Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

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

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I am listening to his points with interest. As one who could be seen as one of the architects of the Rwanda scheme, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), I would have preferred to see the Bill with the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and I agree with many of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). But while I would prefer the Bill to go further, it is a Bill that could still work.

[Bob Seely]

I agree and I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. If there was a chance of it moving further, then yes, but I do not think there is. The issue is: it is this Bill or no Bill; it is this Bill or no chance.

To return to what my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) was saying about the ECHR, yes I accept and I agree, so let us reorient our relationship with the ECHR. Let us reorient our relationship with these European laws. Let us look again. I do not like judicial activism any more than anyone else on the Conservative Benches. Judicial activism is the enemy of democratic accountability if we have foreign judges who are willing to get up in the middle of the night and overrule law passed in this House, by this democratic body answerable and sovereign to the British people. So, let us talk about changing the ECHR, but we should not be doing it now.