Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The scope of Lords amendment 10 is specifically for those who served shoulder to shoulder with our armed forces and in our diplomatic and development efforts in Afghanistan. These are people to whom the United Kingdom owes a debt of honour and a debt of gratitude. I am not sure whether honour is a word that we can apply very easily to those on the Conservative Benches, but that is what this is about.

Lords amendment 9, in the name of the noble Baroness Butler-Sloss, is also based on a moral imperative, as it would prevent the removal of potential victims of modern slavery to Rwanda until they receive a decision from the Government on whether there is credible evidence that the person is a modern slavery victim. It really should go without saying that modern slavery victims should not be sent to Rwanda but, sadly, with this Government, basic moral decency is a scarce commodity.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Let me speak to Lords amendments 9 and 10. Those of us who have dealt with trafficked victims and those who served us in Afghanistan feel that there is some loss of moral compass somewhere. Those who served us in Afghanistan, in a whole range of different functions, have only just survived getting out of the country. They have been chased by the Taliban and their families have been harassed. Some of them got to Pakistan and were then threatened with force back over the border again. They have got to us traumatised, and we are going to traumatise them again by sending them to Rwanda. That cannot be right. I cannot believe that any hon. Member who has dealt with such cases could not support these amendments, because it is human suffering in the extreme, and for those who have served us, it is human suffering brought about by their loyalty to us.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes the case with passion and conviction. I know that he has a number of asylum seekers and refugees in his constituency and he does a huge amount of work on their behalf. He is absolutely right: there are some issues that should really transcend the day-to-day political considerations that we have in this place, because they are issues that are based on moral imperatives. It is deeply disappointing that, in Lords amendments 9 and 10, the Government have refused even to use them as the basis for negotiation or some kind of compromise. We find that deeply disappointing.

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To conclude, this is a pivotal moment for the Safety of Rwanda Bill and the Government’s overall approach. I will be voting against the Lords amendments but, whatever direction the House chooses to take on this overall policy, we must recognise that we are sending out a very strong message to the British people, who are exasperated because they see a Government whose hands are constantly tied. There is a carousel now—a revolving door with setback after setback—and the Government must now be given not just the benefit of the doubt, but the tools and the ability to get on and operationalise this policy. We are at a pivotal stage.

[John McDonnell]

The right hon. Lady mentioned the Afghan scheme. I understand that the debate is about the safety of Rwanda, but I have a concern about this, and I have dealt with Afghani refugees as the right hon. Lady knows. Many of them are on the edge of real mental health issues as a result of the trials they have experienced, and I think the experience of them coming here and being put at risk of being deported again to another state will push many of them over the edge. That must be taken into account as a factor, and that is why the amendment from the Lords is so significant.

[Priti Patel]

I absolutely and fully understand the right hon. Gentleman’s position on this, but this is a moment of reflection for the Government, too, particularly around those who served our country and worked alongside us in Afghanistan. The Government need to clarify how they have aided and continue to aid those people, some of whom are on the border of Pakistan, which has a range of migration and governance problems right now.

To conclude, we are at a pivotal moment with this legislation. We are also at a crucial moment in our relationship with the Government of Rwanda, who have been a solid and respected partner, diligently working with us. Obviously I speak with full experience, as the original architect of the migration and economic development partnership. We have to go back to the basics of that partnership. As I said last week in the House, things have moved beyond some of the core principles of the original partnership. I urge the Government to do what they need to do in this House today and to settle some of the issues, but really they need just to knuckle down and work on the operational delivery of the scheme.

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

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate.

This Bill is an affront to the principle that human rights are universal and belong to all of us by virtue of our humanity. The amendments from the other place are an attempt to stop the Government violating that principle and, I would argue, undermining not just Parliament but the courts and the rule of law in the process. Despite unacceptable and unparliamentary pressure from the Prime Minister, who urged peers to rush their scrutiny and simply go along with his dangerous, authoritarian Bill, they have rightly inflicted 10 defeats on the Government. They have done so by large majorities, signalling profound opposition to the Prime Minister’s deeply illiberal, deeply inhumane Rwanda legislation. The Home Secretary’s motions to disagree are consistent with this Government’s track record of cruelty towards people seeking asylum. We saw another example of that very recently in the Home Office’s jaw-dropping admission that it does not routinely inform family members when asylum seekers die in Home Office care.

Lords amendment 1, tabled by Lord Coaker, simply adds maintaining full compliance with domestic and international law to the purpose of the Bill. One might have imagined that that would not be up for debate, and it is a measure of how low this Government have sunk that they are opposing an amendment which simply says that their Bill should comply with the rule of law, something I had thought Conservative Members were meant to believe in. In particular, the amendment is needed to stop the disapplication of the landmark Human Rights Act, something I believe we should be proudly defending. It is also needed to protect interim measures—a vital human rights tool under international law, issued on an exceptional basis in extreme circumstances when individuals face a real risk of serious and irreversible harm.

The Bill states that

“the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign”

and that

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

and we have heard a great deal more of that from Conservative Members this afternoon. I think that Ministers should stop misusing the concept of parliamentary sovereignty, which is not embodied by riding roughshod over the courts. Let me draw their attention to a point made very clearly by Professor Mark Elliot, chair of the faculty of law at the University of Cambridge. As he explains,

“Parliament can be meaningfully sovereign only within a functional legal and constitutional system—and such a system can only exist if its other component elements are permitted to play their proper part.”

I suggest that that is exactly the principle that the Government are seeking to trample over with the Bill, which brings me to the way in which the Government are attacking parliamentary sovereignty by undermining the jurisdiction of the courts.

Lords amendment 6, in the name of Baroness Chakrabarti, is vital. It would allow our courts to play their proper part: to hear evidence and scrutinise the legality of Government decisions, allowing our system to protect individuals from risk to life or inhuman or degrading treatment. Likewise, Lords amendments 4 and 5 at least allow for the presumption in the Bill that Rwanda is safe to be rebutted. Without these amendments, the Bill directs courts to ignore the facts that are in front of them. The amendments are a modest reprieve for facts and evidence in what remains a thoroughly vile Bill.

It is extraordinary that the Government can be so fearful of evidence. Why would they not want to look at the evidence before them? Let me refer them to the recently published World Report 2024, which deals with human rights in Rwanda and makes pretty grim reading. It states:

“Commentators, journalists, opposition activists, and others speaking out on current affairs and criticizing public policies in Rwanda continued to face abusive prosecutions, enforced disappearances, and have at times died under unexplained circumstances.”

I also urge Members to consider how constitutionally and legally astonishing the Bill is. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has been explicit about how extraordinary it is, stating that

“Requiring the courts to conclude that Rwanda is safe, even though the evidence has been assessed by the UK’s highest court to establish that it is not, is a remarkable thing for a piece of legislation to do.”

That brings me to Lords amendments 2 and 3, which stand in the name of Lord Hope of Craighead, the former Deputy President of the Supreme Court. There has been much discussion about them, but they require monitoring of the safety of Rwanda, while accepting the assertion that the treaty makes Rwanda safe. Let us suppose for a moment that we suspend our disbelief and our notice of all the evidence now that suggests Rwanda is not safe. Even if it were safe, how on earth can we be legislating that it will be into the future, for any degree of indefinite time? Much in this Bill is an affront to common sense, but that seems to be in a league of its own. Facts change and when they do, we need to change our view of those facts—to do anything less is moving towards a moment of madness.

I want to be clear that although I will vote to uphold these Lords amendments, because they are an improvement on this dreadful Bill, I maintain my view that seeking to legislate by assertion that Rwanda is safe is as dangerous as it is ridiculous. The Government cannot sign a quick treaty one week and legislate the next to make a country safe, when the highest court in the land has said just the opposite. The facts on the ground are what matter and these amendments say that the facts should be monitored. What kind of Government would oppose that?

To conclude, I will vote to uphold Lords amendments 1 to 10 because they make this Bill slightly less constitutionally transgressive and inhumane. The Home Secretary’s motions to disagree with the Lords are laughable, coming just days after he has been exploiting the desperation of vulnerable people by offering them £3,000 to go to Rwanda voluntarily. Amended or not, the Bill remains a grotesque waste of money that is neither practical nor strategic; it is no less than a piece of performative cruelty from a dying Administration.

[John McDonnell]

Leaving aside the decision of the Court, on Lords amendment 9 we are in danger of reversing the work that this House has put in to ensure the protection of victims of modern slavery and trafficking; removing the amendment makes them vulnerable again, particularly to re-trafficking. I cannot for the life of me understand why there is not support from the Government for Lords amendment 9, which merely asserts the decision maker’s opportunity to assess the impact on the physical and mental health of the individual and their potential to be re-trafficked.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and he is absolutely right in what he says. It is ironic that by refusing these amendments, the Government are, in a sense, going back on pledges and commitments they have made on trying to uphold issues relating to human trafficking; this Bill is hugely damaging on so many levels. Others have spoken about amendments to provide at least some possible protection for unaccompanied children or for victims of modern slavery and those at the highest risk of harm if removed to Rwanda. We must consider what voting against those amendments means, just as we must do in respect of Lords amendment 10, which relates to the people in Afghanistan who have done so much for us, putting their own lives at risk for our Government and our country. On the idea that we would simply send them off to Rwanda, the right hon. Gentleman has already made a powerful intervention about what that would do for people who are already so vulnerable.

I sum up with a message that I hope that peers in the other place will consider. It is, of course, right and fundamental that the House of Lords should act in accordance with its subordinate position in relation to this elected House of Commons—that is the usual way in which we proceed. For the other place to override the Commons, the bar must be an extraordinary and profound attack on the very fabric and operation of our constitutional democracy. I regret to conclude that this Bill is just that and so the other place would be well within its rights—indeed, this is its responsibility—to uphold the amendments it has already put in place. This Bill is demeaning and degrades both Houses by ignoring the rule of laws that we have passed.

Furthermore, the Bill seeks to legislate facts and prevent courts from considering them. Fixing the facts on which the law is to be applied is the kind of thinking that dangerous conspiracies are based on. That way lies authoritarianism. I urge those in the other place to put a stop to this Bill, and I urge everyone in this House to vote in favour of the amendments tonight.