Asylum: UK-Rwanda Agreement

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a significant debate, which includes a very serious Motion—the first of its kind, as we have heard. It is absolutely right that it is in front of us today.

I am still on the International Agreements Committee and when I was chair, the agreement with Rwanda was merely a memorandum of understanding, not a treaty. We were rightly critical of that method, exactly because it bypassed the CRaG Act and therefore did not have to be approved, or indeed even debated, by Parliament. As we have heard, the 2010 Act specifically gives this House the right—I would say the duty—to recommend against the ratification of a treaty if it judges that that is appropriate, albeit that the actual decision quite rightly rests with the elected House. But it is part of our role to make recommendations both to the Government and the Commons. For the first time, the International Agreements Committee has concluded that the treaty should not be ratified until its various provisions and new bodies are demonstrably in place, the relevant lawyers and judges appointed, the committees ready to act and other requirements met.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst: yes, the wording in the treaty, its aspirations, may well be sufficient to satisfy the Supreme Court and its concerns, but we need to see those words become reality before the treaty is ratified.

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, ratification now, before implementation of the safeguards, could mean planes the next day—before the safeguards are in place and before the Supreme Court, if it were allowed to opine, which it will not be because of the clause, could say, “Yes, that is now a safe destination”. Parliament needs to ratify, and agree to ratify, the treaty before it becomes operational—as must Rwanda itself. The treaty, as opposed to the Bill, deals with what Rwanda will do to answer the Supreme Court’s concerns so that it can take responsibility for assessing asylum seekers and caring for them, before and after any decision is made.

There are many who have argued, and will argue, that under international law the UK should never hand over responsibility for those who seek asylum here because, as we have heard, it is not simply to process them but, if they are judged eligible, to award them asylum in Rwanda rather than in the UK. As the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Kerr, said, we are not offshoring consideration but offloading responsibility.

I am not going to enter the debate about whether the whole Rwanda process is right or wrong. Along with the committee’s report and many noble Lords who have spoken, I will focus on whether the treaty answers the concerns raised by our own domestic court—our highest court in the land, the Supreme Court and not some foreign court, as others seem to think. It was the Supreme Court that judged that Rwanda was not a safe place to send asylum seekers and therefore that rendering refugees there would be unlawful. It questioned whether Rwanda’s domestic procedures—its own rules, asylum processes and personnel—were up to handling migrants in accordance with our domestic law, as well as international law. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester said, by this treaty and the Bill the Government are substituting their own opinion on a matter of fact for that of the highest court in our land. If I read her correctly, indeed, she is challenging the Government to go back and ask for the court’s opinion.

As many others have said, there is no doubt that Rwanda wants to meet the expected standards, and in the treaty it has undertaken to provide the law, skills, training, monitoring and so forth that we would expect. I do not doubt its bona fides in this regard but, surely, our Government and Parliament need assurances that all those protections and provisions are actually in place before we ratify a treaty—a treaty by which people landing on our shores after difficult, trying and dangerous journeys, and, as my noble friend Lady Lister said, possible trauma in their home country, can be sent 4,000 miles away to a continent they may not know, and in the process lose all rights to claim asylum in the UK.

The International Agreements Committee has not said that the treaty should never be ratified. It has judged that the treaty should not be ratified

“until Parliament is satisfied that the protections it provides have been fully implemented”

by Rwanda and the safeguards, which many noble Lords have enumerated, are in place. We used the word “Parliament”; it is essential that the Commons should be able to decide whether the treaty should be ratified. Again, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, that it is a matter for them. But for them to be able to take that decision, the Government have to provide time in the Commons for a debate and a vote. The Commons’ own Home Affairs Committee has argued for that, so that the elected House can record its view on whether the treaty should be ratified at this point.

It seems particularly inappropriate, given that the 2010 Act specifically allows for a Commons vote, that the Government are not obliged to provide time for this in the Commons. Our usual channels are rather more facilitating. The Government will be entitled to ratify the treaty once it has been laid for 21 days on 31 January. I was not here in 2010, but some noble Lords here today were and I am certain that, when the 2010 Act was passed allowing for the House of Commons to take a view on ratification, it was never envisaged that that was a theoretical right, and it would depend on the Government giving time in the Commons for such a vote. It was in the wash-up, so I assume it was a bit of an oversight at that moment.

The 2010 Act is not fit for purpose. Today is the first test of one of its Sections, allowing us to at least give our opinions on the matter. It remains the case that the Commons can only defer, not decline, ratification. That would only be for 21 days; we are not talking about this being for months on end. As we have seen, both with Australia and possibly with this one, given that there is no requirement for the Government to make Commons time available for a debate and vote, they are effectively shutting off the one power given to the Commons in the Act.

Today, however, our decision is a simple one. We have been given the right to have this debate, and we have, through the Motion of my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, the opportunity to give our view about whether it should be ratified at this stage before we know whether all the procedures are in place. I think that is a judgment for us, and that judgment should be: not now, not today. The ratification should not take place until we have assurances from the Government that what is written in the treaty is ready to work and that Rwanda is ready to receive whatever number of migrants are sent there. I hope the House will support both the Motions.