrier wants to be associated with the Government’s state-sponsored people trafficking plans. They have been trying to find other countries that they can try to send people to; Armenia, the Ivory Coast, Costa Rica and Botswana might be interested, but far more countries rather sensibly told the Government to go and get raffled.

I am not convinced that even Rwanda believes this plan will work or that people will be sent, because it has gone and sold off the housing that it built—that the former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), so admired. If the Government do send people, there will not even be the facilities to put them in, unless they intend to stack them high as they often do in hotels in this country, treating people as human cargo that they can so easily dispose of. It is absolutely despicable.

So far, the Government have sent Home Secretaries and civil servants. Even the Joint Committee on Human Rights has gone to Rwanda, along with some hand-picked journalists, but no asylum seekers—nor is there much prospect of them going. While all this has been going on, dozens of Rwandans have submitted asylum claims here in the UK, and there is still concern about Rwanda’s sponsoring of the M23 rebels, who are engaged in conflict with their neighbours, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, last month wounding UN peacekeepers in the DRC; the group controls roads and mining sites in that country, and has displaced 1.7 million people. In The Guardian last week, Vava Tampa questioned international support for the Kagame regime, saying:

“The UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty are clear that without Rwanda’s backing, the M23 couldn’t have killed, raped, tortured and displaced as many as it has.”

I ask the Government why they want to pursue deals with such a regime—it is quite worrying.

I turn to the Lords amendments, which I will go through in turn. Lords amendment 1 asks that the Government have due regard for “domestic and international law”—that should be a basic element of any legislation that this House wishes to pass. The amendment slightly waters down the Lords’ previous amendment about

“maintaining full compliance with domestic and international law”,

but clearly, even having due regard for domestic and international law is too much for this Government. That includes obligations like the European convention on human rights, which is tied up with the Good Friday agreement and the devolution settlements in this country, and international laws such as the refugee convention, the UN convention against torture and the UN covenant on civil and political rights. Why would the Government not want to abide by those international agreements?

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

On that point, if the UK Government think they can just ignore all the international commitments to which they are already signed up—including ones that they helped to found, such as the ECHR—how on earth can they then turn around to other countries that might be breaching their obligations under international law and say that they should comply with those treaties?

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The hypocrisy goes even further than that: this Government expect Rwanda to uphold all of its agreements and laws internationally and domestically, while specifically setting out to breach their own laws and obligations through this legislation. It is absolutely ludicrous.

Lords amendments 3B and 3C state that Rwanda

“will be a safe country when the arrangements provided for in the Rwanda Treaty have been fully implemented and for so long as they continue to be so.”

That question of how long those arrangements continue to be implemented is just as critical as whether Rwanda implements the measures we have just discussed, because through this legislation, the Government are stating that Rwanda is safe forever—in perpetuity. Nobody can say that of any country in the world at any point, so it is really quite bizarre to legislate specifically that Rwanda, uniquely, is safe forever and ever.

It is quite reasonable of the Lords to say,

“The Rwanda Treaty will cease to be treated as fully implemented if Parliament decides, on the advice of the Monitoring Committee, that the provisions of the treaty are no longer being adhered to in practice.”

There should be a check on that. The Government should not fear that; if they truly and deeply believe that the agreement will be adhered to, there is surely no harm in scrutinising it. The House of Lords International Agreements Committee has said that the treaty is

“unlikely to result in fundamental change in the short term”,

and the UK Supreme Court pointed out in paragraph 87 of its judgment that Rwanda refouled at least six people while the treaty was under negotiation. If that does not raise alarm bells with the Government about Rwanda’s ability to adhere to the treaty, I do not think anything will.

Lords amendment 6B deals with domestic law. It is not about international courts, foreign courts and foreign judges—as if that were a bad thing, and as if we do not send people to sit on those courts ourselves—but the integrity of our own courts and tribunals, of the UK-based judges and decision makers who the Home Office employs to do their job and who this legislation undermines. The amendment says that

“Section 2 does not prevent…the Secretary of State or an immigration officer from deciding…whether the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country for the person in question or for a group of persons to which that person belongs”.

That is quite reasonable: we should look at the evidence before coming to decisions. The amendment asks that the courts and tribunals be able to do their job, not to ignore the evidence or, as others have described, to engage in a legal fantasy where they cannot look at the evidence—cannot see it, cannot hear it, and cannot speak out about what they know to be true—because that is quite unreasonable.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that our own domestic judges should not be allowed to make decisions on these issues, I would be very interested to hear his point.

[Sir William Cash]

I was going to point out that section 57 of the Immigration Act 2023, to which the hon. Lady refers, makes the perfectly reasonable point that the courts must take account of the facts. That is the key question, and I did not hear her say that; it is something that is indisputable and, in my opinion, unassailable. If there were a question of fact regarding age or any other matter that falls within the framework of this amendment, the courts should surely be entitled to deal with those facts, but not to deal with the questions to which the hon. Lady has just referred.

[Alison Thewliss]

This legislation inhibits the ability to look at facts, and I think that is quite a dangerous road to go down. I do not think that that is really what the Government ought to be doing in any circumstance. No matter how much they may wish their will upon the courts, they should not be doing this in legislation. It is completely wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Those are good points because vulnerable people are already being targeted by the Government, if on a voluntary basis. I recently had a young man in my constituency, with severe health problems, whom the Home Office has tried to persuade to go voluntarily to Rwanda, and it was severely traumatising for him. For somebody who has suffered previously in coming to the UK and in the experience they have had in their home country, to then have that degree of what they perceive as pressure—and possibly bribery as well, in a sense—is extremely traumatising. If this is the way the Government are going, these amendments are essential.

[Alison Thewliss]

Having met many constituents and other people who have been victims, as the hon. Member sets out, I know this is devastating for them, when it is already difficult enough to escape from their traffickers, and it is already difficult enough to speak out about this and have their case believed by anybody.

Article 13 of the Rwanda treaty, which will allow the UK to never conclusively determine whether a potential victim of modern slavery is even a victim, would put the UK in breach of its obligations, under article 4 of the ECHR and article 10 of the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, to identify and assist potential victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. Tying this up with the immigration system in the way the Government have done again undermines people’s rights and undermines our obligations as the UK. I absolutely pay tribute to the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre for the evidence it has sent to Members. If it is in their inbox, they should please read it before they vote on this Bill, particularly on this amendment.

Lastly, on the exemption for agents, allies and employees of the UK overseas, it remains the case that many Afghans have come here on small boats because the UK Government schemes have failed. They have failed to protect people, and they have failed to bring in people who served alongside British forces in Afghanistan. They are people who put their trust in the UK to protect them and their families. They put their trust in the UK-US project in Afghanistan, and that trust has been thoroughly breached.

I regularly get emails from people who feel as though they have been deeply let down by the UK Government. That trust has gone, but putting this exemption in the Bill would at least give some prospect of there being some degree of trust in the future. If I was in some country that the UK became involved in, the last thing I would want to do is to get involved with UK forces, because as soon as the UK ships out, it is, “You’re on your own—too bad, tough.” It is a death sentence for the people who put themselves forward to help and support UK objectives overseas, and the way in which this Government have treated those people and their families is disgraceful.

As I have said many times before in this place, during the fall of Afghanistan I had many families living in my constituency who had relatives there, and very few of them ever got out. I do not know what happened to them. I do not know if they are dead or alive, and some of their families may not even know that either, but they have been let down by this UK Government. The schemes the Minister talked about have failed because they are not bringing people to safety. They have failed on the terms that were promised. I seriously doubt at this stage whether they will ever meet the number of people who were supposed to come over and get safety here. At the very least, the Government could have such a recognition in this Bill. At the very least, they could accept an amendment such as this one because they must know that, because Afghans are coming in small boats, their schemes and their supposedly safe and legal routes have failed.

I am not convinced that this Bill will be any kind of deterrent. Almost 3,500 people have crossed in small boats this year so far, and it has not deterred a single solitary one of them. However, what this has done is to make it incredibly difficult for the people who are now considered inadmissible to the system. I ask the Minister: what is going to happen to them? We know that the very small—the tiniest—proportion of people sent to Rwanda, if the Government even end up sending any, will be the tip of a massive iceberg of people who are now just swimming around in the system with no rights.

I have constituents coming to my surgeries who say that they are waiting. They cannot be dealt with and have their asylum claim processed, because this Government have deemed that they are inadmissible. What happens to them? Where do they live, and how do they continue to exist in this country if the Government will not process their applications and will not listen to their claims? That may have been through human trafficking or modern slavery, they may be people who have been victims of torture or—

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I am coming to the end of my remarks.

The Government will not even listen to these people’s stories, so what will happen to them and where will they live? This Government seem to have no consideration for the trauma people have gone through, and now they are leaving them in immigration limbo forever in this ridiculous, expensive and unworkable system. The asylum system is broken, and we know who broke it. We know that an independent Scotland would treat people far more humanely than this Government ever will.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for setting out in detail the changes and amendments the Government have made, both on the amendment paper and in their approach, in response to the concerns raised and points made by many in the earlier stages of this legislation. I will address the points made about Lords amendments 1B and 7B, and briefly touch on a couple of other points that have arisen in the debate and that, certainly from my experience in the world of local government, continue to have a relevance and will need to be addressed in due course if this is going to take effect in the way that we wish it to.

I am a great enthusiast for the European convention on human rights, and I think it is important to acknowledge in the context of this debate that, since this House previously considered and debated this particular piece of legislation, there has been a further development in respect of rule 39 interim orders. In fact, the various bodies concerned with the operation of that convention, including the Court, have recognised the concerns caused to the UK Government and other member states of the ECHR by the way in which those judgments had been handed down. I have confirmed that they will be updating their procedures to ensure operation of such orders will be different in a way that reflects the concerns expressed by many in this House. I see that as evidence that the ECHR remains a living document and also that the concerns the UK Government have expressed are being taken seriously.

Many Members will have been slightly alarmed by the recent judgment handed down in respect of environmental legislation, and I note that British judge Tim Eicke, whose dissenting commentary on that judgment has been publicised widely, set out in detail why many of the issues raised by Members of this House in respect of this particular piece of legislation were also relevant in that context—the risk of perceived overreach of developing a living document to the point where it went beyond the level of consent which the original contracting parties had in mind and that that remained something that the court needed to be alive to. I am very conscious that, because of the way the convention operates in practice, it should be an accountable process—accountable to the Parliamentary Assembly, to the Congress, to the Council of Ministers, and ultimately to the member states.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I will start in order with Lords amendment 1D in the name of Lord Coaker. The Minister asked why the Government ought to have due regard for those particular pieces of legislation—why would we want to have due regard for international law and various Acts, including the Children Act 1989, the Human Rights Act 1998, and the Modern Slavery Act 2015? Well, the reason is found on the face of the Bill, which states, in the name of the Home Secretary:

“I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.”

The Government are setting out to undermine our international obligations, so it is quite right for the Lords to insist that we abide by them. That is the very least the Government should be doing. There are implications for children, for people who have been victims of slavery and trafficking, and for people whose human rights will be abused. The Government should be paying far more attention to that.

On Lords amendment 3E in the name of Lord Hope, there is significance in ensuring that the monitoring committee can do its job properly. It is not clear in what circumstances Rwanda can be declared not safe. The monitoring committee is supposed to produce an annual report that then goes up the chain to the Joint Committee, but there is no mechanism for the committee to blow the whistle should something happen. There is no mechanism for it to say, “Suddenly, something has happened and Rwanda is no longer safe.” What happens in that circumstance to those recommendations? How are they acted on, and what then happens to the people the UK wants to send to Rwanda?

There no such mechanism in this legislation—or, as far as I can see, in the treaty, which involves a three-month delay, and the agreement of both parties, before anything can be annulled. What happens should something untoward occur in Rwanda? I referred to the action of the M23 rebels in my remarks earlier this week, but the Minister did not respond to it in his summing up. What happens if something goes awry? We do not know; we are beholden to the Government’s assertion that Rwanda is safe in perpetuity. There is no mechanism to remove the perpetuity of Rwanda’s designation as “safe.”

I highlight the experience of the Irish author and journalist Sally Hayden, who wrote “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route”. She has raised concerns about the mechanisms of scrutiny in Rwanda itself, and about the treatment of refugees in Rwanda. She has visited the country on several occasions, but was denied entry last month as she went to cover the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. She has tried to resolve that with the Rwandan authorities, but believes that she was refused entry precisely because she has criticised them and their treatment of refugees. Should that not alarm us all when it comes to the scrutiny of the Bill both here and in Rwanda? She said:

“Proper scrutiny of the consequences of this policy are not possible because it’s not a country with freedom of media and freedom of speech”.

We should be deeply concerned about that. Without that independence and scrutiny, we cannot be certain that what is happening in Rwanda is what the UK Government intend or what the Rwandan Government are telling us. Press freedom is crucial for that level of scrutiny, beyond the supposedly independent monitoring committee. I support amendment 3E.

I also support amendment 6D, in the name of Baroness Chakrabarti, because it stands up for the right of our own authorities to make proper decisions. It empowers our decision makers and our courts, as they should be empowered, to look at the evidence before them and make proper decisions. The Government are asking the judiciary, immigration officers, tribunals and everybody in the system to engage in a legal fantasy—that they should ignore all the evidence before them and believe the Government when they say that Rwanda is safe in perpetuity. With reference to proposed new subsection 1(c), which deals with refoulement, I remind the House that Rwanda engaged in the refoulement of several persons during the negotiation of the treaty, never mind at any time. We should be worried about that.

Lords amendment 10D proposes the new clause, “Exemption for agents, allies and employees of the UK Overseas”. We had an urgent question earlier today about the people from Afghanistan who are being yeeted out of Pakistan. The Pakistani Government are apparently pleading by using Rwanda as some kind of justification for that behaviour. That really indicates the ripple effect of what the Government are doing: other countries are praying in aid this legislation when they look to do things that we also have concerns about.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

It seems to me that we must look at Lords amendment 3G in the light of this late stage in proceedings. We cannot keep batting the Bill backwards and forwards across the building. As I said, I do not think that the amendment is the best way to solve the problem that Parliament has no mechanism available to it to change its mind if the facts change, but with all due respect to the Minister, whom I hold in high regard, the Government have not come up with a better alternative. He leaves me little place to go other than to support the amendment, if he cannot propose a better way of resolving this deficiency.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Minister opened by saying that he had looked forward last week to not debating the Bill. I, too, wish that we did not have to debate it; indeed, I wish that it had never been brought to this House in the first place. I wish that it had never seen the light of day. If he never wanted to debate it again, he could of course have accepted the Lords amendments last week, instead of stringing this out for even longer. The Lords have tabled perfectly legitimate amendments, but Government Members are seeking to get around the tedium of voting on amendments to render vulnerable people overseas. A text message is circulating on X in the name of the Government Chief Whip, saying:

“Dear Colleagues,

With a potentially long and historic night ahead, on behalf of the Prime Minister I would like to invite you to drinks this evening from 21.30. These will take place in the Prime Minister’s office in the House of Commons.

I look forward to seeing you there.”

How absolutely heartless and despicable that Government Members will be quaffing drinks while thinking about sending people to Rwanda. How utterly without any kind of moral background. Should the Lords send back further amendments tonight and carry out the unusual procedure of double insistence, I will support them very much in that endeavour. We should use any mechanism that we can in this place to stop the Bill.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on using every procedure available to her to state the SNP’s opposition to the Bill, not least by moving amendments in the Reasons Committee last week. We in the SNP will take every single opportunity to express our opposition to this outrageous plan.

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and note on the record that Labour did not vote on any of the reasons that I sought to amend in the Reasons Committee. I have yet to hear any explanation for why Labour Members would not use any mechanism available to them to oppose the Bill.

We had yet another press conference this afternoon. The Prime Minister did not come to this House to talk about his gurning and his greeting that those mean old Lords would not let him have his way. I point out that the Conservatives have over 100 more Lords than Labour. Perhaps the lack of enthusiasm from their own Lords is reflective of the fact that many of them did not even show up to vote last week. The policy was not in the Conservative party manifesto. The Government have no mandate for the Rwanda plan whatsoever. Indeed, what manifesto would they put in front of people that would say, “We’re going to set out to breach our international commitments and engage in state-sponsored people trafficking?” What manifesto would that be?

Let me mention briefly some of the things that the Prime Minister mentioned in his statement. He suddenly conjured up a whole load of judges to determine these cases, when they could perhaps better serve by looking at the appeals backlog that his incompetent bulk processing of asylum claims has created. He mentioned charter flights being booked, but many commercial companies, including the Rwandan state carrier, have refused to be involved in the charter flights at all, so which companies have been engaged to do that and at what cost? We still do not know.

The Prime Minister said:

“The first flight will leave in 10 to 12 weeks.”

Will that be before or after we reach summer recess—we already know how far the timescale on this has slipped for the Government—and what scrutiny will occur should they take off during recess? If the Government do manage to send anybody to Rwanda, where will they put them? We know that the Rwandans have sold off the housing that they set up to place people in. Will they be piling them up in tents? I would not put it past this Government, but that would be useful to know.

We fully support the Lords amendments, which do their very best to mitigate an absolutely dreadful piece of legislation. I cannot see what the Government’s objection is to Lords amendment 3G. They are all about taking back control, but they want absolutely no parliamentary scrutiny of whether Rwanda remains a safe country. The right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) rightly pointed out that we in this place have no means of declaring Rwanda unsafe, so it is safe in perpetuity—forever and ever. We cannot declare it unsafe should something happen, and that is just not logical. I note also that the Irish High Court ruled last month that, in the light of these plans, the UK is not a safe country to send asylum seekers to.

I fully support Lords amendment 10F relating to Afghans. I have mentioned many times before my support for the Afghans who served and supported UK objectives in Afghanistan and how woeful the Government’s response to their needs has been.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £11,000 it costs per person to deport to Rwanda could be used right now to rescue my constituent and his wife, who got out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan and are now stuck there waiting for the UK Government to rescue them?

[Alison Thewliss]

I wholeheartedly agree. I know of many cases of people who have been sorely let down by the Government.

We note that the figures that the Government brought out this morning show that there has been an increase in small boat arrivals in the past three months compared with last year. The plan is hardly any kind of deterrent if people are still coming over in small boats in their droves. Among them were 1,216 Afghans—an increase on the 1,098 who came in the same period last year. If the Minister thinks that the Afghan schemes are such a roaring success, why are so many Afghans being forced on to small boats just to get to safety? Many of them will have family in this country, many will have been unable to avail themselves of the Afghan schemes that he so talks up, and many will not have been able to use family reunion, which is an existing safe and legal route.

Given the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will not go into detail on the Afghan cases that I wished to mention. However, I will say this to the Government: this legislation is utterly despicable. It is state-sponsored people trafficking, it is against our obligations in international law, and Scotland wants no part of it. We will oppose it every step of the way.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

May I start by agreeing with what the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), said about there being nothing new to say? The trouble is that he then spent 14 minutes saying nothing new. He said that the amendments do nothing to stop flights getting off the ground, but the fact that we are still having to debate amendments is preventing the legislation from going through, which would allow the scheme—literally—to get off the ground. Now it is time to get the Rwanda legislation done.

On the remaining amendments, many people have had days, weeks and months to make their points. The Government have given undertakings, and we have heard further undertakings about the treatment of Afghan refugees today. The Bill does not oblige the Government to return anybody from Afghanistan; there are explicit schemes to protect them.

When it comes to declaring Rwanda a safe country, the only reason why the legislation states as such is that a court declared it not to be, based on limited and snapshot evidence. The Government have a white list of countries that are deemed not to be safe—the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office issues guidance about where it is safe to travel—but what constitutes “safe” in the eyes of those courts? Is Spain safe to a Catalonian dissident who is in exile because they have taken issue with the Spanish Government? Is it safe to go back to France? Some of the refugees I have met in the Napier barracks claim that they are beaten by French police, and that it is not safe for them to go back to that country. Indeed, in the eyes of some court judgments, is London safe for a person who is “openly Jewish”?

Plenty of safeguards are given in this Bill: it will bring people back to the UK if Rwanda is deemed not to be safe or appropriate. Plenty of international legal scrutiny has now been added into the Bill. The issue of refoulement, which was the Supreme Court’s major complaint, has been dealt with, and legal assessment is available for those sent to Rwanda. I will say it again: when the Home Affairs Select Committee went to Calais last year, we were told by all those who were in charge of the policing system on the beaches that when the Government announced the Rwanda scheme the previous May, there was a surge in migrants around Calais approaching the French authorities to try to regularise their position in France, because they did not want to risk being sent to Rwanda.

It is disgraceful that, time and again, those behind these amendments—the Labour party, continuing this ping-pong—have not come up with a single solution to the really important question of what we do with asylum seekers who have come to this country illegally, who have no credible case to be in the UK, but who it is practically impossible to return to their own country. It is also absolutely disgraceful that just this morning the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), made it quite clear that a Labour Government would abolish the Rwanda scheme, whether it is working or not. They are saying to people on the other side of the channel, “Just wait a few months, and then you can come in your droves.” That is the truth of the matter, and these amendments need to be beaten again.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman’s argument has merit, under the Salisbury-Addison convention, when it comes to the principle of a Bill. Their lordships have absolutely the leeway to deal with it in the way that they have on the basis that it was not in a manifesto—he is not wrong about that—but there is a more fundamental point about the way in which the balance between both Houses must be maintained.

This is the fourth round of ping-pong—I think the record is seven—on this short Bill. For the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill—a much lengthier Bill—we had only two rounds of ping-pong, because, in the end, the other House respected the primacy of this place. However reluctant and conflicted I feel about this issue, I think that we have reached that moment. That does not necessarily mean that I will vote against the Lords amendment, but I will consider whether I vote in favour of it on this occasion.

However, I do say this to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister and to the Government: getting ourselves into the position of having four rounds of ping-pong on a Bill as short as this is not a great place to be, with respect to him. Had the Government made other concessions—as they have probably now done on the Afghan question, and as they did on the modern-day slavery question—perhaps we would not have had to wait this long, until this late hour, and goodness knows perhaps until a later hour, before making them. I remind my hon. Friends that Lords amendments are not about the principle of the Bill; they are about the detail of scrutiny. Given the spirit in which my right hon. and learned Friend has approached the amendments, it would have been wiser for us to reach this position slightly earlier, but that is the only criticism that I offer at this stage. The principle of the Bill is now settled, and the will of this House should prevail.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I rise again to put on the record the SNP’s opposition to this awful Bill. We do not support the state-sponsored people-trafficking Bill on Rwanda, and we will oppose it in any way we can.

I was quite disappointed to hear the Labour Lords caving on the Afghan amendment. If they think that this is some kind of concession, I have some magic beans to sell them—honestly, it is pathetic. Holly Bancroft, a journalist at The Independent who has done so much work to expose the weaknesses of the Government’s Afghan schemes, says:

“This review is already happening and is only for Afghans with links to specialist units. The Home Office is saying they won’t deport the Triples granted leave to remain in the UK by the MoD, who came here irregularly. The number of people in this situation will be very small.”

Before I came into the Chamber, I was phoned by Councillor Abdul Bostani of Glasgow Afghan United. He wanted to know what was happening in this place and what protections there will be for the Afghans he is constant contact with. He wants to know what happens to the journalists, the interpreters, the people who put their lives in danger to safeguard the UK’s mission in Afghanistan, and their children and families? He says: “Those people who the UK left behind, nobody is listening to them, nobody is replying. The safe and legal routes are not there.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I make this point because it is important and I want it recorded in Hansard. My constituent Trevor Young worked for the British Army in Afghanistan, alongside his comrade and friend, an Afghan who now happens to be in Pakistan because he had to leave Afghanistan after threats to him and his wife and children. The police have removed his phone, and he faces deportation from Pakistan back to Afghanistan. This is so important for my constituent. Minister, my constituent’s friend, an Afghan soldier, has been forgotten about by the British Government. I make a plea for him because he is not covered by the legislation.

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—he is quite right to point that out in the way that he has. It has been further reported in The Independent that an Afghan intelligence analyst who worked alongside members of the RAF has been threatened with removal to Rwanda. He says,

“I call on the prime minister and the government to stand by the promise they made during the fall of Kabul. If the legal ways, such as Arap and ACRS…were actually working, people like me wouldn’t have to wait for years just for a response and wouldn’t be forced into taking a small boat to come to the UK… Being in limbo is nothing but a waste of the UK’s resources. I have the skills to contribute to the UK’s community and the tax system, but I have to rely on Home Office help, because I cannot work.”

There are thousands of people in his position.

I have also an email from a person who emails me quite regularly. I do not know whether this person ever gets a response from the Afghan relocations and assistance policy email address that he emails, or from the other people who he copies in, but I see and read those emails when they come in. It is in tribute to Sayed, who is constantly seeking some safety, that I read this:

“You caused me to miss the evacuation flights. Why should I be in this situation. It is all because of you…I can’t endure it anymore. I am tired and I am faced with so many challenges. It happened several times today…that I had to stop myself with difficulty from crying in the middle of the street. Everyone was looking at me. I can’t endure it anymore.”

These are the people who have been left behind by this Bill, and have now been left behind by the Labour party, which would not press the amendment further.

I now turn to the one remaining amendment of all the amendments we have had. [Interruption.] I am sorry, am I boring Conservative Members? Do they want to pop back out to the Prime Minister’s office and have some drinks, instead of listening to the important cases being put in this debate? They care so little. What we are asking—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am just anxious that the hon. Lady addresses the amendment that is in front of us.

[Alison Thewliss]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am addressing the amendment that is in front of us. Lords amendment 3J seeks a very small concession to Parliament: that this place should have some kind of scrutiny over whether Rwanda remains a safe country. Conservative Members were all about taking back control, but when it comes to scrutiny of the treaties and obligations we are signing up to, it is quite clear that they could not give a hoot. All that we are asking for—all that the Lords are asking for—in this amendment is some assurances, now and in the future, that there will be scrutiny of whether Rwanda is indeed a safe country. That is not asking too much.

The Government say that they will be ready to remove people in 10 to 12 weeks, and that Rwanda will be safe when the treaty is in force. I ask the Government this: will all the matters of implementation be in force in 10 to 12 weeks? Will the policies be in place in 10 to 12 weeks? Will the staff be in place in 10 to 12 weeks? Will the judges be in place in 10 to 12 weeks? Will the lawyers be in place in 10 to 12 weeks? Will the appeals system be in place in 10 to 12 weeks? Will all those things be there? Will the accommodation be there in 10 to 12 weeks—we know that that has already been sold off—and what airline company has the Government contracted with to remove people in 10 to 12 weeks? They have been extremely unclear about whether they even have an airline company. They have not told us that, and this House deserves to know, because we are not going to get the opportunity again to scrutinise the Government on whether or not the Rwanda treaty is actually being implemented.

The very least that this House should be able to do is check whether the Government and future Governments are fulfilling the obligations they have committed to carry out. We know that even when this treaty was being negotiated, Rwanda was engaging in refoulement. If that was happening when the treaty was being negotiated, is it still happening now? Can the Minister give any assurances that Rwanda is not refouling people right now? If he cannot come to the Dispatch Box and give that assurance, we should not be rejecting this Lords amendment and approving the Bill this evening.

This Bill has been very unusual in the number of Lords amendments we have had. I have never seen the like. I do not believe in the House of Lords—it is a principled position of the SNP not to send people to an unelected Chamber—but this Westminster system is broken when the supposed revising Chamber has been ignored throughout the entire process of this Bill. A revising Chamber is supposed be allowed to revise, yet this Government have ignored every single reasonable amendment the House of Lords has made. The Bill will be exactly the same as when it was introduced when it comes out of this process.

This elected House has absolutely no mandate for this Bill. It was in no manifesto, the Prime Minister does not have a mandate for it, and this House has no business approving it. I support the Lords in rejecting it. This Bill is not a deterrent. It has not been a deterrent, and nothing the Government have done has been a deterrent. It will not work. It will pile misery on to people who have already suffered incredible trauma, which the folk crowing on the Government Benches cannot even imagine. It does not happen in Scotland’s name, and we will vote against it at every opportunity we get.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 3J.