Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, one of the groups that we are coming on to looks at the organisations and committees that are set up under the treaty. We will return to that discussion about the provisions of the treaty in respect of what my noble friend has just asked. As I say, it would not be right for the delivery of our policy, which is key to our commitment to stop the boats, to be left solely dependent on this.

Amendments 11 and 12 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord German, seek to ensure that individuals relocated to Rwanda must have any asylum claim determined and be treated in accordance with the UK’s international obligations. This is unnecessary in view of the comprehensive arrangements that we have in place with the Government of Rwanda. It is important to remember that Rwanda is a country that cares deeply about supporting refugees. It works already with the UNHCR and hosts more than 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers and stands ready to relocate people and help them to rebuild their lives.

We will get on to this again in a later group, but I remind the Committee that the UNHCR has signed an agreement with the Government of Rwanda and the African Union to continue the operations of the emergency transit mechanism centre in Rwanda, which the EU financially supports, having recently announced a further €22 million support package for it. Indeed, as recently as late December, the UNHCR evacuated 153 asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the international agreements that Rwanda has signed. That is dealt with at paragraph 25 of the policy statement. I will read it for convenience:

“Rwanda is a signatory to key international agreements protecting the rights of refugees and those in need of international protection. It acceded to the Refugee Convention, as well as the 1967 Protocol, in 1980. In 2006 it acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Conventions on the Reduction of Statelessness. Regionally, it is a signatory of the Organisation of African Unity Convention on Refugees in Africa and the 2012 Kampala Convention”.


Paragraph 26 goes on to say that:

“Rwanda’s obligations under these international agreements are embedded in its domestic legal provisions. The Rwandan constitution ensures that international agreements Rwanda has ratified become domestic law in Rwanda. Article 28 of the constitution recognises the right of refugees to seek asylum in Rwanda”.


The presumption which appears to underpin this amendment is that Rwanda is not capable of making good decisions and is somehow not committed to this partnership. I disagree. Rwandans, perhaps more than those in most countries, understand the importance of providing protection to those who need it. I remind the Committee that my noble friend Lady Verma spoke very powerfully on that subject at Second Reading.

The core of this Bill, and the Government’s priority, is to break the business model of the people smugglers. That will not happen if we undermine the central tenet of the Bill, which is the effect of these amendments, and a point that was well addressed by my noble friend Lord Howard. We are a parliamentary democracy, and that means that Parliament is sovereign. Parliament itself is truly accountable, and I therefore invite the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Clause 1(2)(b) says that Rwanda is a safe country, so why is Clause 1(3) necessary?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Clause 1(3) is just a simple restatement of the various facts of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I rise to speak because I suspect I am in a minority as one of the very few Members of this House who have had direct contact with Rwanda, having had 10 years’ engagement with the diocese of Kigali, the capital city, and the great joy of visiting the country and seeing life outside in the countryside. One of the most moving things of my nearly 40 years of ministry was praying at the national memorial for the holocaust in Kigali with a local bishop who had lost so many members of his family. He was still so distraught that I had to find the words for our prayer together.

I put on record that I have come across so many wonderful Rwandans who would be hugely great examples to us individually of the practice of forgiveness and trying to make life beautiful again after a terrible tragedy. I can think of one instance where I met a priest; most of his family had been murdered, and in an act of forgiveness he took the murderer of his loved ones into what was left of his family, because he felt there was a requirement upon him to demonstrate and show forgiveness in this terrible situation.

It is also true, in my experience, that Rwanda has done a remarkable job in developing its economy. I was going to say it was a “tiger economy”—that is perhaps the wrong fauna for the Great Lakes region, but there have been real strides forward in their economy. Of course, people have been very eager to support their President because he has largely delivered to them peace.

It is also my direct experience, relating to what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, that the institutions of civil society remain substantially undeveloped. It seems to me that, although we may agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and might want to say that Rwanda could in the future be a third-party partner in dealing with these issues, I would strongly say that that day has not yet come.

Of course, I am not in principle against the idea of third-party partnerships; it is very interesting what we hear about Italy. It seems to me that what is required is a real, dedicated commitment to a partnership among western nations in seeking to see how this could be done effectively and generously towards those whom we categorise as criminals, many of whom have suffered dreadful trauma and persecution in their homeland, which is the only reason they have taken the risk and put themselves in the hands of these dreadful criminal gangs.

It is also very important that we take account of the fact that, if we are going to even think about the prospect of sending people to a third-party country, there has to be a guarantee, as evidenced in Amendment 8, that people have a right to return and establish their claims here. If this is not allowed, it is simply a case of our throwing the problem away. That seems to me to be simply immoral, and not something that we as a nation should be contemplating.

We need to look very carefully again at putting this burden on the people of Rwanda and how we might think much better about working together with other nations in developing a pattern that will help us, in the longer term, cope with huge further migration through climate change, which we have not even contemplated yet and which will affect us very deeply.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, with his fascinating and personal knowledge of Rwanda, and the very useful advice he has given us this evening. I have put my name to the seven amendments set out by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and I do not intend to refer in great detail to any of them, particularly at this time, because I would like to get home before midnight, if that is possible, and I am in the last group.

Shortly, the points I wanted to make are these: it is obvious that Clause 1(2)(b) is out of kilter with Clause 1(3). You only have to read Clause 1(3) to see that the Government of the Republic of Rwanda has “agreed to fulfil”—that seems to me to be partly in the present, but almost certainly partly in the future. In the treaty, which we pored over in the debate that I listened to and did not speak in—I thought enough people had spoken—the 10 requirements that we discussed are clearly not all fulfilled. The right reverend Prelate points out—and he knows; he has been there—that the structures are not all yet in place.

The noble and learned Lord the Minister made a brave effort to say that Rwanda is safe and, following discussions, will be safer. That is splendid wording, but it does not really work in this House, when we look at the fact that the Government want this House to say, despite our vote on the treaty debate, that Rwanda is safe when it patently is not. Speaking as a former lawyer as well as a fairly long-term Member of this House, I cannot believe that any Government are asking us to say that something is what it may well be—and for the sake of Rwanda, if it really wants our refugees, I hope it will be —when, quite simply, it is not there yet. Right around the Committee, we have all been saying that from the first few words, so how on earth can the Government expect the House to agree to a phrase that the,

“Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament”—

Parliament including us—that Rwanda is safe?

I very strongly support what has been said by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. It seems to me that to some extent, subject to issues of modern slavery to which we will come in another group, the Bill could be partially redeemed by two points. One has been set out by the noble and learned Lord in Amendment 6, and the second is set out in the various amendments headed by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich about an independent reviewer. If you had the twin of “will be” when it is ready, and an independent reviewer to assist the Government to say that at least the requirements in Clause 1(3) and the 10 requirements in the treaty have been met, then I have no doubt that the Government could say, “Now we can send people to Rwanda”. However, I plead with the Government: I cannot believe that they are really expecting us to say that that which is not safe is safe at this stage.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I am not sure that my noble and learned friend should call herself an ex-lawyer. That was very good indeed.

At Second Reading, I said that we live in a constitution that is akin to a three-legged stool, with Parliament, the Government and the judiciary in a balance between those legs. I think it is very important to realise how key to our constitution that stool really is. Clause 1(2)(b) represents grit in the relationship between those legs: the requirement that this House enters into a judgment that many in the House feel is very wrong, a judgment which is everlasting. At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord McDonald of Salford very eloquently spoke about the political risk within Rwanda at the moment. The judgment is largely in a vacuum, because a number of questions have been fired at the Minister about where we are with safety. That is very difficult for our House to do and is grit. That represents further grit because of course it will be something that the judiciary has to take account of when it comes to determine anything under the Bill.

That is why I find the amendment package that my noble and learned friend Lord Hope has put together so very attractive. I hope the Government will look at it for the reason of logic alone and for a second reason, because the second half of my submissions at Second Reading were to do with the Salisbury/Addison convention. That is a convention about creating a smooth relationship between two of the legs of that stool. Indeed, we are here tonight because of that convention: we are working late, sitting extra late tonight, in order to speed things through because part of that convention deals with speed of consideration.

I do hope the Government will think of the convention in relation to how the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has expressed the amendments and the provisions in the Bill that represent grit in the relationship. We have a convention that is all about promoting a relationship, and we have a Bill before us that is all about putting grit in the relationship. This has to be thought of in terms of the convention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Lawlor. I will speak generally about the Bill very briefly, and the amendment, and also say why I strongly oppose the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which are pernicious and dangerous. I cannot believe that, when my noble friend Lord Hailsham sought election in the county constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham in 2010, he would have told his constituents that he would seek to disregard the rights and privileges of Parliament in favour of supranational legal entities and international treaties, because I suspect that that would not have been a very popular point of view to take. But that seems to be the logical implication of the amendment he has put forward today.

The Bill does contain some important statements of principle, in that it reasserts the sovereignty of Parliament and its right to legislate to cut through the morass of alleged international norms which currently frustrate the ability of the United Kingdom to control its own borders, in Clause 1(4). The partial disapplication of aspects of the Human Rights Act—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Does the noble Lord realise that the Government, and previous Governments, have signed and ratified the international agreements and treaties about which we are talking?

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Well, I will develop my argument about the tension between domestic legislation, parliamentary sovereignty and the rights and privileges of Parliament, and the international obligations and a universalist human rights regime which many noble Lords seem very content to support in preference to the former.