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.

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[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).

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.