Baroness Hamwee
Main Page: Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Hamwee's debates with the Home Office
(1 year ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I cannot comment on specific numbers of refugees from that particular incident. However, I can reassure the noble Viscount about the safety of the Republic of Rwanda. Clause 4 of the Bill allows that
“Decisions based on particular individual circumstances”
can be specifically exempted from some other aspects of the Bill. I will not read them, as he can read them himself.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, many of the problems that we have discussed over the months and years come from the backlog of applications to the Home Office. What does having two Ministers—one for legal migration and one for what the Government badge as illegal migration—do to address this? Also, the previous Home Secretary made it very clear that the Government’s proposals “will not work”, in her words. Is that because of her views about the European convention or does it come from some other inspiration about how to make the system work? If so, has she shared that with colleagues in the Home Office?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
She is not a colleague so, no, she has not shared it. I am not going to second-guess what she was trying to say this morning; that would be foolish. As regards having two Ministers for Immigration, this is a big subject so, clearly, it deserves two. I suppose I could give a flippant answer: at least they will be able to process these claims twice as fast.