Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between David Simmonds and Alison Thewliss

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I am coming to the end of my remarks.

The Government will not even listen to these people’s stories, so what will happen to them and where will they live? This Government seem to have no consideration for the trauma people have gone through, and now they are leaving them in immigration limbo forever in this ridiculous, expensive and unworkable system. The asylum system is broken, and we know who broke it. We know that an independent Scotland would treat people far more humanely than this Government ever will.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for setting out in detail the changes and amendments the Government have made, both on the amendment paper and in their approach, in response to the concerns raised and points made by many in the earlier stages of this legislation. I will address the points made about Lords amendments 1B and 7B, and briefly touch on a couple of other points that have arisen in the debate and that, certainly from my experience in the world of local government, continue to have a relevance and will need to be addressed in due course if this is going to take effect in the way that we wish it to.

I am a great enthusiast for the European convention on human rights, and I think it is important to acknowledge in the context of this debate that, since this House previously considered and debated this particular piece of legislation, there has been a further development in respect of rule 39 interim orders. In fact, the various bodies concerned with the operation of that convention, including the Court, have recognised the concerns caused to the UK Government and other member states of the ECHR by the way in which those judgments had been handed down. I have confirmed that they will be updating their procedures to ensure operation of such orders will be different in a way that reflects the concerns expressed by many in this House. I see that as evidence that the ECHR remains a living document and also that the concerns the UK Government have expressed are being taken seriously.

Many Members will have been slightly alarmed by the recent judgment handed down in respect of environmental legislation, and I note that British judge Tim Eicke, whose dissenting commentary on that judgment has been publicised widely, set out in detail why many of the issues raised by Members of this House in respect of this particular piece of legislation were also relevant in that context—the risk of perceived overreach of developing a living document to the point where it went beyond the level of consent which the original contracting parties had in mind and that that remained something that the court needed to be alive to. I am very conscious that, because of the way the convention operates in practice, it should be an accountable process—accountable to the Parliamentary Assembly, to the Congress, to the Council of Ministers, and ultimately to the member states.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between David Simmonds and Alison Thewliss

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I am not a lawyer, but I served as a magistrate in this country. It is always my pleasure to say that I belong to that even more despised race of human beings, the Tory MPs, and that I was formerly a banker.

I think we are right to have some degree of concern in respect of what is said in the Bill and the amendments about the Human Rights Act. This House needs to strike the correct balance. It is a fundamental principle of British justice, which dates back at least as far as the Saxons, that people may not be subject to a penalty unless they have had the opportunity to be brought before a court, a properly composed judicial authority. Therefore, we should be concerned at the idea that in the United Kingdom we would exempt a group of people from access to our law on the basis of the method of their arrival here.

However, we need to balance that against the fact that people are dying in the English channel, drowning in cold water, and gangs are profiting hugely from that, which is fuelling all kinds of other types of crime. To an extent, we are a victim of our previous success in that the improved security in northern France has created and massively exacerbated the problem we face. That, for me, balances up the risk to a loss of human rights: we need to ensure that we have a really effective deterrent in place to address the problem that has arisen from that earlier success.

It is and remains my view, which I expressed in the debates on the then Illegal Migration Bill, that the point at which we will establish full control of our borders is the point at which we add an asylum visa to all the other types of visas we have, so that there is a single safe and legal route, controlled by the British Government and the rules set by this House, and if people arrive on our shores to claim asylum without having gained that permission first, they are automatically ineligible regardless of their method of arrival. That would mirror the process we already have in place for people who want to come here to work, to study, to marry or to invest in the United Kingdom. We still have not yet put in place an effective process and system that would enable us to do that.

It is clearly crucial, as the weather will soon begin to improve, the smugglers will soon be looking to invest in their stock boats and more people’s lives will soon be put at risk, that we keep our eyes on the objective of returning to something more like the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which was described by the UNHCR as a “gold standard” of international refugee resettlement. That is the model on which we based our Afghan resettlement scheme, whatever logistical problems that experienced, and this House has recognised it as the way in which the UK wishes to play a part in refugee resettlement around the world. However, we need to ensure that we deal with the specific problem that arises: small boats in the channel. For all the debates and well-intentioned arguments that we have heard, the Bill, in its unamended form, strikes the best balance available to address that particular problem and ensure that no one else dies en route to seeking asylum here in the United Kingdom. For that reason, I will support the Bill, unamended.

[Alison Thewliss]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). It was refreshing to hear somebody on the Conservative Benches talking up the merits of an asylum visa. That would break the model of the people-smuggling gangs because it would give people a safe and legal route and safety and certainty. Nobody need be exploited by paying over everything that they own to get into a leaky dinghy in the channel if they could come here for safety and sanctuary by travelling as any of us would travel.

I understand from others in the Committee that Conservative Members are quite keen to wind up the debate early tonight because they are going to a Burns supper. I am not sure whether that is true, but it is certainly a rumour that I heard earlier. It made me think of some of the things that Robert Burns—I am a big fan of our national bard—might have to say to the Conservative party about the way in which it conducts its business. Let me start with:

“Man’s inhumanity to man,

Makes countless thousands mourn.”

I commend to the Committee the amendments tabled in my name, as well as those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I will first address clause 3 on the disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998. That Act was landmark legislation. It is woven into the fabric of our devolved institutions, and it underpins the Good Friday agreement. It should concern us all that a Government without any kind of mandate to do so start picking away the stitching. The Law Society said that the exclusion of the Human Rights Act to this extent is unprecedented.

Speaking of defending the rights of people to migrate, Robert Burns, who has a verse on just about everything, has one on the rights of highlanders against their lairds, who were not allowing them to migrate to Canada. He said:

“They! an’ be damned! what right hae they

To meat or sleep or light o’ day,

Far less to riches, pow’r or freedom,

But what your lordships please to gie them?”

We should give asylum seekers far more than this Government think they have a right to gie them.

Disapplying section 6 removes the obligation for courts and immigration officials to take into account human rights when assessing the safety of Rwanda. Disapplying section 3 limits the protections that courts can provide. Disapplying section 2 forces courts to ignore any European Court of Human Rights rulings of Rwanda as unsafe. Those are important protections: not only do they ensure people’s safety from Government, but they act as a check specifically on the Home Office—a Home Office that we know has long and consistent form in making serious mistakes with long-lasting and life-changing consequences. One need only reflect on the legacy of Windrush, TOEIC—the test of English for international communication—and the highly skilled migrant scandal to know the scale of Home Office incompetence. We need the courts to offer protection against the Home Office’s instinct to deport first and ask questions later.

Amendments 11 to 18 in the name of the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) make an already unjustifiable situation much, much worse. Liberty has stated that they effectively remove the possibility of securing any remedy—much less an effective one—for the breach or threatened breach of rights arising from removals to Rwanda on the basis that it is an unsafe country. Robert Burns said in his “Slave’s Lament”:

Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;

And alas! I am weary, weary O.”

I think we all feel that weariness about the circularity of the Government’s ridiculous arguments. It is unsafe for the refugees who get to come here from Rwanda, but somehow, it is safe enough for us to send people to Rwanda. It makes absolutely no sense.