Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I begin by urging noble Lords interested in the circumstances in Rwanda to pay close attention to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford. Members of the Rwandan Green Party have been at the forefront of opposition to President Kagame. They have paid dearly for it, including with their lives. I want to acknowledge that today.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will later concentrate on the contents of this Bill: its hideous human impacts and the indefensible politics behind its existence. I will focus chiefly on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord German, which he so powerfully and effectively introduced to us. I will set out why the Green Party believes we should vote down this Bill today.

In that, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who, making arguments with which we are all too familiar, suggested that “We’re the unelected House; we cannot overrule the elected House”. Can we really claim to have a functioning government majority in the House of Commons, a fast-shrinking majority, put in place with the backing—four years ago and three Prime Ministers back—of little more than a third of registered voters, the majority of voters choosing opposition parties?

It is not working, our constitution accreted over centuries of historical accident. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, set out powerfully, the Government are seeking to overrule on a matter of fact a judgment of the Supreme Court. I ask those who have been in this House for decades to mull on that reality and consider how shocking, how unbelievable, how banana republic you would a decade or two ago have considered even a suggestion that that might happen.

So what do we do? We often hear praise for the independence of your Lordships’ House and the relative weakness of the party Whip in those old-fashioned parties that do still whip. How about we apply independent judgment, independent thought, to this Bill, as your Lordships’ House did last week in scrutinising the Rwanda treaty—scrutiny that the Government have said they are going to dismiss without any consideration?

If the House cannot stop this Bill that the UNHCR tell us is in breach of the basic principles of international law, what is this House for? What defence is there for its existence and for its very curious composition? Sure, we can scrutinise, tidy up the Government’s mistakes in legislation, straighten out some of the worst elements and loosen things a little, and that is a job worth doing, but what use is that if we are within a deeply broken system, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred. I think the noble Lord meant the asylum system, but it fits perfectly too as a description of our constitutional system, which is unable, it would seem, to defend the basics of the rule of law.

There is one point on which I somewhat disagree with the noble Lord, Lord German. He said that the West is often accused of double standards. I say that the West is often guilty of double standards—something that has all too often been hidden in the past behind gunboat diplomacy and economic might. The balance of the world is changing and we are no longer in a position to suggest that other nations should follow the rules while we do not. We desperately need the norms that have been established—very often by British campaigners, civil society and lawyers over decades—to be upheld, and that means that we need to uphold them ourselves. As the noble Lord, Lord German, said, to pass this Bill would be to undermine our global standing and the principle of universality, however often in the past the West has ignored it in its own interests.

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for whom I have the highest respect, said that the Commons has the right to pass bad law. The question I am going to leave noble Lords with is this. How far would your Lordships go in accepting that precept? How bad does the law have to be? I have asked this question before, when we passed the policing Bill which explicitly targeted Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. I asked it during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill, when we declared millions of Britons to be second-class citizens, capable of having their citizenship taken away by the stroke of the Home Secretary’s pen. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, asked where the limits are. That is the question I put to your Lordships’ House today.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this group, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has just raised an extremely interesting point. He suggested that a decision by the Secretary of State, having considered the factors referred to by the noble Lord, Lord German, should be subject to judicial review. The principles of judicial review are clear: the court does not substitute its own view of matters; it assesses whether the Secretary of State came to a reasonable decision.

Departing somewhat from the Government’s view, one of the problems that I have with the Supreme Court decision is that it was not based on the principles of judicial review. The Divisional Court did approach it on that basis and the Supreme Court said that that was wrong. The Supreme Court, relying on precedents that had never received the authority of Parliament or statute, decided that it should not apply the principles of judicial review, but should decide these matters for itself. That is a very important distinction between what happened in this case, which gave rise to this legislation, and the procedure now being proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with some hesitancy, in the middle of a rather technical debate, but I would like to make a couple of points on this group. The Committee has already heard from my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb who, in her inimitable way, made it very clear that the Green Party remains utterly opposed to the entire Bill and greatly regrets that we gave it a Second Reading—but we are where we are.

From listening to the debate on the first group, a word that came up again and again, which might be surprising to people listening from outside the Committee, was “silly”. Of course, what we are talking about is deadly serious, but the definitions of “silly” are interesting, if you look them up. One is “showing a lack of common sense or judgment”. Common sense and judgment are two things that this group of amendments seeks to introduce to the Bill, so I commend the noble Lord, Lord German, for introducing it so clearly and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for his excellent assistance in presenting the argument.

It is a statement of the obvious that Parliament, and certainly your Lordships’ House after our vote on the Rwanda treaty, does not believe that what the Bill states is common sense. It is not based on the evidence and has been disproved. More than that, these amendments are making a person, the Secretary of State, responsible for making a judgment. If we are to have the rule of law, a person has to be identified and held responsible for making that judgment. We are introducing a sense of responsibility and evidence here, which would at least be a step forward.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord German. It has been a short debate, in comparison to that on the first group, presumably because some have now given their Second Reading speeches on this Bill and that is sufficient for them. We will just have to go through the grind. It has, nevertheless, been an interesting debate.

I will pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard. Of course, members of the Supreme Court are not here to answer questions, but I understand that they considered whether the Divisional Court was correct in deciding whether Ministers had followed an incorrect process, under law. The Supreme Court’s view was that the question to answer was whether issues of fact on refoulement, which was the origin of the appeal, were to be determined. That is why the Supreme Court made the decision that it did, and that is the relevant part of judicial review. I do not think that the relevant part of judicial review for the Bill is the Supreme Court’s judgment, but that judicial reviews of the process that decision-makers had followed in deciding to relocate anybody to Rwanda can no longer be carried out. That will now be prohibited which, if I may say so, is a major constitutional step, which the Bingham Centre and many others have warned against. I suspect we will hear that in other groups of amendments and, for me, that is the important part of judicial review.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, if the Committee will forgive me, slid into an earlier part of the Minister’s response was a reference to some glowing statements about the progress within Rwanda on gender equality. Those statements should not be allowed to be left standing, because although we have been very much focused in this debate on refoulement, we are assuming that if refugees—in particular, women refugees—are given status in Rwanda they will remain and have to live in Rwanda. On those glowing statements made about gender equality there, yes, it is well known that Rwanda has made considerable progress in terms of parliamentary representation and ministerial representation—indeed, more progress than our own Parliament has.

None the less, is the Minister aware that in Rwanda, 83% of women work in the informal sector or are in low-wage occupations, earning on average 60% of men’s incomes? Its National Gender Statistics Report 2021 revealed that physical violence affected 36.7% of women and girls aged 15-49 in Rwanda. Will the Minister acknowledge, with regard to his earlier remarks, that making claims about gender equality progress in Rwanda needs to be done with caution?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

I respectfully agree with the noble Baroness that it is important to look at such matters with caution. In relation to the figures which she cites, the statistics concerning domestic violence would be primarily, one presumes, a matter for Rwandan society itself.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am sorry: those were not domestic figures but general violence against women and girls figures.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

I am very aware of the noble Baroness’s campaigning work on the topic, and she will be aware that the bulk of violence visited upon women criminally is within the domestic setting.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am sorry—the phrase “for a European world” makes me wonder whether the noble Baroness believes that internationally agreed human rights should apply around the world and not just in Europe.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her interjection. I am referring to the treaties emerging from the post-Second World War world, which was very much a European world at that time, to deal with circumstances such as the Holocaust and others, which had been left over from and arisen from it. I agree that there has been constant movement in this area. For instance, the European court at Strasbourg continues to make judicial interventions that sometimes try to push the European Convention on Human Rights much further than it was initially drafted to cover.

However, if I might continue, these treaties were conceived for a European world, by and large, and circumstances very different from our own. As I have said, these arrangements provide for potentially unlimited numbers of people from outside this country to command priority over the express and explicit wishes of its citizens.

Today, mass immigration threatens the democratic arrangements of western countries, the political systems on which they rest, and the stability on which societies and their economies depend. The threat does not stand over Britain alone. The failure of Governments all over Europe to stop clandestine or illegal immigration is destabilising them and their political arrangements. The difficulty of controlling long land borders all over Europe and the difficulties thrown up by the Schengen rules—now, I fear, ignored in many cases—have brought instability and undermined the democratic order. So too have international obligations embedded in domestic law and constitutions. The Sweden Democrats, who advocate tight controls on immigration, have shot to being the largest party in the centre-right governing bloc. For Denmark’s left and its social democratic Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s greatest challenge is non-western immigration. Italy can no longer process the volumes of asylum seekers arriving in small boats in Lampedusa and has called on the EU to help. France passed a measure on immigration, only to have the very amendments that had allowed it to pass, after 18 months to two years of wrangling, struck down by the constitutional court.

The UK is in a more fortunate position than these countries, since it is subject neither to Schengen nor the constraints of EU membership. This country and its people have the power to make their own laws. Their legitimacy derives not from arrangements made for times and circumstances different from our own—for a Eurocentric world, to be interpreted by internationalist institutions at a remove from democratic accountability that are often unaccountable for the consequences of the rules they liberally apply. I refer to my noble friend Lord Howard, who is not in his place: the question of democratic accountability must be central to any debate on controlling the UK’s borders.

Our Government have indeed recognised this in drawing up the present Bill, but they have held back from the final measure needed to make it effective. My amendment, like the same one proposed in the other place, will ensure that the Bill is fit for purpose—a purpose fervently desired by the people of this country.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 9 and 13. I obviously have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, but let us look at the two subsections whose removal they called for at the beginning of the debate. Clause 1(4) says:

“It is recognised that … the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign, and … the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law”,


and Clause 1(6) defines what the term “international law” means. There is nothing at all controversial in either of these clauses: indeed, Clause 1(4) is a classic statement of the legal position. I am afraid that I find it frankly bizarre for speeches to be made in this Committee expressing outrage that the Government have had the temerity to put them into Clause 1, as though they were dark secrets to be discussed only among lawyers in quiet corners of the Inns of Court. It is simply a frank statement and it has every place in Clause 1, where it will help the courts interpret the provisions of the Bill. Indeed, one can see that the interpretation provision at the end of the Bill refers back to Clause 1(6). For those reasons, I oppose the amendments proposed by my noble friend.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, acutely aware of the hour, I will be extremely brief and restrain myself. I offer Green support for Amendments 9, 10 and 13 and I will simply say about Amendment 9—I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong—that I invite noble Lords who are opposing these amendments to turn this around and say how we would feel when the Chinese Government say, “Well, we’re just going to ignore the Sino-British joint declaration”—as indeed the Chinese Government do and we rightly condemn that behaviour, and I hope will continue to do so.

On the second point, I commend the noble Lord, Lord German, for trying to fix the British constitution. It is a brave attempt, particularly at this hour of the evening. I was reminded, looking at his amendment, of the conclusion of the historian Peter Hennessy, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, that we suffer from the fact that our constitution—uncodified or unwritten, whichever you prefer—relies on people being “good chaps” who will just follow along and do the right thing. We are well past the point, it is very clear, when we can rely on the Government being good chaps.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall make a couple of brief comments. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in his Amendments 9 and 13, makes a hugely important point. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that I would be quite happy, if I were to be able to stand again, or indeed vote at the next general election, for my party to stand on the principle that it will abide by international law. That is something by which the Labour Party would be proud to stand. It is clear, with respect to his own party, that there is a division, frankly, between the position that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, holds, where he espoused what was the traditional and in my view the well-respected view of the Conservative Party, and the view of the Conservative Front Bench, which is to the right of the noble Viscount but to the left of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. I am afraid that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, is getting it not just from His Majesty’s Opposition but from the right and left of the Tory party. We will be interested to see how he responds to that.

On the issue that

“the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law”,

the noble Lord, Lord Murray, mentioned Clause 1(6), which details the international law that can be ignored or is irrelevant under the Act. It is quite astonishing. If noble Lords have not read Clause 1(6), or have not got it in front of them, it is worth looking at. Virtually every international treaty or convention which this country has been a proud member of, often for decades, is simply to be ignored or considered irrelevant to the validity of the Act. These comprise

“the Human Rights Convention, the Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 1984, the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings done at Warsaw on 16 May 2005, customary international law, and any other international law, or convention or rule of international law, whatsoever, including any order, judgment, decision or measure of the European Court of Human Rights”.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord McDonald of Salford (CB)]

My Lords, I support the case put by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and ask about a current torture case concerning a journalist called Dieudonné Niyonsenga. Last month he appeared in a court in Kigali on appeal; he was sentenced three years ago to seven years in prison. He appeared in court with a wound in his head and he claimed, in that hearing, that he had been tortured. His case has been taken up by the Committee to Protect Journalists. This is not something theoretical or in the past; it is happening right now.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the expert contribution of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald. I offer Green support for all the amendments in this group. I particularly highlight and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and her allies for highlighting something that is crucial, but I feel that has been covered powerfully, so I will simply address most of the other amendments in this group.

It is worth stressing that the amendments would remove the legal fiction that Rwanda must be treated conclusively as safe by the courts and other decision-makers. They would allow the consideration of evidence. I am speaking in the midst of many eminent lawyers, so I will focus on the politics of this. We live in a world in which we are often told we are living with post-truth politics. At the weekend, I was in the constituency of Kingswood knocking on doors. I met some people there who were living in a post-truth environment—people who had disappeared down some very dark conspiracy rabbit holes. When you are knocking on doors, of course it is impossible to attempt to extract people from those rabbit holes in the couple of minutes you have, but it is truly terrifying—I have to say that most of them will be voting for the Reform party on Thursday, which is something the Government should have great concern about for all kinds of reasons.

Post-truth politics is one thing, but what we confront with the Rwanda Bill is post-truth law. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, said—I wrote down his words—that he was

“completely flabbergasted by the constitutional implications”.

What are the constitutional implications of post-truth law? Nothing is weighed on the reality of the world.

I want to pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about the duties of this House. Surely it is the duty of this House to ensure that we have truth- based law.

[Lord Hoffmann (CB)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clarke asked whether there was any precedent for the kind of legislation we are considering, in which some question of fact is declared to be the case to the exclusion of any contrary decision by a court. There are such precedents, but you have to go a long way back in our history to find them.

In 1531, there was an unfortunate incident at a dinner party given by the Bishop of Rochester. All the people who ate their dinner became sick, and one of them died. This was not, at the time, put down to the inadequacy of the health and safety laws in the 16th century, but suspicion fell upon the cook. The King had a horror of poisoning. He was more or less a contemporary of Lucrezia Borgia and recognised that it was being used as a political weapon all over the country. He came down to Parliament, to your Lordships’ House, and promoted a Bill that became an Act. It declared, first, that poisoning was a form of treason; secondly, that the penalty for it was to be boiled alive; and, thirdly—this is the point—that the cook had been guilty of this crime and no trial was to take place. They were probably concerned that some lefty lawyers might get the cook off if it went to trial. The result was that the cook was duly boiled alive before an appreciative audience at Smithfield. That is the sort of precedent which one has to look at in order to justify what is being done now.

Since then, for centuries, we have had the development of the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers—principles which English constitutional lawyers have written about with pride and foreign lawyers have written about with admiration. I suggest to your Lordships that that is where we ought to stay.

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[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

The only thing relevant to an individual case would be matters specific to the individual.

In line with our obligations, I assure noble Lords—in particular the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord German —that individuals will still be able to challenge removal decisions on the basis of compelling evidence that Rwanda is unsafe for them due to their particular individual circumstances. The threshold for such claims is a high one, rightly. People must not be allowed to frustrate and delay removal with the kind of legal challenges we have been seeing for some time, which the Bill is intended to prevent. I have spoken at length—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Surely we come back to the point about temporality, which a number of noble Lords have raised. Surely the circumstances of an individual, and the nature of the Rwanda they are being transported to on the day their flight lands, are relevant to the individual case.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, that would depend entirely on the case presented by the individual.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for tabling Amendment 30 with regard to victims of torture. With reference to the points of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in winding up, while we will reflect on the matters she raises, at this stage I cannot support their inclusion in the Bill.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I took it that the noble Baroness was asking me a question from the way she started—no, do not ask again. First, I absolutely yield pre-eminence to her in anything related to war stories. On her substantive point, she is right. I was the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation at the time when holding people without charge in prisons on suspicion of terrorism was declared unlawful. In 2005, the law was changed. It was changed only because of the intervention of the courts following rational and detailed argument. The country did not become a more dangerous place. It became a more lawful place, with better argument about the results. There were huge benefits from that change, but it was made only because there was a fairly complex but easily dealt with legal process.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I rise with great humbleness to intervene at this point. I was planning to refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I know that she has a book coming out shortly, Human Rights: The Case for the Defence. After listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I feel that possibly one of the two noble Baronesses should write a book “Courts and the Law: The Case for the Defence” because it seems to have been clearly identified that that is something we need. The point I want to make about the title of the noble Baroness’s book—she has kindly given me a copy, and I have not had time to read it yet, but I will —is how tragic it is that we feel as if we have to make a case for the defence of human rights. That is the place we are in now. That explains why I chose to attach my name to the notice of our intention to oppose the Clause 3 standing part of the Bill, as did the noble Lord, Lord German, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

I think it is worth going back to the title of this clause:

“Disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998”.


I fully understand that other amendments in this group are trying to make this less bad, but, following what the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, I feel that crying out in opposition to any disapplication of human rights is where I have to be. It is the only place that I feel that I can be. This picks up points made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford that human rights have to be universal. I was looking at one of the main United Nations websites, which defines human rights as

“rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status”.

If we take human rights away from some people, it does not affect just those people; it makes all of us far poorer and far more vulnerable.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remember as a young boy walking with my father in a town. We passed a building which had “Constitutional Club” written on it. I said to him, “What does that mean?”, and he said, “It is the Conservative club. It is called a constitutional club because the Conservative Party believes that the constitution is very important to maintain the stability of the nation”. I rise to support my noble friend in his comments about this Bill in general and the particular clause which we are discussing now.

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If my understanding is correct, this will be an Act of Parliament with retrospective effect. This country does not legislate retrospectively, unless there is a good reason to do so. My experience as a law officer was that, if the Government were minded to propose a Bill that had retrospective effect, they would take the advice of the law officers to determine whether it was okay to do that. I ask the Minister not to confirm whether he has sought the advice of the law officers but to explain to this Committee why the Government are asking Parliament to legislate retrospectively, as it looks as though they are doing.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, aware of the hour, I rise very briefly, having attached my name to Amendment 81 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. I am now very clear that the noble Viscount’s Amendment 82 is an ingenious way of addressing the issue of temporality, which we have been circling around again and again. However, I shall simply address Amendment 81.

As I think the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, today we have been introduced to a phrase, “the court of Parliament”, that many of us, certainly myself, were not familiar with. Amendment 81 goes to the sovereignty of Parliament and ensures that Parliament remains sovereign in decision-making. Like other Members of the Committee on this side of the House, I will avoid venturing too far into the internal pains of the Conservative Party, but I think that a section of the party that has recently arrived in your Lordships’ House is very concerned with sovereignty, and it has never been terribly clear whether we are talking about parliamentary sovereignty or Executive sovereignty. Another phrase for Executive sovereignty, of course, might be “the exercise of arbitrary power”. The amendment overcomes that problem, makes it very clear and ensures what kind of country we want to live in.

There is another point I want to raise briefly, because what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said on the financial issues was very interesting. I must admit that I have not ventured into those issues because, quite frankly, I have been concerned with stopping the whole thing happening, so the financial aspect, the money, has already been thrown away and that is where we are. However, the point the noble Lord made about commercial confidentiality being allowed to cloud any sort of transparency about what is happening is an issue of concern. Those in other sections of your Lordships’ House will know that I and the Green Party have very strong views about the use of services provided for private profit for what should be care; after all, what we are supposed to be talking about is caring for refugees. Will the Minister say, without going into too much commercial detail, what percentage of profit the Government have allowed for in that contract? If that is said to be still too commercially confidential, what would the Government consider a reasonable level of profit for someone to make from the housing of these refugees in Rwanda?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I also note the Clock and I will make points on the two headings. The first is on Amendment 81 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. The basis for it, according to the Member’s explanatory statement, is that

“This amendment replaces … (an executive act), with a parliamentary trigger”.


The proposal is that instead of having an executive fiat, Parliament and parliamentary sovereignty would be put in its place. Unfortunately, the amendment does not do that. What it does is to take the pen away from the Minister and hand it to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The reason is that the way this amendment is drafted is that two requirements need to be met. First, the Joint Committee on Human Rights has to report its belief that Rwanda is safe; in other words, if it comes to the conclusion that Rwanda is not safe, or might not be safe, then proposed new subsection (1A)(a) is not satisfied, and it falls there. The second requirement is that

“a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament”.

If, for example, both the other place and this House were to take the view that the Joint Committee on Human Rights had got it totally wrong and, in fact, contrary to its view that Rwanda was not safe, it plainly was safe, Parliament could do nothing about it. I am sure that is not what was intended, but it is a fundamental problem in the drafting and in the scheme if what is intended is to hand power to Parliament.

Just to make it clear, if that amendment were made to this amendment, I would still oppose it. The responsibility should lie with the Secretary of State. Let us be very clear about what this amendment would actually do. It would take the pen away from somebody who is elected and responsible to the electorate and hand it to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I have the greatest respect for the JCHR—I appeared before it when I was a Minister—but it is wrong in principle that it and it alone should have the right to stop this legislation in its tracks. That is the first point I wanted to make.

The second point I want to make arises out of Amendments 35 and 90 and the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, earlier that this is retrospective legislation. As we are in Committee—although many of the speeches seem to be Second Reading speeches—let me pick up one drafting point on Amendment 35. As I understand it, it would prevent a decision-maker making a decision relating to the removal to the Republic of Rwanda of somebody who arrived in the UK before the Act received Royal Assent. The words

“a decision relating to the removal”

are very broad. Would they include, for example, a decision about how old somebody is? That is a decision that will be needed under the current legislation and under this legislation. I would have thought that it cannot be intended that Amendment 35 would stop decisions which have, so to speak, that dual purpose. That is a drafting point.

The more fundamental point is whether this is retrospective legislation at all. I listened very carefully, as I always do, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. With respect, I fundamentally disagree with him that this is retrospective legislation. What is retrospective legislation? The House of Commons Library puts it in these terms—this is from a paper it published in June 2013, but these are fundamental principles that do not change over time—citing Craies on Legislation, ninth edition. It says that retrospective legislation is generally defined as legislation which

“takes away or impairs any vested right acquired under existing laws, or creates a new obligation, or imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability in respect of transactions or considerations already past”.

The two classic examples are, first, that conduct which is lawful when you do it is not later made unlawful; and, secondly, that the penalty for unlawful conduct when you do it is not rendered greater retrospectively. It is right to say that we have legislated retrospectively in the criminal context—rarely, but we have. The War Crimes Act 1991 and the International Criminal Court Act 2001 are examples of that. However, none of this is retrospective legislation. The example the noble and learned Lord gave is that somebody might have an argument which they could put in court that, for example, “I’ve got a brother here, I’ve got somebody here”. That is not a vested right.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 3J in my name turned out to be the last one standing. Perhaps I may say just a few words at its funeral. It was not much, perhaps, compared with some of those amendments that had already been defeated. Indeed, it survived so long under the guidance of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who I am delighted to see back in his place, precisely because it was so modest and unthreatening to the Government’s policy. But it at least touched on a central disease of this Bill and perhaps of our body politic more generally: the imputation of decisions to Parliament to reduce the possibilities for challenge and the pretence that by asserting something to be true, even in the teeth of the evidence, one can not only make it true but keep it true for ever.

Many people, some of them perhaps still watching even now, will have wished us to keep on fighting, but without the threat of double insistence—which remains part of our constitutional armoury, but which did not command the necessary political support on this occasion—there would have been no point in doing so. The purpose of ping-pong is to persuade the Government, through force of argument, to come to the table and agree a compromise. They have refused pointedly to do so, and after four rounds of ping-pong, their control of the Commons remains as solid as ever.

The time has now come to acknowledge the primacy of the elected House and to withdraw from the fray. We do so secure at least in the knowledge that the so-called judgment of Parliament was not the judgment of this House, and that we tried our hardest to achieve something a little more sensible. We must take comfort from such assurances as the Minister has been able to give and hold the Government to them. This is the Government’s Bill, resolutely free of any outside influence. As a patriot, I can only hope—though I am afraid, without much optimism—that it will bring benefits, in some way, commensurate to its real and painful cost.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with a heavy heart, given the lack of further amendment, to this dreadful, international law-busting Bill. I note that in the other place, the SNP twice used procedural Motions to delay it by 15 minutes each time. I applaud them for that, and I am not going to take up the same length, but I am going to take a moment to mark this historic occasion.

Your Lordships’ House has put a lot of work into trying to make the Bill comply with international law, with basic moral laws and with the principles of justice and fairness. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, earlier today said:

“Its costs will be measured not only in money but in principles debased—disregard for our international commitments, avoiding statutory protections for the vulnerable, and the removal of judicial scrutiny”.


Nothing has changed in the Bill in the last few hours.

I note that Amnesty International this evening warned airline companies that many members of the public take an extremely negative view of the content of the policy. Those were really unnecessary words, because no company of any repute whatsoever is going to take part in implementing this dreadful policy. That is a measure of the Bill and the disgraceful, despicable actions it represents.

I am disappointed to see the almost empty Benches around me. I note that the Liberal Democrat Benches are here, having played their part in trying to stop the Bill at Second Reading, and I commend them for that action that the Green group supported. They are still here to the bitter end.

We heard from the Minister, we will hear tonight, and no doubt will keep hearing in the coming days that “Well, we’re the unelected House”. That does not mean that this House is without moral or legal responsibilities. I have asked the House a number of times: if not now, when? What will it take to make this House say, “Here we take a stand”?

We have had the abomination of the Elections Act, the elements of a policing Act that targeted Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people explicitly. We have had multiple indefensible restrictions on the right to protest. Now, we are letting through an attack on some of the most vulnerable, desperate people on this planet. What more will we let through? I suggest to noble Lords as they leave this Chamber tonight to ask themselves that question.

With a desperate, flailing government party bereft of ideas and philosophy and without principles, this House will keep being tested. I ask these empty Benches: you might be waiting for an election, but what kind of a country will it be if you do not stand up now?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention. He put his points across extremely eloquently, and I agree with all of them.

I say gently to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that the Bill does comply with international law. It is profoundly moral and patriotic to defend the integrity of our borders, and it is profoundly moral and patriotic to prevent the needless loss of life in the channel and to put the criminal gangs out of business.

I also ask the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, why the Green group is currently a solo act. Where is her partner?

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I have been asked a direct question. I am sure the House would have been delighted to hear from both of us this evening, but we made a choice to have one representative. If the House would like to hear and see more of us, we would welcome being invited to do that.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Speaking personally, I would rather hear a lot less, but there we are.

Rwanda is a safe country that has proven time and again its ability to offer asylum seekers a safe haven and a chance to build a new life. Rwanda has a strong history of providing protection to those who need it and currently hosts over 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers, who have found safety and sanctuary there. Binding provisions in the treaty place obligations on the Government of Rwanda to provide for those relocated under the partnership, and this is long overdue. I put on record my thanks to officials in the Government of Rwanda for all their efforts in delivering this partnership. I commend the Motion to the House.