Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

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

In fact, the professor of international law at the University of Oxford, Professor Richard Ekins, whom many of us respect highly, has said that to change the current approach is not to breach the rule of law but to defend the rule of law, because we, as signatories to the European convention, expressly objected to the approach, which has been conferred by activist judges outside the rule of law. We should not be following through with this.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

At least the right hon. Gentleman has the strength to be vocal about what he actually believes, which is more than can be said for many other Conservative Members. He has made it clear that he could not care less about what the European convention on human rights says. Will he go further and openly say that this vile, dangerous and inhumane Bill has one purpose, which is to flout international law, and that his party could not care less about the human rights of the most vulnerable individuals?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is a pity, but I cannot say I am surprised, that the hon. Gentleman sinks to those depths and does not present a proper legal argument. Had he been listening to me, he would have heard that I did not say anything of the sort. The case that I am advancing is far from an undermining of the European convention on human rights, although there are many who might wish to leave it. We are defending the original intent of the European convention on human rights, and the rule of law, because it is not sustainable for activist judges in Strasbourg to bend and change the original intent of the signatories to that convention, in ways that they would never have accepted, by inventing new powers. I want us to defend the rule of law, and in this case it is best defended by saying that the Court’s interim measures are not binding on the UK, either on the domestic plane or on Ministers. It is better that we simply return to the position before 2005. In fact, I think most of this happened under a Labour Government.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but we have made it absolutely clear that the Bill is unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful. The Opposition will never support any piece of legislation that is guilty of those three sins—that is as clear as crystal to us. With pride we voted against the Bill on Second Reading, with pride we voted against the amendments that would only make it even worse, and with pride we will vote against it on Third Reading.

[Imran Hussain]

My hon. Friend is right about the purpose of the Bill, which is one of the most flagrant attempts to directly flout international human rights law that we have seen. Does he agree that that is the only purpose of the Bill before us today?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful intervention. It is difficult to determine the true purpose of the Bill these days, because it has become embroiled in various Tory internal wars, fights between factions and certain people’s leadership ambitions, but we know it will not stop the Tory small boats chaos. It is that chaos that has to be stopped. The people smuggler gangs are trading in human misery and must be stopped, but we need practical, sensible, pragmatic measures, rather than the headline-chasing gimmicks we have seen from this Government over the last years and months.

The irony of the announcement yesterday about the judges was that, by definition, it is an admission of failure, because it recognises that the Bill will fail to prevent the legal challenges and appeals that the judges will be working on. The Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday was further evidence of the profoundly troubling way in which the Government are prepared to disregard and disrespect our judiciary. I urge Members on all Benches to take careful note of what Sue Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, told the Justice Committee yesterday:

“I’m afraid that this headline draws matters of judicial responsibility into the political arena…matters of deployment of judges, the allocation of work for judges and the use of courtrooms is exclusively a matter for the judiciary and, more specifically, a matter for myself and the senior president of the tribunals. It’s really important that people understand that clear division.”

There speaks a true democrat.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been closely following these proceedings not just throughout ping-pong but throughout his time in this role. He knows deeply the interplay and the interrelationship between the two countries.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I will make some progress, as I have given way too much. I have taken criticism for the number of times I give way.

On Lords amendment 10F, as my noble Friend Lord Sharpe and I have said previously, this Government greatly value the contribution of those who have supported us and our armed forces overseas, which is why there are legal routes for them to come to the United Kingdom. There is already existing legislation, including but not limited to the Illegal Migration Act 2023, under which the Secretary of State has a range of powers to consider cases and specific categories of persons. I have already made a clear commitment on behalf of His Majesty’s Government that we will consider how removal would apply under existing immigration legislation, which means that, once the review of Afghan relocations and assistance policy decisions for those with credible links to Afghan specialist units is concluded, the Government will not remove to Rwanda those who receive a positive eligibility decision as a result of the review, where they are already in the United Kingdom as of today. This is an important point, and it is a point that I emphasise to the House today.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

I will advise the other place to do what it is doing, as a revising Chamber: standing up for its constitutional obligations to look at every piece of legislation that we send to it from this place and take the measures that it feels strongly about. This set of amendments in no way prevents this policy from being enacted or flights from taking off; what we are seeing is simply those Members in the other place doing their constitutional duty.

The plan is not only completely unworkable, but shockingly unaffordable. It is likely to cost an astonishing £2 million per deportee. To add insult to injury, it puts the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who are deemed inadmissible and yet cannot be sent to Rwanda, because of the lack of capacity there, into limbo, in expensive hotels, stuck in a perma-backlog at a staggering cost to the taxpayer. This is a dreadful policy and it is shameful politics.

When the Bill was first introduced, the Prime Minister described it as “emergency legislation”, yet the Government’s management of the parliamentary timetable would suggest that the opposite is the case. Ministers had ample opportunity to schedule debates and votes on 25 and 26 March, before the Easter recess, but they chose not to do so. Indeed, there was plenty of scope to accelerate the process last week. People could be forgiven for concluding that the truth of the matter is that Ministers have been deliberately stringing this out for two reasons: first, because they thought they could make some grubby political capital from the delay; and, secondly, because they have been scrambling to organise a flight and all the other logistics that are not in place. The Prime Minister, in his somewhat whinging and buck-passing press conference this morning, admitted that the first flight to Rwanda will not take off until—checks notes—July.

Today is 22 April. We were initially told that this was “emergency legislation”, yet we are now being told that there will be a 10 to 12-week delay in getting the first flight off the ground. I do not know what your definition of an emergency is, Madam Deputy Speaker, but a 10 to 12-week response time seems a bit of a stretch. Given that none of the amendments to the Bill could be seen as wrecking amendments by any stretch of the imagination, it is difficult to see why those on the Government Benches could not just accept the amendments and get on with it. The fundamental point is that not one of the amendments that have been coming to us from the other place would prevent planes from getting into the air.

Turning first to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord Hope, this amendment simply reflects what the Government have already said: that court judgments are taken at a moment in time and that a country may well be safe at a given point, but not at another. If the Bill passes unamended, this House will, in essence, be asserting that Rwanda will be a safe country for ever more. Surely the indisputable lesson of recent times is that we live in a dangerous and turbulent world, where authoritarians are on the march and the rules-based order is under threat. Who knows what might happen in Rwanda in the future, or in any other country for that matter?

[Imran Hussain]

The Minister made the point that we have entered into a treaty and been told that Rwanda is safe. Does my hon. Friend agree that sets a very serious and dangerous precedent for the future, because that may not always be the case? How will we be able to work our way out of any unsafe country where we have such a treaty in place?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One reason we are seeing such a strong pushback from the other place is precisely that its Members are deeply uncomfortable with trying to make something true that is not true. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Rwanda is not a safe country, yet we are being asked to legislate to say that it is. We can legislate to say that the sky is green and the grass is blue, but that does not make it so, and that is why we have such an important point of principle in the Bill.