Asylum and Migration

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I want to focus my comments on the cost of the Government’s Rwanda policy, particularly as I visited Kigali two weeks ago as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Committee will report on our visit in due course, so any comments that I make today are made in my personal capacity.

It was good that the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), reminded us that information about the cost of the Rwanda scheme has come not from the Government, but from the National Audit Office and other sources. I really query whether the scheme offers value for money, and whether it will work as a deterrent. We heard from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee about the huge increase in the asylum support, resettlement and accommodation budget, and it is important to put that in context by looking at how many asylum seekers come to the United Kingdom every year. Looking at the figures, we can see that there were asylum claims for about 84,000 individuals in the most recent year—let us say about 80,000. Bear that figure in mind for what I am going to say in a minute.

I completely agree with the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) that it is important not to be rude about the Rwandans, because they are good people, as I will come back to. When I was in Rwanda, I asked Government officials how many asylum seekers they expect to receive from the UK, and they told me that they expect to receive 2,000 over the first four months and 10,000 over the next five years. That is 2,000 per annum, which is 2.5% of the 80,000 asylum seekers who come here every year. What are the Government proposing to do with the rest of them? We need to know about those costs.

The central point I want to make in what little time I have is that we need a system for asylum seekers who come to the United Kingdom. We need to go back to basics and think about an efficient, cost-effective system, but it must be a system whereby the United Kingdom takes its fair share. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has heard evidence on this issue. Looking at the figures for displaced people and refugees, there are 36 million refugees in the world. The idea that they are all coming to the United Kingdom is absolutely ludicrous.

Returning to my trip to Rwanda, I want to give my own impressions. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) makes a very good point: how can Rwanda be a great place to be and safe, but also a deterrent at the same time? I have formed a pretty clear view as to why it is a deterrent. Based on my visits to Rwanda, I agree with the UK Supreme Court that the Rwandan Government and the Rwandan people are acting in good faith, but I also agree with the House of Lords’ International Agreements Committee, which has looked at this issue, that the relevant legislation has not finished going through Parliament, and that the system and the training are in their infancy. It will take a long time for the Rwandans to create an asylum system.

We visited the accommodation in Kigali, which was of a very high quality. We saw only one of the reception areas, but I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it was a hell of a lot nicer than the Bibby Stockholm. Perhaps that is because so many Rwandans have been refugees, owing to their recent history. They were at pains to remind us of how many refugees they have welcomed from over the borders with Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and of how they see refugees as their “friends, brothers and sisters”. I was struck by how that does not accord with the current discourse in the United Kingdom. Perhaps the UK Government should take a leaf out of the Rwandans’ book and see refugees as their friends, brothers and sisters. That might make it easier for them to devise a cost-effective system whereby we take our fair share.

Rwanda has a written constitution, but very few people were able to point to any case law showing people taking advantage of their rights under that constitution. In 2016, the Rwandan Government withdrew the right of Rwandan citizens to individually petition the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights because they did not like the court’s decisions on their dissidents. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Most importantly, the Home Office has prepared a 137-page country information note on human rights in Rwanda that collates sources ranging from the US State Department to Human Rights Watch, and it sets out very serious shortcomings in the protection of human rights in Rwanda. Before we went, my Committee took evidence from dissidents who had concerns about their human rights.

I have written elsewhere about my concern for the protection of LGBT rights in Rwanda. At best, Rwanda is where the United Kingdom was 50 years ago. Yes, it is not criminal to be gay or transgender, but LGBT people have no positive rights, and they live in a society in which stigmatisation and discrimination are common. Nobody was able to give me any examples of anyone being able to exercise their rights through the courts.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

Is it not also concerning that the Government’s travel advice for Rwanda states that they cannot guarantee the safety of LGBT people?

[Joanna Cherry]

Indeed, it is. When I guested at the Home Affairs Committee, I raised with a Minister that we tell LGBT Brits going to Rwanda that they need to be careful as we cannot guarantee their safety, but we are now quite happy to send LGBT asylum seekers there.

I could say a lot more about Rwanda, but it is important to understand why it is a deterrent. People often come here to seek asylum because they have criticised their country’s Government, because they are a human rights defender or because they are gay or transgender. Rwanda is not an attractive country for them, as the United Kingdom is at present.

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee told us that the UK will pay around £150,000 per person relocated to Rwanda, to cover asylum processing and integration over the first five years. If we apply that to the 12,000 figure given by the Rwandan authorities, that comes to billions of pounds. On what basis can that be said to be cost-effective? Billions of pounds are being spent on sending to Rwanda less than 2.5% of the people who come to these shores seeking asylum. It is a gimmick, and the Government should own up that it is a gimmick. They should not be spending taxpayers’ money on a gimmick and a sop to their Back Benchers.

What does the Minister have to say about the points I have raised today?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)]

I start, as other right hon. and hon. Members have done, by paying tribute to and praising the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, which is reportedly the most effective Select Committee in town—I will come back to that point. Seriously, she does an important and vital job.

I gently suggest a couple of things. It is sad to see that the right hon. Lady is so lonely, sitting on her own on the Labour Benches. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) made that point—it is nice to agree with him on something, at least. With due respect to her, however, the right hon. Lady has carried out her role forensically and with diligence, as she always does.

Occasionally, the right hon. Lady is critical of those on the Government Front Bench. That is part of her role, so she is entitled to be, but I will gently push back on her accusations about transparency and say what a pleasure it was to appear before her Committee within hours of being appointed to this role, alongside the Minister for Legal Migration and the Border, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). In fact, my hon. Friend enjoyed his experience so much that he was back in the Committee this week. From the reports I have seen, it was a genuinely constructive and instructive exchange between those on the Committee and those giving evidence.

Before I turn to the details set out by the Chair of the Select Committee, it is right to say that the Government need no reminding that taxpayers’ interests must come first and foremost when determining our approach to the asylum and immigration systems. It is right to say that no one has done more than this Government to shine a light on the overall costs and on the public money that is being spent, not least every day to house asylum seekers in hotels. I will come back in a few moments to the detail of that, but my hon. Friend the Minister for Legal Migration and the Border has confirmed that his pledge has been exceeded: in fact, more than the 50 hotels that he had pledged would close had been closed by the end of January.

On Rwanda—again, I will come back to the details shortly—it is right to say at this stage why the partnership is needed. It is needed because we cannot go on with the situation where there are fatalities in the channel. For the past eight consecutive months, people have died attempting to cross the channel. There is a moral case, a compassionate case, for saying that we must stop the boats. That is the mission—it is my mission, and one that I am determined to carry out.

[Joanna Cherry]

Does the Minister appreciate that those of us who question the Rwanda scheme are doing so not because we do not think that the boats should be stopped, but because we think that the Rwanda scheme is not the way to do that and does not provide value for money? Those are the issues that he needs to address in the short time that he has left—whether the Rwanda scheme is value for money.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I will come back to the hon. and learned Lady’s points—she made a series of points. She is right that she led a Select Committee visit to Rwanda. I very much look forward to seeing the details of that report. My point is that there is a moral and compassionate case for the Rwanda scheme, and if time allows, I will delve into the detail. If time does not allow, there will be further exchanges on Monday, and doubtless in the future, about the Rwanda scheme.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North was kind enough to invite me to Glasgow, so let me turn to his contribution first—briefly, if I may. I endorse his point about there being no one on the Labour Benches. It is perhaps instructive as to where Labour Members’ priorities are that not a single Back Bencher, other than the Chair of the Select Committee, is here in the Chamber to address what is, in my view, the single biggest global challenge facing not just the United Kingdom, France and the EU, but the whole world. Not a single other Labour Back Bencher is here. The hon. Member spoke powerfully on that point, and I agree with him entirely.