Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I can reassure my right hon. and learned Friend that that is absolutely not the intention of the Bill. The deeming clause is specifically about the safety of Rwanda, because of our response to their lordships’ position at the Supreme Court hearing. We are not seeking to redefine through domestic legislation international law.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

If the right hon. Gentleman is right and the treaty with Rwanda meets the concerns of the Supreme Court, why is this Bill necessary? If Rwanda is now a safe country as a result of the treaty, why is this highly controversial Bill, which is clearly causing great problems in his own parliamentary party, necessary?

[James Cleverly]

We are putting forward legislation that will be clear and unambiguous, so as to support the treaty. The treaty addresses the concerns raised by their lordships.

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[Alison Thewliss]

I acknowledge that different lawyers will have different opinions. In its briefing, the Law Society of England and Wales says that the Government are being disingenuous in what they are claiming, and I will take their word for it.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) cites various judges, but the most supreme court in the United Kingdom is the UK Supreme Court, and it was very clear in the first Miller case that, although parliamentary sovereignty might mean that the law can be changed internally, this Parliament cannot legislate its way out of its international obligations. Does my hon. Friend agree that, no matter what various judges may have said at various times, it is a recent massive constitutional case of the UK Supreme Court that we should look to on this issue?

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct, and has knowledge of many of these issues. It is important to reflect on those cases and what they actually mean, rather than what Government Members wish they meant.

The Bill declares Rwanda safe in all circumstances. In so doing, it undermines the rule of law and the separation of powers, preventing the courts from establishing their own facts and driving a sleigh and a squad of reindeer through the principle of restraint. My tortured metaphor ends here because, far from being Santa, the Home Secretary makes the Grinch look generous; he truly does have a heart that is two sizes too small.

The treaty creates new rules for Rwanda but, in reality, nothing has changed in the weeks since the judgment. Lords Reed and Lloyd-Jones said that

“intentions and aspirations do not necessarily correspond to reality: the question is whether they are achievable in practice.”

The Supreme Court found that Rwanda has thus failed to meet international obligations and is unlikely to meet additional ones. There is no evidence that the long-term culture shift required is likely to happen quickly. Rwanda processed only 228 decisions on asylum claims in 2020, and rejected claims from countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran and Eritrea.

I do not want to get dragged into the merits or otherwise of Rwanda as a nation, as there is a far broader principle in play. If we start to offload our international responsibilities to a third country—any third country—we are effectively surrendering our influence over what happens next. This Government themselves have become the people traffickers, sending human beings offshore against their will as if they were some kind of waste to be processed rather than human beings alike in dignity. There are real concerns about the impact that this flagrant disregard for international co-operation could have on trade policy, the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework. The implications of what is happening here today could be far-reaching and long-lasting across many aspects of all our lives.

Let me move to cost. Quite typical of the way that this Tory Government run their business, there has been secrecy over the cost. Yesterday, the permanent secretary was finally forced to reveal the additional £100 million payment to Rwanda, after the figures showed up in some International Monetary Fund paperwork. That is on top of £140 million the previous year and £50 million to come next year, for a scheme that thus far has seen more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers flown to Rwanda. It will cost £169,000 per asylum seeker—significantly more than if they were processed in the UK and allowed to rebuild their lives here and contribute to society, as so many dearly wish to do.

We all know that the capacity of the deal makes it practically impossible. The estimated capacity of around 200 would mean that the probability of being renditioned to Rwanda is one in 230. If the UK Government were to remove everyone who crossed in a small boat last year, it would cost £7.7 billion. That would be an obscene use of public funds at any time, but particularly so in a cost of living crisis. Then there is the ongoing problem, which the Government are failing to address, of those people who have arrived and will not be removed. They are forever stuck in immigration limbo, with their cases deemed inadmissible. At what cost? Where will they stay? What will they do for the rest of their lives?

A further danger of the Bill is that it will force people into even riskier behaviour. The Refugee Council has stated that almost everyone who arrives in the UK does so after being intercepted by the UK coastguard, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution or Border Force, and many actively contact those agencies asking to be rescued. The Bill makes it far less likely that they will do so. They will take more dangerous routes and they will not seek assistance, and the inevitable result is that many more will die in the channel or in the back of refrigerated lorries. The Bill will also leave people at the mercy of exploitative people traffickers. The Home Affairs Committee has already found that

“the fight against human trafficking is, in practice, no longer a priority for the UK Government”.

The Bill, and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 that came before it, make that worse.

The treaty also states that there is nothing to stop people leaving Rwanda once they are removed there, regardless of anything Ministers may claim. The BBC, on its visit to the Gashora refugee camp in Rwanda, found that those who had been moved there under other schemes did not wish to stay:

“Of the almost 2,000 people who have been relocated to the transit camp in Gashora since it was set up in 2019, none opted to stay in Rwanda when given the option, preferring instead to move to another country.”

So what do we have? We have endless failed policies. We have the ramping up of tensions through rhetoric. We have ineffective legislation. We have the overruling of judges. We have the abolition altogether of the asylum system. We have the undermining of human rights. It is like the TV series “Years and Years” on steroids.

It does not have to be this way. Together with Refugees published this week a clear alternative to fixing the broken system and keeping people safe. Ministers could not be less interested. The response from the right wing? To pillory Gary Lineker for having the temerity to speak his mind. The Scottish Government recently published a paper setting out an alternative in Scotland to this ineffective and failing system, ending the hostile environment and ensuring that humane, fair and compassionate refugee and asylum policies are a priority.

We should never forget the traumas and unimaginable suffering that lead people to flee their homes. They are people, just like us. Were it happening to us, we would all hope to be treated far better than those on the Government Benches would have it, and to find safety and sanctuary when we needed it most. It was on that principle that the refugee convention was created. We should stand up for that principle today and reject this cruel, unworkable and illegal Bill.

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The recent Rwanda case is the most recent case on matters relating to parliamentary intentions, the supremacy of law and the rule of law, and the proper application of the rule of law. One claimant—and it requires only one claimant—had his claim dismissed by the Supreme Court on the grounds that parliamentary sovereignty had already undermined his case. The case was about retained EU law, but it actually undermined the case of that claimant. That was a clear indication that the Court was going to take the sovereignty of Parliament first, and that is the key issue in this debate.

It has been said by the courts that sovereignty trumps international law. It is absolutely clear that that is the case. Only this year, the House of Lords Constitution Committee, in paragraph 58 of its report on the rule of law, stated:

“Parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament can legislate contrary to the UK’s obligations under international law.”

That was a reinforcement of the judgments I mentioned in an intervention, including those of Lord Hoffmann, Lord Bingham and Lord Denning. Our greatest jurists have all come to exactly the same conclusion. The President of the current Supreme Court, which dealt with the Rwanda case, said the same thing in paragraph 144 of its judgment in that case:

“the principle of legality does not permit a court to disregard an unambiguous expression of Parliament’s intention such as that with which we are concerned”.

So, the position is completely clear and those cases—

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Sir William Cash]

Before the hon. and learned Lady seeks to intervene, I want to get this quite clear. The Miller case was on a different set of circumstances. Not only that, but it has been overtaken by subsequent constitutional judgments by the Supreme Court itself. I want to quote now from Lord—

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir William Cash]

I will give way. The hon. and learned Lady can say what she likes.

[Joanna Cherry]

It is refreshing to know that my article 10 rights have not been withdrawn yet. The point is this. The hon. Gentleman may be right, as a matter of domestic law of England that the sovereignty of the English Parliament allows England to change its domestic law internally. [Interruption.] He may be right; it is in dispute as we know. What he is definitely not right about is that this Parliament cannot domestically legislate to take us out of our international legal obligations without doing so clearly. The Supreme Court has been crystal clear about that. There are two separate matters here: domestic law and international law. If the Government want to breach their international legal obligations, am I not right, based on Supreme Court authority, that they will actually have to withdraw from the treaties to which they are committed?

[Sir William Cash]

Absolutely. I am glad that the hon. and learned Lady mentioned the fact that an unambiguous statement—an explicit statement, as Lord Sumption puts it—on the position in interpreting the intentions of Parliament carries enormous weight and, in fact, overrides international law obligations.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir William Cash]

No. I am going to read out—

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir William Cash]

No, I will not give way.

I am going to quote directly from Lord Hoffman himself in relation to an ECHR case. [Interruption.] This is the case of R. v. Lyons 2003. He states:

“the Convention is an international treaty and the ECtHR is an international court with jurisdiction under international law to interpret and apply it. But the question…is a matter of English law. And it is firmly established that international treaties do not form part of English law and that English courts have no jurisdiction to interpret or apply them…Parliament may pass a law which mirrors the terms of the treaty and in that sense incorporates the treaty into English law. But even then the metaphor of incorporation may be misleading. It is not the treaty but the statute which forms part of English law. And English courts will not (unless the statute expressly so provides) be bound to give effect to interpretations of the treaty by an international court, even though the United Kingdom is bound by international law to do so. Of course there is a strong presumption in favour of interpreting English law…in a way which does not place the United Kingdom in breach of an international obligation”—

but, and this is absolutely crucial—

“The sovereign legislator in the United Kingdom is Parliament. If Parliament has plainly laid down the law, it is the duty of the courts to apply it, whether that would involve the Crown in breach of an international treaty or not.”

That is what the law is. That is a straightforward interpretation and statement.

There is an issue that I want to come to. I praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for his courage and for a brilliant speech, and endorse every word he said, but I would also like to say this: we want the Government to succeed in their legislation, but it has to be legislation that works. As I have explained, in relation to the Supreme Court, the whole question turns on the intention of Parliament and the sovereignty of Parliament. It is a question of justiciability as well. I put to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Illegal Migration that, when it comes to it, we can make changes to the Bill. It is possible to extend the scope of the Bill, and I hope he will have discussions with the Clerk of Public Bills, with whom I have had discussions already.

It is absolutely clear that the scope of the Bill will determine the amendments, whether from the Government or Back Benchers. It matters that we are entitled to have a proper debate on this fundamental question about international law and its relationship to sovereignty. The Bill, if enacted after Royal Assent, could be scuppered by one claimant and by the courts if the words of the Act are not clearly expressed and explicit in ruling out any such claim, for example under clause 4 or any other heading, such as rule 39 and all the other things we will no doubt trot out in Committee if we get there. We therefore have to address the question of the scope of the Bill, because that is the way that Parliament functions. That is the way Mr Speaker must decide on the selection of amendments, so it is crucial.

There is much more that I could say, but I let me end by drawing attention to the global issue. The fact is that throughout the European Union there is a real problem. They are tearing their hair out, because on the one hand they have the charter of fundamental rights, and on the other they are bound by qualified majority voting to comply with the situation, which is actually not the same for us. We have a unique opportunity, in our parliamentary system and with the sovereignty of Parliament, to be able to make amendments and provide domestic law that will satisfy the voters of this country.

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[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

Yes, it is. It was changed two or three years later, but in the Nasseri case before the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, their lordships upheld, as a matter of law, the deeming of countries to be safe and within the law. Indeed, they went on to say—Lord Hoffmann being one of them, I think—that while Parliament deemed it such, there were plainly risks if the Home Office did not keep an eye on the state and conditions in the countries that were thus deemed, but otherwise it complied with the law and the courts would respect Parliament’s decision.

What is being said in this case is that a Supreme Court decision has already held Rwanda not to be a safe country for the purposes of the guarantee against refoulement. It is said that for this House to overrule the decision of the Supreme Court in such an individual case is constitutionally undesirable and contrary to fundamental constitutional principle. I do not agree with that analysis. First, it is open to this Parliament at any point to take steps to reverse the effect of a judicial ruling—that is the consequence of parliamentary supremacy. It is clear that Parliament should be restrained in doing so in cases, for example, where individual rights in a case to reverse a determination made in favour of an individual would plainly be contrary to fundamental constitutional principle, but that is not what we are doing here. We are seeking to do precisely what the Labour Government did in 2004. We are saying that Parliament, legitimately weighing the evidence, has concluded that Rwanda will not engage in the refoulement of those sent to it. That is something the courts have already accepted. It is something that it is open to this House to do, and it is something that, in my judgment, it is perfectly legitimate for Parliament to undertake. It would be different if it were to reverse a decision against an individual.

But even if I am wrong about that, and even if as a matter of constitutional convention it were undesirable for this House to reverse the effect on a question of principle—namely, whether Rwanda is safe for the purposes of refoulement—the facts have changed. There is now a binding treaty, and it is binding not only in international law but in domestic Rwandan law. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has rightly analysed the situation of international law. In this country we have a dualist jurisdiction where treaties are not self-executing, but in Rwanda the treaty is self-executing, so it will be binding on the Rwandan Government not only as a matter of international law, but as a matter of their own law.

That treaty contains a range of important safeguards, including, as a longstop, the fact that no individual removed to Rwanda from this country can be removed to a third country without the consent of the United Kingdom. If that longstop is in place, if the treaty is binding in Rwandan law and if it is binding, as it is, in international law, then I would suggest that there is simply no credible risk of refoulement if treaties and legal rules mean anything in the United Kingdom and in Rwanda. If the risk of refoulement has been removed, then there is nothing inappropriate in this House determining, as the Labour Government did in 2004, that Rwanda is safe for the purposes of refoulement. So I say to the House that this is appropriate, and it is a judgment that we can make as a House to take the step that we are now taking.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

I cannot give way; I do not have time.

Let me move to the third and most important question, which relates to the exclusion of access to courts. This Bill carefully preserves the right of individuals to come to court in extreme cases of individual justice. I listened, impressed, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and I submit to those who think the Bill goes far enough that we cannot sacrifice the principle of access to a court. If we eliminated it entirely, not only would the Bill collapse because it would be interminably impeded in the House of Lords, but it would probably lead to the Rwandan Government withdrawing; and it is conceivable that the courts could entertain, for the first time, a complex challenge about the right of this Parliament to do away with fundamental constitutional principles such as access to a court. The supremacy of this House does not necessarily mean that it does not operate within a complex system of constitutional institutions, each of which has its own place as a component part in that system.

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[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I feel as if I have been sucked back in time to listen to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech again. I represent a multicultural constituency containing many immigrants, many asylum seekers and many refugees, and I can tell the House that my constituents do not support the Bill. At the weekend, all sorts of people stopped me in the street to tell me that they hoped I would speak against it because they found it repugnant. Perhaps the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) needs to inform his constituents that the reason they live in the conditions he described, and the reason they have such low wages, is not immigration, but more than 10 years of Tory government.

What I intend to focus on is the law, not as a lefty lawyer but as someone who tries to do what lawyers are bound to do—look dispassionately at the law. Those who listen to the public debate about the Bill, in the media at any rate, could be forgiven for thinking that the debate about its legality was confined to the competing tribes within the Conservative party, but fortunately it is not. There are sources of advice independent of the Government and independent of their querulous Back Benchers, and it is on them that I want to focus.

This morning, the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights published a briefing based on the independent legal advice that has been given to the Committee. That independent legal advice is for the benefit of all Members of Parliament and peers, which is why it has been published. I have also had occasion to consider the briefing published by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. They are both important, because the Government are trying to position themselves as having stopped short of breaching international law, but those independent briefings make it clear that they have not. The Bill undermines the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers, which are supposedly central to the British constitution, as well as undermining various of our international obligations.

I commend to hon. Members a reading of the independent legal advice that has been given to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I will take a few highlights from it. Requiring the courts to conclude that Rwanda is safe, even though the evidence has been assessed by the UK’s highest courts to establish that it is not, is a remarkable thing for a piece of legislation to do. If the Government were so confident that Rwanda has suddenly become safe in the last month, as I said earlier, why pass this Bill at all?

Another point made in the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ legal analysis is that disapplying the Human Rights Act is very significant. If human rights protections are disapplied when they cause problems for a policy goal, they lose the fundamental and universal quality that characterises them, and that is arguably particularly the case when they are disapplied in respect of a particular group—in this case, migrants who have come to the UK without prior permission. In my own aside, I will just remind the House that history shows that when a country withdraws human rights from a particular group, it is on a particularly slippery slope.

The independent legal advice to the Joint Committee also makes it clear that, crucially, no matter what the legislation says, it can affect only domestic law. That was the point of my intervention on the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) earlier. As the Supreme Court explained only a month ago, the United Kingdom is prohibited from allowing refoulement under the refugee convention and the ECHR, as well as under the UN convention against torture and the international covenant on civil and political rights. Passing this Bill will not change the fact that we are signed up to those obligations in international law, and it will not change the fact that we are breaching our international legal obligations, so the Conservative Members—particularly the lawyers—who have convinced themselves that it is okay to go through the Lobby and vote for the Second Reading of this Bill tonight are simply wrong. If they look at the independent legal advice from the JCHR and the Bingham Centre on the Rule of Law, they will see that that is the case.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Is it not a fundamental problem with the Bill that so many people see it as punishing the exploited and not the exploiter? If the Government were serious about this issue, that is exactly what they would focus on.

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[Joanna Cherry]

Indeed. It has been suggested by a number of speakers this afternoon that no alternatives to the Bill have been suggested, but alternatives have been suggested, including a serious attempt to break the model of the people smugglers and proper international co-operation. Unfortunately, because of Brexit and the Government’s attitude towards international law, the United Kingdom’s opportunities for international co-operation are becoming few and far between. People no longer trust us and we do not have the same avenues for international co-operation as we used to have. Creating safe and legal routes is the way to do it. That is what we used to have. People who are seeking asylum are not seeking asylum illegally; they come across the channel because they have no other way to seek asylum except by coming to this country, so we should create legal routes.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

[Joanna Cherry]

I will in a moment.

I want to say something about how this Bill impinges on Scotland. Conservative Members talk about their mandate and about their constituents wanting this Bill. I want to make it clear that people in Scotland do not want it. This is not the approach that we want in Scotland. It is therefore particularly egregious that the Bill seeks to oust the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts in relation to such fundamental matters as human rights and the basic tenets of our constitution. Scotland’s system of civil justice is a devolved matter under the Scotland Act and therefore the preserve of the Scottish Parliament, yet I do not see any legislative consent motion being sought, despite the fact that the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts is being ousted. Perhaps even more importantly—and this is rather important to us Scots lawyers—the authority and privileges of the Court of Session, including its inherent supervisory jurisdiction, are protected by article XIX of the Treaty of Union, which includes the nobile officium of the Court of Session, a power that exists to give remedies where otherwise there would be none. That is arguably also threatened by this Bill.

I know the Government are not terribly interested in Scotland, but I wonder whether they have applied their mind to whether there should have been a legislative consent motion, and to whether this legislation is in breach of the Treaty of Union by ousting the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. I see the Minister looking at his notes, and I would be particularly interested to hear him answer those points in his summing up.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

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

[Robert Jenrick]

That is not the point I am making. Once again, the hon. Lady is not listening. The point I am making is not about the virtues or otherwise of our membership of the European convention on human rights, which I have said is a matter for another day. The discussion on the amendment is simply about whether we believe it is right that the Strasbourg Court should confer upon itself, without our consent, the ability to impose binding injunctions. There is a separate question, not unrelated, as to how those injunctions are made. I would like to believe that most of us agree that doing them late at night with an unnamed judge, without giving reasons, raises serious rule-of-law questions. Perhaps the hon. Lady disagrees with that, but the purpose of the amendment is to enable us to return to a previous position. [Interruption.] She now has her clip for social media, so the rest of the debate is largely irrelevant.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I want to address the point of law in respect of the Strasbourg Court. The difficulty with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument is that, under the scheme of the convention, the Court is the body that determines the meaning of the convention. Not just in the 2005 case but consistently thereafter, the Court has held that failing to comply with interim measures amounts to a breach of article 34 of the convention. That is the legal difficulty with his argument, is it not?

[Robert Jenrick]

No. There may be a good-faith disagreement between the hon. and learned Lady and me, but I do not believe that international bodies and courts should be able to grow organically as a result of the decisions of activist judges. This is a matter of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. We in the United Kingdom chose to be a signatory to the European convention on human rights, and I do not think it is correct that the Court gave itself this power in 2005.

I return to how this matter relates to the policy. First, let us cast our minds back to the summer of 2022. A rule 39 interim measure was imposed by the Court to ground a flight and to prevent us from proceeding with the policy. Do we think that anything has changed in the months and years that have passed? My conjecture is no. We will be in exactly the same position in a few months’ time unless we take action.

We included a provision in the Illegal Migration Act that merely restated the orthodox constitutional and legal position that, in theory, it is at a Minister’s discretion whether to comply with a rule 39 interim measure. Underlying that was the Government’s legal advice—which I believe to be erroneous, for the reasons I have just described—that they would be in breach of international law not to do so. As far as I am aware, the Attorney General and the Government Legal Service therefore continue to advise Ministers and civil servants that a decision not to support a rule 39 interim measure would be illegal and in breach of the ministerial code.

My best recollection was that no Minister should give any indication that they would ignore a rule 39 interim measure. The Attorney General’s position, as I understand it, is that there is a very small number of cases in which it is conceivable that one could do so, but that is a vanishingly slim number of cases and situations. As night follows day, if that position were to continue, we would find ourselves in exactly the same situation as we were in during the summer of 2022. I do not want to be in that position. It would be a huge breach of trust with the British public if we knew that something was likely—if we watched this train not speeding down the tracks but moving slowly towards us—and had ample opportunity to resolve the issue, but chose to do absolutely nothing. We have kicked the can down the road and now there is no more road—at the end of the road there is a precipice. We are moving forward with a scheme, but we do not know how to implement it. We are pulling the pin out of the grenade, but we have not got the guts to throw it.

We need to resolve this and the way to do that is simple: the Government could accept the amendment that stands in my name and those of many others. To do so is not to say that we are leaving the European convention on human rights. There are respectable international law arguments behind the amendment, and I would wager that the Government would have no difficulty in finding senior King’s counsel and former judges in the other place who would support my position—and the Government’s position, should they choose to adopt it.

The Government could change some of the accompanying minor documentation, such as the civil service code and the ministerial code. I would not place too much emphasis on those. At the end of the day, this is not about civil servants; it is about Ministers and the law. A good captain does not blame his sailors. It is on us: we have the power to fix this and we have the responsibility. So let us use the opportunity we have today with the amendment to resolve this situation. If we do not, we will be here in two months’ time, the Strasbourg Court will impose a rule 39 measure and the Government will be scrambling around trying to resolve the situation, and they will have no one else to blame.

I am here to help the Government, to ensure that this policy works, because I, like everyone, at least on this side of the Committee, believe passionately that we have to make this policy work and to stop the boats. So I strongly encourage my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, and indeed the Prime Minister, to support the amendment, and I encourage everyone else on both sides of the Committee who shares my determination to fix this problem to do exactly the same.

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[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know, Dame Rosie, you would not want me to abuse the privilege you have given us to range slightly more widely in this debate to range quite that widely, so I will not. He is right that I am making a fairly precise point about what this language appears to me to say. I stress that I do not think it is necessary to include this language in order to achieve the objective that the Government have set in this legislation—with which I have some sympathy, although their methods make me nervous, and I make no bones about that. Worse than unnecessary, it presents some dangers that I do not think we need to present in order to achieve the Government’s objectives.

I suspect my hon. and learned Friend the Minister will tell me in a few moments’ or hours’ time that I do not need to worry about any of this. He may give two reasons for that. First, he may say that the Bill does not mean what I think it means. You will forgive me for saying this, Dame Rosie, but I am increasingly troubled that in this place we answer points such as mine by saying, “Yes, well, it doesn’t really mean that, and we don’t really mean that by it.” We should be concerned as legislators with what the language we are passing into law actually says, not what we meant to say. I am concerned that what this language says is not in accordance with what I am sure the Minister wants to do or what the Government want to do, but it might none the less have that effect, or be taken by others to mean the things that I am concerned about.

When the Bill says what a safe country is, it is potentially confusing two different things. One is deeming our own compliance with international law, which I do not think any country should be able to do, and the other is saying that Parliament resolves to do something even if it contravenes the UK’s international law obligations, which, going back to the previous intervention by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), I do think the British Parliament can do. We as a legislature can resolve to do that if we so choose.

We have to decide whether that is a wise and sensible thing to do, with all the ramifications it might bring, but as a matter of law it seems to me that the UK Parliament can, if it wishes, pass a law to say, “Despite or irrespective of our international responsibilities, this is none the less what we want to do.” That is not the same as deeming our own compliance with international law, which I worry this language almost certainly seems to do.

The point I make about the UK Parliament being able to do things even when they contravene its international responsibilities is already in the Bill and reflected in the language of clause 1(4)(b), which points out that

“the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law.”

Quite right. We can, if we so choose, deem a country a safe country for the purposes of domestic decision making if we want to. What I do not think we can or should do is legislate to say that we comply with our international law responsibilities when we do not—and when, crucially, to achieve the objective of this Bill we do not need to.

The second reason the Minister may give for why I do not need to worry myself about all this is that he may say that domestic and international law exist on different planes, and that this legislation is only targeted in any event at domestic authorities, so the Bill could not, even if it chose to try, deem our compliance with international law in actual fact. I would agree with that. It is perfectly true that domestic law and international law operate on different planes, and it is not likely that this Bill could determine any question of international law before any international tribunal.

If that is so, though, why include the language? If it does not have any meaning or legal effect, it does not serve any purpose, but I fear it may send a damaging political signal to other states. The language I am concerned about, which amendments 54 and 55 would remove, is either offensive or otiose, and in either respect the Bill would be better without it.

[Joanna Cherry]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). I find myself in agreement with much of what he said, and he made his points very forcefully.

I rise to speak to amendments 32, 33 and 34 and new clause 4 in my name and amendments 4 and 5 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and to support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). I also want to comment on clause 3 and clause 5 stand part and the amendments that have been put forward, particularly by the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), in my capacity as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

I turn first to my amendments, which relate to the impact of this Bill in Scotland, and in which respect I am speaking in a personal capacity. My amendments and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North deal with the extent of the Bill, its extension to Scotland and the date of its commencement in Scotland. We both seek to prevent this Bill’s extending to Scotland and, in the event that we are not successful in doing that, my amendments seek to ensure that the Bill will not extend to Scotland without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament and that nothing in it will interfere with the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session or its nobile officium. I will explain what that means later.

We must not forget that the regime this Bill seeks to impose, together with the Illegal Migration Act 2023, is imposed on asylum seekers across the United Kingdom, not just those who arrive in small boats on the Kent coast. The UK Government have not forgotten that, and that is why they want this Bill, with its far-reaching and unprecedented ouster clauses, to extend to Scotland. Accordingly, asylum seekers in Scotland looking to our courts for protection will find that the courts in Scotland have been emasculated in the same way as this Bill emasculates the courts of England and Wales.

As well as having their jurisdiction ousted on certain matters of fact, as was debated yesterday, the Scottish courts will find themselves unable to apply the Human Rights Act or to respect the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European convention on human rights and other international treaties. I believe that that constitutes a serious and unprecedented intrusion on the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts, and a serious interference with the separation of powers between legislature, Executive and judiciary. I do not think that this Parliament should be rubber-stamping the Bill at all, but particularly not in relation to Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

Without prejudice to the content of what the hon. and learned Lady is saying otherwise, may I simply say in relation to her notwithstanding clause that I am extremely glad that the Scottish eagle has landed?

[Joanna Cherry]

I certainly will not be supporting the other notwithstanding clauses in the Bill, but I felt that it was perhaps time that we had one that benefited Scotland for a change.

My amendments are designed to protect Scotland’s courts and constitutional tradition. They are there to ensure that asylum seekers in Scotland might still enjoy the protection of the courts from the infringement of their fundamental rights. That is what people in Scotland want, and it has been expressed repeatedly through the Scottish Parliament. I am, of course, a Scottish MP and a member of the Scottish Bar, and I am here to do what I can to protect Scotland and its legal system from the extraordinary attack on human rights and the rule of law that this Bill constitutes.

However, I am not a Scottish exceptionalist. I recognise that—as reflected in the House of Commons Library’s excellent legal briefing on the Bill, and indeed in the speech that preceded mine, by the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam—concerns about the impact of the Bill on the rule of law and the constitution are shared by many in England, including many lawyers. For every lawyer cited by Conservative Members in favour of the Bill and the draconian amendments to it, they will find two lawyers who disagree.

The Library briefing, which is an excellent summary of the different legal views on the Bill, concludes:

“Tension between the sovereignty of Parliament to legislate, and the role of the courts in enforcing the rule of law principle that executive bodies must exercise their powers within their statutory limits, may be tempered by restraint on both sides. If either the courts or Parliament ceased to exercise such restraint, significant constitutional uncertainty could result.”

I believe that if we pass the Bill, this Parliament will have ceased to exercise the restraint referred to there—it would be a major departure from such restraint. I predict that, if the Bill passes, we will see what might be an unprecedented constitutional challenge to an Act of the British Parliament.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. and learned Lady is making a good point about the checks and balances that prevent arbitrary power, and she is right that that is central to our constitutional settlement, but this is not the exercise of arbitrary power, because the Bill, and the amendments to it, are quite specific about their provisions. For example, in the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), our separation from the international obligations that I know she holds so dear is very specific to this particular legislation. That is not arbitrary—it is anything but.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Bill seeks to carve out a group of people coming to our country, or who are in our country, from the protections that the rest of us enjoy. History shows us that that sort of legislation can put a state on a pretty slippery slope. That brings me to my arguments in relation to clauses 3 and 5 stand part.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has not yet had the chance to complete legislative scrutiny of the Bill given the speed with which it has passed through the House, so we have not as a Committee reached a concluded view on the Bill. However, before Christmas and before Second Reading, a Chair’s briefing paper referring to the legal advice that the Committee had received was published, and it is extensively referred to in the excellent legal commentary published by the House of Commons Library.

The briefing says, inter alia, that the disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998 in clause 3 is very significant. As I indicated a moment ago in my answer to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), human rights are meant to offer a fundamental level of protection for every person on the basis of their humanity alone. As our Committee has noted in a previous report, if those protections are disapplied when they cause problems for a policy goal, they lose their fundamental and universal character. Arguably, that is especially the case when they are disapplied in respect of a particular group. In this case, fundamental human rights are being disapplied in respect of migrants who come to the United Kingdom without prior permission.

Bills that disapply parts of the Human Rights Act are not unprecedented under this Government, I am sad to say. Both the Illegal Migration Act and the Victims and Prisoners Bill have sought to disapply section 3 of the Human Rights Act in respect of certain legislation. However, this Bill seeks to disapply section 6 of that Act—the obligation on public authorities to act compatibly with human rights—which has never before been attempted, even by this Government, and represents a significant inroad into human rights protections. If we pass the Bill with clause 3 in it, it will effectively mean that this Parliament is authorising public authorities to breach human rights. That is an awful long way from what this Parliament intended when it passed the Human Rights Act, and what the United Kingdom intended when it signed up to the convention.

As we heard at some length yesterday, as a result of parliamentary sovereignty, if we pass the Bill, breaching human rights would be in accordance with our domestic law. However, it would still violate the UK’s obligations under the convention, because we cannot unilaterally change what the convention says. Also, as the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has noted in its briefing on the Bill, if we disapply the Human Rights Act in the manner proposed, we are also breaching article 13 of the convention, which entitles people to an effective remedy.

I am afraid to say that the amendments to clause 3 tabled by the right hon. Member for Newark, who is no longer in his place, would make the situation even worse. His amendments 11 and 12 appear to extend the disapplication of the Human Rights Act to anything done under the Illegal Migration Act that relates to the removal of a person to Rwanda. That could potentially mean that the detention of people awaiting removal to Rwanda and their treatment prior to their removal would not be protected under the Human Rights Act. Is that what this Parliament really wants to legislate for?

Additionally, the right hon. Member for Newark wants to extend clause 3 to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act. As it stands, that clause does not disapply section 4; if the clause remains as it is when the Bill becomes law, it would be open to a court in future to declare that it is not compatible with the convention. That would be through a declaration only: it would not affect the ongoing function of the Bill, or allow removals to Rwanda to be prevented or delayed, but this Parliament and the Government would have to decide whether any changes to the law should be made. If we amend the Bill to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act, again, that would be something that has never been done before, and would further restrict the jurisdiction of our courts in saying to the Government and the public what their view is on the law’s compatibility with human rights.

Finally, I also believe that clause 5 should not stand part of the Bill. We have heard a lot today about Conservative Members’ concern about interim measures issued by the European Court of Human Rights. The reality is that, no matter what this legislation ends up saying, it can only affect domestic law. In respect of the ECHR in particular, the UK will remain bound by the convention as a matter of international law. Indeed, even if this Government—God forbid—were to exercise the nuclear option of withdrawing us from the convention, thereby putting us in bed with Russia and Belarus, we would remain bound for a further six months after withdrawal takes place. I hope they will bear that in mind.

At the moment, clause 5 says that only a Minister can decide whether to comply with interim measures, and that the domestic courts should ignore them. It remains to be seen what a Minister would do, but we all know that the Prime Minister has said repeatedly that he would not let a foreign court—to use his words—prevent flights taking off, which indicates that interim measures may be ignored. As I said earlier, in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Newark, interim measures are made under rule 39 of the Court’s rules of procedure. They do not form part of the text of the convention ratified by the UK, but when we ratified that convention, we signed up to the idea that the European Court of Human Rights is the body that determines its meaning, and since the 2005 case that the right hon. Member mentioned, it has held consistently that failing to comply with interim measures amounts to a breach of article 34.

Interim measures are fundamental to any court—they are issued to protect the position of an individual while their legal rights are determined. All this fuss about people in their pyjamas in the middle of the night is very silly. Judges in the United Kingdom, both in the English jurisdiction and in the Scottish jurisdiction, are regularly got out of their bed in the middle of the night to issue interim injunctions in England and interim interdicts in Scotland. It is a standard part of any legal system, and many of the concerns that Conservative Members have expressed about those interim measures have now been addressed by the Court in the reforms it is proposing.

Any decision of a Minister not to comply with an interim measure would be inconsistent with our obligations under the ECHR. That means that if we let clause 5 stand part of the Bill, we will expressly authorise British Government Ministers to act in breach of international law. That is the reality, and I note that according to The Times, that is the advice that has reportedly been given to the Government by the Attorney General and by the Minister, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), when he was Solicitor General. That does not surprise me at all; it should not surprise anyone, because any legal undergraduate would be able to tell them that. As such, in so far as amendments 23 to 25 state that interim measures are not binding, that is inaccurate as a matter of law, and we must understand that they would put the UK directly in conflict with our international legal obligations.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful indeed to my hon. Friend; I will turn to refoulement and non-refoulement, and that important issue, which is exactly the basis of the Supreme Court judgment, and how we have met it through evidence from subsequent to the time when the Supreme Court was looking at the facts on the ground.

The implementation of these provisions in practice will be kept under review by the independent monitoring committee. As is stated clearly in clause 9 of the Bill, the provisions will come into force when the treaty enters into force, and the treaty enters into force once the parties have completed their internal procedures.

The Bill’s purpose is to make it clear that Rwanda is safe generally and that decision makers, as well as courts and tribunals, must conclusively treat it as such. The amendment as drafted would open the door to lengthy legal challenges, which will delay removal. It therefore follows that I cannot support the amendment. We are confident in the Government of Rwanda’s commitment, and I am clear that Rwanda is a safe country.

I turn to Lords amendment 3, which is also unnecessary. The Government will ratify the treaty only once we agree with Rwanda that all necessary implementation is in place for both countries to comply with the obligations under the treaty. As I said, the legislation for Rwanda to ratify the treaty has now passed through both Chambers of the Rwandan Parliament. Once ratified, the treaty will become law in Rwanda. It therefore follows that the Government of Rwanda would be required to give effect to the terms of the treaty in accordance with their domestic law as well as in international law.

In relation to the monitoring committee, it was always intended that the committee be independent to ensure a layer of impartial oversight over the operation of the partnership. Maintaining that committee’s independence is an integral aspect of the policy’s design. The treaty enhances the role of the previously established independent monitoring committee and will ensure that obligations to the treaty are adhered to in practice. The details of the monitoring committee are set out in article 15 of the treaty, and it, in turn, will report to a joint committee made up of both United Kingdom and Rwandan officials.

There will be daily monitoring of the partnership for at least the first three months—the enhanced period of time—to ensure rapid identification and response to any shortcomings. The enhanced phase will ensure that there is comprehensive monitoring and reporting and that that takes place in real time. The amendment risks disturbing the independence and impartiality of the monitoring committee and therefore should be resisted.

I turn to Lords amendments 4 and 5, and the issue of Rwanda’s safety. We have already touched on this, but it is clear that the Bill’s purpose is to respond to the Supreme Court’s concern and enable Parliament to confirm the status of Rwanda as a safe third country to enable removal of those who arrive in the United Kingdom illegally. To the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), it is the treaty, the Bill and the published evidence pack that together demonstrate that Rwanda is safe for relocated individuals and that the Government’s approach is tough but fair and lawful. The Government are clear that we assessed Rwanda to be safe, and we have published evidence to substantiate that point.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

With reference to the point made by the hon. Member for Torbay about the basis of the Supreme Court’s decision, I am sure that, like me, the Minister will have read the decision carefully. Does he agree that paragraphs 75 to 105 make it clear that there were three reasons for the Supreme Court’s decision? It was based on evidence: first, about the general human rights situation in Rwanda; secondly, about the adequacy of Rwanda’s current asylum system; and thirdly, about Rwanda’s failure to meet its obligations in a similar agreement regarding asylum seekers with Israel in 2013. Will he tell me what has happened since the Supreme Court’s decision to improve the general human rights situation in Rwanda? He will be aware that the Home Office published a 137-page document dated January this year detailing concerns about human rights in Rwanda.

[Michael Tomlinson]

In fact, that document supports the Government’s position, because the evidence put forward is balanced. The accusations from Opposition parties that somehow partisan evidence has been put before the Chamber are completely wrong and are refuted by the hon. and learned Lady’s own point. She, as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, has just been to Rwanda to see for herself—we had an exchange on that last week—and I look forward to her Committee’s report. The answer is the treaty, the Bill and the published evidence pack. In the Bill is the conclusive presumption that Rwanda is generally a safe country.

[Joanna Cherry]

My question was this: in January this year, the British Government, through the Home Office, published a 137-page document about the human rights situation in Rwanda, detailing serious concerns from such august bodies as the US State Department about the protection of human rights on the ground in Rwanda, so what has changed since the Home Office published that note in January? The Minister has not answered that question. If he cannot answer it, then this House cannot say that Rwanda is a safe country.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The answer is that the hon. and learned Lady must not cherry-pick her evidence. The evidence must be looked at in the round. As I say, it is the treaty, the Bill and the published evidence together. The hon. and learned Lady may not have confidence in our international partners to abide by their treaties, but this Government do. The Government of Rwanda will abide by their treaty.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I will not give way. There is a conclusive presumption in the Bill that Rwanda is generally a safe country. There is a series of facts reinforced by statute. The courts have not concluded that there is a general risk to the safety of relocated individuals in Rwanda. Rather, as we have repeatedly set out, the treaty responds to the Supreme Court’s findings. The assurances we have had, since negotiated in our legally binding treaty with Rwanda, directly address the findings. They make detailed provision for the treatment of relocated individuals in Rwanda, ensuring that they will be offered safety and protection with no risk of refoulement. Respectfully, that responds directly to the points that were raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend proves the point I just made, that it is the evidence in the round that must be considered. I am grateful to him for drawing that to Parliament’s attention.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I have given way twice to the hon. and learned Lady, so I will make progress. We have been clear that the purpose of this legislation is to stop the boats, and to do that we must create a deterrent. That goes to the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will have read the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Bill. We noted that other nations may be influenced by how the UK treats its international treaty obligations. In particular, we noticed that the Prime Minister of Pakistan has referred to the UK’s Rwanda policy in defence of his country’s decision to expel from Pakistan hundreds of Afghans who had fled from the Taliban regime. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is most regrettable that he can refer to the UK’s cavalier attitude towards international law in support of his own cavalier attitude?

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree. Other countries around the world have looked to the UK as an upholder of rights—as a beacon of democracy and human rights— but following this tawdry Bill, we can see other countries looking at the UK’s dissent from international norms that we set up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

I am conscious of what you said about time, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I should like to make some progress.

In Lords amendment 4, Lord Anderson of Ipswich proposes to add to the words

“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”

the words

“unless presented with credible evidence to the contrary”.

I agree that evidence is important. If judges and other decision makers are not allowed to make decisions on the basis of evidence, rather than relying on a bit of legislation drawn up in a short period, the Government have zero credibility. They are asking people to blindfold themselves to any other circumstances, and not to heed any evidence or proof. There must be an opportunity for every decision maker to treat the evidence with the due diligence that we would all expect.

Lords amendment 5 would remove the parts of the Bill that state that Rwanda should automatically be considered a safe country; it provides a rebuttal mechanism for the assertion of safety in Rwanda. Liberty says that the amendment corrects

“a deficiency in the Bill whereby Parliament is asked to state that Rwanda is and will continue to be safe, and there is no mechanism by which this can be revisited. This is a moderate safeguard”.

If the Government thought about this fully, they would surely conclude that the amendment would enhance the Bill; but they are, of course, rejecting all amendments, regardless of their source.

Lords amendment 6 effectively restores the power of the courts to make a factual judgment on the safety of Rwanda in an individual case, or for a group of people who share characteristics, such as LGBTQ people. I think it telling that the Minister said that it completely undermined the purpose of the Bill. “Well, good,” is all I can say in response. We should be trying to undermine the purpose of the Bill if its aim is, for example, to ship LGBTQ people off to a country that may not welcome them in all circumstances, without allowing them to check the position first. I think it perfectly reasonable to provide the ability to make judgments of this kind. I recall that at the back of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 was a list of countries with exemptions for particular groups of people—in some cases specifying men or women—but the Bill does not even do that. I think it entirely reasonable for there to be some way of questioning this power in the Bill.

Lords amendment 7, tabled by Baroness Lister, concerns issues related to the age of unaccompanied children, which I consider to be of the utmost importance. The treaty makes provision for what happens if a child somehow mysteriously ends up in Rwanda by mistake, but that only happens if the Home Office has made an error of some kind in sending the child there in the first place. We know from medical professionals that some of the age assessments are effectively pseudo-science. We know that when children have come here, having crossed seas, continents and war zones in very difficult circumstances, it may be more difficult to assess their age, because they have had a much tougher paper round than my son, for example. We also know that not all children look exactly the same or present themselves in exactly the same way, although they may be the same age. We can all remember that when we were at school, there was always some great big guy with a beard and a hairy chest when the others were knee-high to a buttercup.

[Joanna Cherry]

Not at my convent school.

[Alison Thewliss]

That is another question, I suppose. The point is that everyone is different. We cannot reliably look at someone and tell their age. The Bill should contain more protections to ensure that children who have already gone through incredibly traumatic experiences are not sent to Rwanda.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alexander Stafford]

I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. That is shocking, and it just shows where the care and safeguarding of children lies in their priorities. As a local Member of Parliament, I know what Labour thinks about safeguarding our girls in Rotherham. We should be able to look after everyone. This Bill will ensure that we look after the people in Britain, that we give sovereignty to our people and that we control our borders. We have had two years of dither and delay, of wrecking amendments, of planes not taking off, of people being pulled off planes, and of Opposition Members trying everything possible to stop this well-needed, well-liked and well-supported policy going forward. Anybody trying to support the amendments is no better than those who want to wreck the Bill and have an open-door policy. I say to all Members of this House that we must reject the Lords amendments, we must stand up for Britain, we must stand up for our sovereignty and we must get wheels down in Kigali as soon as possible.

[Joanna Cherry]

I rise to support the Lords amendments. Lords amendments 9 and 10 because they are basic humanitarian amendments designed to exempt from the process of being sent to Rwanda the victims of modern slavery and human trafficking, as well as our agents—our allies—who have supported His Majesty’s armed forces overseas and persons who have been employed or indirectly contracted to provide services to the UK. It would be shameful if this House did not support those amendments.

I will direct most of my remarks to Lords amendments 1 to 6. Lords amendment 1 relates to whether the Bill is fully compliant with the rule of law, and Lords amendments 2 to 6 broadly deal with the issue of the safety of Rwanda. As has been adverted to earlier in the debate, I visited Rwanda last month as part of the Joint Committee on Human Rights delegation. We will be reporting in due course on our findings as part of our inquiry into the human rights of asylum seekers. Therefore, although I am Chair of the Committee, any comments that I make today are in a personal capacity, because the Committee has not yet deliberated.

I am firmly of the view that Rwanda cannot be described as a safe country for the United Kingdom to send asylum seekers to. That is based on what I observed there, but also based on objective evidence about such arrangements as presently exist in Rwanda for asylum seekers—not refugees on their borders, but asylum seekers—the degree of expertise among its immigration officers, lawyers and judiciary, and, crucially, evidence that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has received about the state of human rights in Rwanda, and perhaps, most importantly, information, collated by the Home Office, which I referred to earlier, about the state of human rights in Rwanda. I will come on to that in a moment.

When we were in Rwanda, we met many Government officials and organisations, most of whom meet with Government approval, and naturally they had a good story to tell us. Like the Supreme Court, I believe that they are in good faith, but we need to weigh that against the evidence of what we have heard from others, the evidence collated by the Home Office about human rights abuses in Rwanda and also a recognition of how long it will take Rwanda to put in place the arrangements required by the fresh treaty, and for them to bed down. In connection with that, I remind Members of this House what the House of Lords International Agreements Committee said when it undertook its scrutiny of the new treaty in January. It said:

“While the Treaty might in time provide the basis for such an assessment”—

of Rwanda as a safe country—

“if it is rigorously implemented, as things stand the arrangements it provides for are incomplete. A significant number of further legal and practical steps are required under the treaty which will take time”.

The International Agreements Committee listed those. It went on to say that

“the arrangements put in place by the Treaty need time to bed in to demonstrate that they operate in practice. The Home Office has been unable to offer any clear timeline for implementation, but we”—

the House of Lords International Agreements Committee—

“agree with the evidence we received that the Treaty is unlikely to change the position in Rwanda in the short to medium term.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Joanna Cherry]

Let me just develop this point, and then I will take some interventions. I agree with the House of Lords on that. It fits with what I observed on the ground in Rwanda, which I will come on to in a moment. Importantly, the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), who is no longer in his place, earlier referred to what he described as the views of the UNHCR. When I met UNHCR officials on the ground in Rwanda, they said that they did not believe that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers. They said that it will take systemic and structural change to happen first and then that change will need to cascade through the system. That will take time. I also believe that a greater commitment to meaningful human rights protection is required.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. and learned Lady is making, as she usually does, a considered argument based on her visit to Rwanda. I have not been there. I wonder whether, in making that argument, she is mindful that previously both the United Nations and the EU have designated Rwanda as a suitable place to accept refugees. What does she make of that?

[Joanna Cherry]

The Rwandans host more than 100,000 refugees on their border who have come over from neighbouring countries such as Burundi and the Congo because of conflict in those countries. They are people from neighbouring countries who have the ambition to go back to their own country as soon as they can, and they live in refugee camps on the border. They are a completely different category from asylum seekers who have sought to come to the UK and who are going to be sent to Rwanda. That is not just my view; that was the view of the UNHCR.

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

I will give way to the hon. Member who is a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I was also in that meeting with the UNHCR. Is it not also true that when we questioned the officials about their motivation for why they felt that we should not be sending our asylum seekers there for processing, they were very clear that it was because they felt that we were shirking our responsibility, that we should be taking all those asylum seekers, and that we had the capacity to. Is it not also true that, in that meeting, they agreed that they based their emergency transit base there, that they sponsor scholarships in Rwandan universities for refugees. It is a very safe place. Let me quote from my own notes. I said, “So, it's nothing to do with safety. It was because you feel that we should be doing this ourselves.” And they said, “Yes.”

[Joanna Cherry]

I, too, have detailed notes of our meeting with the people from UNHCR. The hon. Lady is right to say that the UNHCR said quite clearly that it thinks that the United kingdom is shirking its responsibilities, and actually so do I. That is my personal belief. I base that on the number of refugees there are in the world: there are more than 100 million displaced people and more than 36 million refugees in the world. Really quite a small number of them make their way to the shores of the United Kingdom. There will be a hell of a lot more in the years to come because of climate change, and my very firm belief is that the United Kingdom needs to shoulder its responsibilities as one of the richer countries in the world, rather than shuffling these people off on to a country such as Rwanda which, as we saw, has made great strides, but it cannot be compared with the United Kingdom in wealth.

A little more about why I do not believe that Rwanda can yet be described as a safe country: I mentioned in an intervention that it is important to read the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court judgment in its entirety, particularly paragraphs 75 to 105. The decision was based on a number of things: evidence about the general human rights situation in Rwanda, the adequacy of Rwanda’s current asylum system, and Rwanda’s failure to meet its obligations under a similar agreement regarding asylum seekers with Israel in 2013. There was a lot to the judgment. It is very rich in detail. The Court considered a lot of evidence over a long period. It is really not an adequate acknowledgment of the exercise in which the Supreme Court was engaged to simply say that a few months later an Act of Parliament can change the reality on the ground and solve all the legitimate concerns that the Supreme Court had about the situation in Rwanda.

Yes, the United Kingdom Government have entered into a new agreement, but the trouble is that none of the new measures to which Rwanda and the UK have agreed are yet properly in place. The UK Government’s insistence that, since the Supreme Court’s considered judgment last year, Rwanda has miraculously become a safe country for asylum seekers can only be described as a legal fiction. Nothing I saw on the ground in Kigali led me to doubt that. When we were there, the relevant legislation was still going through the Parliament. The legal reforms and new systems agreed had yet to be put in place, and although training had commenced it was still very much in its infancy.

The Supreme Court found that the Rwandans were acting in good faith, but that

“intentions and aspirations do not necessarily correspond to reality”.

Having spent some time in Rwanda, and met with Rwandan Government officials, healthcare workers, Ministers, lawyers, those who will deliver the legal training, its national commission for human rights and non-governmental organisations, I think that the Supreme Court got it right: the Rwandans are acting in good faith, but intentions and aspirations do not correspond to reality.

We heard a very interesting fact: owing to their recent history, 80% of Rwandans have themselves been refugees. As I said, on their borders they accommodate well over 100,000 refugees and displaced persons from neighbouring countries. Many of the Rwandans I met were at pains to emphasise to me that they see refugees as their friends, their brothers and their sisters. I was very struck by how their attitude contrasts with the UK Government’s hostility towards asylum seekers and desire to offload both their legal and, I believe, their moral responsibilities to asylum seekers on to others.

When the Joint Committee on Human Rights considered the UK Government’s original agreement with Rwanda and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, we expressed concern that the policy

“could be seen as an outsourcing of the UK’s own obligations under the Refugee Convention to another country.”

I know that not everyone will agree with that, but given the number of displaced persons and refugees in the world compared with the tiny fraction we take, I think that we are not living up to our moral obligations. Clearly, there is a legal argument that we are not doing so. The Joint Committee on Human Rights also said, back when we considered the original agreement with Rwanda and the 2023 Act:

“Removing asylum seekers to a state where they face a real risk of serious human rights abuses, or of being sent on to a dangerous third country as a result of an inadequate asylum system, is inconsistent with the UK’s human rights obligations”.

[Dr Johnson]

Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

[Joanna Cherry]

I give way to the hon. Lady, who was also on the visit to Kigali.

[Dr Johnson]

The hon. and learned Lady says that the UK is taking a tiny number of refugees and asylum seekers. I am not sure that that is true, but I would be interested to know what she considers to be a reasonable number—or whether she believes that there is not one.

[Joanna Cherry]

I do not have time to get into redesigning the system, but—[Interruption.] Well, during our inquiry, as the hon. Lady will recall, the Committee heard very detailed evidence about what might be a reasonable number, and how the number we take compares with the number of refugees in the world. We heard very detailed evidence from the chief executive officer of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, about what might be a compassionate but reasonable way for the United Kingdom to approach its moral and legal obligations.

Let me focus on why I support the amendments that relate to the lack of a safe situation in Rwanda. Many of those I met in Rwanda were very keen to emphasise that their written constitution contains good human rights protections, which it does, but few of them were able to point to any case law showing people in Rwanda taking advantage of those protections, as we are—at least for the time being—able to in this country. I also found out when I was in Rwanda that in 2016, the Rwandan Government withdrew the right of individual petition to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights because they were unhappy with the way in which it handled claims brought by Rwandan dissidents. I could not help but see an echo in that of the UK Government’s attitude towards the European Court of Human Rights when it makes decisions that they do not like.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

Would there not be some sense in allowing Home Office decision makers to take account of the Home Office evidence that has been gathered together in the way that the hon. and learned Lady describes?

[Joanna Cherry]

The document was withdrawn for a while and updated in January, so I only saw it and read it in detail just before my trip to Rwanda. I was really quite appalled that Government Ministers could continue to state that Rwanda is a safe country from a human rights perspective in the face of the evidence that they themselves collated. I really want to hear a colourable answer to that point.

Before the Joint Committee on Human Rights left the UK, we took steps to find out about the human rights situation in Rwanda. The evidence that we heard gave me great cause for concern about the curtailment of freedom of expression in Rwanda for those who wish to criticise the Government. The US State Department, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported evidence of unlawful or arbitrary killings, disappearances and torture. One area of particular concern for asylum seekers sent from the UK is the protection of same-sex-attracted and transgender people. The Foreign Office travel advice for Rwanda warns British gay people and British trans people that individuals

“can experience discrimination and abuse, including from local authorities. There are no specific anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT+ individuals”.

When I put that to Government officials and others with whom we met, I was reassured that the Rwandan constitution contains a general protection against discrimination, which it does, but sexuality and gender identity are not listed there. Crucially, nobody was able to show me any evidence that a gay or transgender person has ever availed themselves of the anti-discrimination protections in the constitution. People were at great pains to tell me that homosexuality and transgenderism are not criminal offences in Rwanda. Sorry to be light-hearted, but whoop-de-doo. As a lesbian, I can tell the House that the mere fact that one is not criminalised is only the start of the story.

I think Rwanda is where the UK was on LGBT rights about 50 years ago. Yes, it is ahead of many other African countries because it is not illegal to be gay or trans in Rwanda, but there are no positive rights and no equal rights protections. We need to acknowledge that, because there are people who come to the United Kingdom because they are gay, transexual or transgender, and they know that we in the United Kingdom have great, world-class equal rights for gay and transgender people. If they are coming here for those protections, they are perfectly entitled to be concerned about being sent to a country such as Rwanda, where no such protections exist.

Many others come to this country because they were dissidents in their country—they have criticised their Government. They come to the United Kingdom, because —so far at least; touch wood—we still have freedom of expression. I am not sure that Rwanda can be described as having the same freedom of expression protections that we enjoy in the UK.

Asylum seekers also come to this country who have been human rights defenders in their country and have been persecuted for it. Again, touch wood, we in this country still have full human rights protections. That, based on the evidence of the Home Office itself, is not the position in Rwanda.

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for giving way again. The anti-discrimination law in the Rwandan constitution is not something that just ethereally hangs there. In fact, is it not true that, because of their recent history of genocide, it is a deeply ingrained feeling among Rwandans that everybody is equal and there is no discrimination? The law does not even allow asking someone whether they are Tutsi or Hutu. They are very, very sensitive to anybody discriminating about anything. Is it not also true that the heads of two non-governmental LGBT organisations we spoke to were very clear? We had a very good dig into this. My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) asked them whether it would be okay for gay people to hold hands walking down the street in Rwanda, and their answer was, “Yes, of course.” The hon. and learned Lady then asked if there might be—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. That is a speech, not an intervention. I am terribly sorry, but I must ask the hon. Lady to resume her seat.

[Joanna Cherry]

My answer to the hon. Lady is that, as I said at the outset of my speech, in assessing whether Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers, particularly LGBT asylum seekers, we need to consider what we heard from people when we were there, as well as the objective evidence. She will recall that I questioned several people on this subject. No one was able to give me an example of any gay or transgender person ever availing themselves of the law to protect their rights. There is a difference between that and the position in the United Kingdom, where anyone who is same-sex attracted or transgender is protected by the Equality Act 2010 and by the European convention on human rights; if they lose their job or are refused housing, for example, they can go to court.

We need to look at what we heard in Rwanda. We heard very positive things from two Government-approved LGBT rights non-governmental organisations, but there is also evidence—again, particularly in the Home Office note—suggesting that the situation is rather different. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) may scoff, but that note was prepared by her Government.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. and learned Lady is making a case about the importance of evidence. Does she agree that there is evidence right in front of us in the fact that the UK Government accepted asylum claims from a number of people from Rwanda at the back end of last year? If it really is the paradise that we have just been hearing about, and if we can guarantee that into the future, it is quite surprising that people from that country are claiming asylum in the UK.

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Before the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) resumes her speech, I remind her that we are beginning to go very wide again. I would be grateful if she could come back directly to the amendments, although I understand the context in which she is trying to make her remarks. While I am on my feet, may I say that, although I appreciate that she is being very careful, we are getting on to fairly thin ice when we start talking about a JCHR report that has not been published yet? We need to be a little careful.

[Joanna Cherry]

I was crystal clear at the start of my speech that I am speaking in a personal capacity, just as anything that I have written about my trip to Rwanda was written in a personal capacity. The reports that I referred to were historical reports of the Committee. I have gone out of my way to make it clear that I am speaking in a personal capacity. I explained in some detail that the Committee will deliberate, and will report on its trip to Rwanda in future. These are my personal reflections, but they are evidence-based, and I stand by them. I think that they are an important contribution to this debate—[Interruption.] And I do not intend to be shouted down by the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis), or anyone else who does not want to hear a lawyerly, evidence-based contribution. [Interruption.] I am terribly sorry if I am boring him, but he will be pleased to hear that I am coming to the end of my speech very soon.

To sum up, based on the evidence that I have read and that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has heard so far, and based on what I heard and saw on the ground in Kigali, I remain of the view that Rwanda is still not a safe country for asylum seekers, which is why I support Lords amendments 2 to 6. I am fortified in doing so by knowing that the House of Lords International Agreements Committee was of the same opinion when it undertook its scrutiny of the treaty, as was the UNHCR on the ground, which told me that systemic and structural change needs to happen in Rwanda, and then needs to cascade. I believe that that will take time, and that a greater commitment to meaningful human rights protections is required.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

It appears that I was indeed optimistic last week when I foresaw the end of ping-pong and looked forward to the time when we were not debating this particular piece of legislation. It is disappointing that we are back here again. Of course the other place should undertake its role as a revising Chamber, and of course it is entitled to ask the Government to think again, but we did think again, with the House now voting for the third time as part of ping-pong and strongly endorsing this Bill. We need to bring the process to a conclusion.

The Labour party has voted against our measures to tackle illegal migration 134 times. One hundred and thirty-four times it has told the British people that it opposes our tougher immigration legislation. Enough is enough. The Opposition have delayed this Bill for too long, and we must get on with it.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I am sure that, like me, the Minister will have read the Law Society of England and Wales’s briefing on these amendments. Has he seen the polling it has reported, which shows that the majority of voters think the Government should either accept some amendments to the Rwanda policy or scrap it altogether? Only a quarter of the public think the Government should try to get the Bill through in its current form, and all the Lords amendments are supported by the majority of the public. Has he seen that polling, and will he stop trying to turn this matter into a political football and address the gravamen of the amendments?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I certainly will. I am very grateful indeed to the hon. and learned Lady, because she gets to the point of the amendments. She is absolutely right to say that we should address them in detail, and I will do just that.