Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

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

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

I remind Members that in Committee, Members should not address the Chair as Deputy Speaker. Please use our names when addressing the Chair, or Madam Chair, Chair, Madam Chairman or Mr Chairman are also acceptable, so there are lots of options.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

What about Dame Rosie?

[The First Deputy Chairman]

That is my name— I mentioned that.

Clause 2

Safety of the Republic of Rwanda

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[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I rise to speak in favour of the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash).

A single question—at least on the Conservative Benches—hangs over this debate: what works? It does not matter whether this is the most robust piece of immigration legislation that we have ever considered. That is not relevant. It does not matter whether this is a suitable compromise between this faction or that. That might be a noble aim, but it is not what we are here to do on behalf of our constituents today. What matters is whether this scheme works. Why does that matter? It matters because illegal migration is doing untold damage to our country. It is costing us billions of pounds. It is exploiting tens of thousands of people. It is leaving a trail of human misery across Europe, north Africa and beyond. People are drowning in the English channel and will continue to do so month after month. We must fix this problem. We in this House have the power to do so, and the responsibility is on our shoulders. The question is: are we willing to do it.

The current Bill does not work. The test of whether it works is not whether we can get a few symbolic flights off in the months ahead, with a small number of illegal migrants on them. The test is whether we can create the kind of sustainable deterrent that we set out to achieve— the sustainable deterrent that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) set out to achieve when she secured this groundbreaking deal with Rwanda. It is the kind of deterrent that protects not just this country for generations to come from the scourge of illegal migration, but the whole continent of Europe. I can tell all right hon. and hon. Members that, having spoken to almost every Interior Minister and Immigration Minister not just in Europe, but in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey, they all ask, “When will you get this policy up and running? Will it work?” And they want it to work. They know that if we can create a sustainable deterrent, we will stop people coming, we will secure Europe’s borders and we will save lives. In an age of mass migration, this is one of the most important challenges that we face.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman about one thing: this Bill will not work. I do not think it will work if it includes the amendments that he has tabled, either. That is because he and I have come to a completely different position on the nature of the deterrence and whether it would work at all. It seems to me self-evident that there must be an enormous deterrent if you have to get in a tiny boat, risking your life as a pregnant woman with children beside you, having paid thousands of pounds to a vile, despicable people trafficker. What evidence does he have that this plan, this gimmick, is any more of a deterrent than that?

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Gentleman were right, hundreds of thousands of people would not be making that very journey every year. Millions of people in the world want to make that journey. There are thousands of people in France seeking to pay people smugglers to come to our country. The only way we will stop that is if we break the people smugglers’ business model once and for all, so that it is clear beyond doubt that if people come to this country, they will be detained and swiftly removed to Rwanda or another safe country.

Where the hon. Gentleman is wrong is that he, like those on the Labour Front Bench, believes completely erroneously that we can arrest our way out of this problem. The National Crime Agency does not support them in that contention, and I have not seen any evidence that that will work. Nobody who has looked into this problem believes that the fungible and complex gangs that stretch across Europe and beyond, which import boats for next to nothing from China, Bulgaria and Turkey, can just be arrested out of existence. Everyone says the same thing: “Create a deterrent.” That is what the Rwanda policy does.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way again to the hon. Gentleman. Let me move forward and speak more directly to our amendments, because that is the purpose of today.

The amendments tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone are in four groups, two of which will be discussed today and two tomorrow. They seek to address the evident flaws of the Bill, and they represent the last opportunity for us to get this policy right. I shall speak directly to mine, and my hon. Friend can speak to the one that he leads on. Mine speak to individual claims. This is a point I have made time and again.

All my experience at the Home Office teaches me that every single illegal migrant who comes to this country will try every possible way to avoid being removed. We know that; that is what they do today. It is human nature that people would do that. We have to legislate for human nature, not against it. Every legal representative and lefty lawyer will try everything they can to support those claims. We see it every time, and experience teaches us that.

The Bill improves the situation; it makes it tighter, but in respect of only the general safety of Rwanda, not an individual’s circumstance.

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[Robert Jenrick]

On the hon. Lady’s first point, we have had this argument many times before, and she is completely wrong. This country is one of the world’s most generous countries in supporting those in need around the world. Since 2015 we have issued more than half a million visas on humanitarian grounds, more than at any time in our history. On her point about my amendment, it is not correct to say that we would not enable people to challenge on their individual circumstances; they could, but those challenges could not be suspensive. Individuals would arrive in the UK and within days—which is critical to the success of the scheme—they would be removed to Rwanda. There they could bring forward claims as they might wish, but it would not block the flights, and that is critical. Without that, the scheme will simply not succeed.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

The amendment also says there very narrow grounds on which individuals will not be put on flights, grounds that the Home Office is very used to dealing with through fitness to travel requirements. That is a concept that is well known and understood and I am certain it would work.

What does the amendment do that is different? It narrows down the reasons for which individuals could make claims and makes the scheme legally and operationally workable for the first time. We have tried to be constructive in tabling amendments. The Prime Minister set a test for me, and for anyone who shares my determination to tackle this issue, as follows: that he would accept any amendment, whether or not it strengthened the Bill, if there were respectable legal arguments in international law in their favour. We can argue about whether that test is the right one. Personally, I feel very strongly that there are times when contested notions of international law should not surpass either parliamentary sovereignty or, above all, the interests of our constituents, and border security and national security are the prime responsibilities of any Government. But that was the test, and we have met the test.

We instructed a very eminent lawyer, John Larkin KC, former Attorney General of Northern Ireland, to provide us with an opinion. The opinion says that each and every one of the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone are compliant with international law. Unless the goalposts have been shifted by the Government, I see no reason why the Prime Minister and the Minister could not accept the amendments and enable us to strengthen this Bill once and for all.

In conclusion, at the outset I said there was one question hanging over this debate: what works? However, there is a further question: how much are we willing to do to stop the boats? How willing are we to take on the vested interests, balance the trade-offs and take the robust steps that will actually work? The only countries in the world that have fixed this problem, latterly Australia and Greece, have been willing to take the most robust action. Are we? I am. I want to stop the boats and secure our borders.

This is a difficult issue, but we are not a parish council struggling with some kind of intractable legal problem. We are a sovereign Parliament. The power is in our hands. We have agency. The law is our servant, not our master. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support the amendments in my name and the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and create a scheme that works. That is what our constituents expect of us and that is the promise that the Prime Minister has made to them and the whole country.