Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

I disagree entirely with all the points that the hon. Gentleman has made; I know that he is patient, and he will hear me respond to each and every one.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Like me, the Minister has always believed that immigration should be dealt with on a UK rather than a Great Britain basis, for obvious reasons. Given the comments that we have just heard, does he agree that there is plenty of precedent within our own law for deeming certain claims for certain citizens inadmissible? That has applied to the EU, and surely it is not a problem to extend it further, because we already have the principle that we can say a claim is inherently unfounded when a country is clearly safe.

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[Michael Tomlinson]

No. Respectfully, I encourage the hon. Lady to listen to the debate, because I read out the words of the EU’s ambassador, not of any representative from Rwanda. That is a powerful independent voice, which is why I cite it here in this Chamber.

The implementation of all measures within the treaty will be expedited. Indeed, since our previous debate on this matter, the legislation required for Rwanda to ratify the treaty has passed through both Houses of the Rwandan Parliament. Once ratified, the treaty will become law in Rwanda. The implementation of these provisions in practice will be kept under review by the independent monitoring committee, whose role was enhanced by the treaty and which will ensure compliance with the obligations as agreed.

[Kevin Foster]

Does the Minister recall that the Supreme Court judgment hinged on the issue of refoulement and not on whether or not refugees were safe in Rwanda? It might benefit some to have listened to its judgment.

[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.

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As part of our plan, we would also ensure that people who have no right to be here are removed to a safe third country. Since 2010, under the Tories, removals have collapsed: the returns of foreign national offenders have fallen by 27%, and the returns of failed asylum seekers have fallen by 44%. Under Labour’s plan, a new returns and enforcement unit would include 1,000 additional officials to expedite removals, with £35 million set aside to create new Nightingale courts to fast-track appeals and pursue tougher action on employers who employ migrants illegally.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. He says he wants removals to a safe third country. Which one?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am very sorry, but would the hon. Member mind repeating that?

[Kevin Foster]

It is always good to listen to an intervention, but I will repeat it for him. He said that one part of his plan was to remove people to a safe third country. Simply question: if not Rwanda, which one?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I apologise; I should have said “home country.” I would like to correct the record. It was “home country”. Apologies; I mis-spoke.

Labour’s common-sense, pragmatic plan will smash the business model of the criminal gangs, deter dangerous journeys and tackle the backlog.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will now run through the remaining nine amendments from the other place. We support each of them for the reasons I will now set out.

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[Kevin Foster]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). I agree with much of what he said, but I will differ from him on the one or two amendments he plans to support.

It is worth remembering the purpose of the Bill. It is about dealing with one of the knottiest problems in illegal migration policy, which is what we do about those who leave a safe and democratic country to come to the UK, as a choice, who we then cannot return to their home country—either because of the domestic policy of the country, which the Minister will know about, or because it is a country we are realistically not going to be able to engage with on immigration removal. Then they seek to take advantage of our asylum system. In many cases, that is the core of the people traffickers’ business model. These people can include those who have had lawful residence in another safe, democratic country but then come to this country and apply for refugee status. For me, the Bill has to be about delivering a process that breaks the people smugglers’ business model.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright)—I am pleased to see him in his place—really summed it up: these amendments are not about making the Bill work better or getting this process in a better place. They are about creating routes to challenge, delay and block up. I listened to the points he made, such as on permanence. Of course, Parliament is always free to take a different view on legislation presented. No Parliament can bind another constitutionally, so a future Parliament could take a view that Rwanda is no longer safe, but for now we are quite entitled to take a view as to whether it is. Particularly with the treaty obligations and the work being done, we can say that Rwanda is safe for a refugee to be transferred to.

The core of the Bill is about working with another country that is an expert in resettlement, and being able to provide for people with a genuine safety need or who are seeking safety. It is not about allowing the continuation of the idea that if someone pays a trafficker, they can choose where that safety need is met—that is, here in the United Kingdom. Lords amendment 6 allows a range of challenges to the idea that Rwanda is not safe. Again, I look at the fact that Rwanda is working with the UNHCR on refugee resettlement. If it were inherently dangerous to take someone to Rwanda or there were a massive danger of refoulement on to a country where they would face persecution, that system could not exist.

It is perfectly reasonable that we can come to our own agreement with Rwanda that will be effective and respected, and that we can rely on in defining the country as safe. I sadly do not have time to go into all the elements touched on in the debate, such as the issues we had with our age assessment system, but it is similarly perfectly reasonable to say that with new processes coming in, we can take a view. A lot of challenges are raised up not because they will ultimately succeed but because they delay removal.

I am going to disagree a little bit with what the right hon. Member for East Antrim and others said about amendment 8. First, it says “referring to all individuals”. In a strict interpretation of that, we would list everyone’s name and address, which would clearly not be appropriate at all, neither would it be appropriate to list the timetable for the removal of individuals from this country. That would involve going into a publication of data that the Government would not normally go into, for fairly obvious reasons. The idea that we will not get reports and constant commentary on how the process is going without amending the Bill does not stand up.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), I worked on Op Pitting, and I saw the work we did to get people out of Afghanistan. Yes, we do need to look at how we can unblock some of the ARAP process, but a lot of that is to do with finding places to settle here in the UK. It is one of the biggest issues with many of our resettlement schemes. One of the great successes of the Ukrainian scheme was people coming forward, but with the Afghan one we were reliant in many cases on local councils to offer spaces, which—unsurprisingly, given the well-known housing pressures—not many rushed to do. There is a debate to be had there, but it is not resolved by amending this Bill and providing another route to challenge or make a claim, when there is a likelihood that that route will be used by those who perhaps never had anything to do with our forces but see it as a way to not be transferred to Rwanda.

I do find interesting some of the counterintuitive arguments we have heard from the Opposition Benches that this is all a bit of a gimmick and is not going to work. If that was the case, why waste time amending the Bill? Why not let it go through, let the Government get their legislation and then spend the rest of the year saying, “Look, it didn’t work”? We know what the real fear is: it is that if the Bill goes through, this plan will work. The Bill can be perfectly credible and go forward. Some of the objections we have heard sit with me and go against the fact that the UNHCR itself is taking people to Rwanda in very large numbers, as has already been mentioned.

Without the Bill, and without it being an effective Bill—that is, a Bill without these amendments—what is the plan B? What is on offer to try to break this fundamental part of the people smugglers’ business model? We are told about cracking down on gangs, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) rightly pointed out that there have been a lot of prosecutions, arrests and convictions already, and he asked how many more the Opposition are proposing. There was no real answer. The answer is that their opposition is just a soundbite, nothing else. It is like the claim that all we need to do is walk in the door and we will get a great deal out of France. Well, good luck with that. I know from my own dealings with authorities on the continent that it is not just a case of walking in the door, making a demand and suddenly getting everything we want.

As was said earlier, the amendments may be very elegant and well worded, but at the end of the day they are nothing but wrecking amendments, intended to obfuscate the process, bung it up, delay it, and reopen routes to challenge that the Bill is specifically looking to shut down. The Bill looks to transfer people to a perfectly safe country that is an expert in resettlement, works with other groups on resettlement and is perfectly able to work with the United Kingdom. Parliament is perfectly able and right to take the view that it is safe to do so.

[Patrick Grady]

We have all heard the admonitions about speaking to the amendments, but it is worth reflecting on the absence of any amendments in lieu on the amendment paper. During earlier stages of the Bill there were star chambers, the five families, propositions to strengthen the Bill and all kinds of dark mutterings about what might happen if it was not strengthened sufficiently, but the Bill cleared this House without any amendment. Now consensus appears to have broken out on the Conservative Back Benches that the Bill does not in fact need any further changes and should remain unamended—so it does not need strengthening after all. Perhaps that is because this is a Bill that nobody really wanted. All it has done is create problems for the Government and the Prime Minister that did not have to exist in the first place.

The Bill creates significant new precedents, undermines established principles and conventions, and moves the UK away from a framework and structure of international law that has protected our freedom and human rights for nearly 80 years since the end of the second world war. It is not really the Safety of Rwanda Bill; it is the safety of the Prime Minister Bill. It has all been designed to try to keep certain elements of his Back Benches happy, and on that test it seems to have failed, just as it has failed in practically every other criterion it could be assessed against. The evidence of that is before us in the 10 amendments that have been made on a cross-party basis by Members of the House of Lords. As we have heard in all the Opposition speeches today, many of these are completely reasonable, sensible tests and requirements. If the Government were genuinely confident about the effectiveness of their policy and the safety of Rwanda as a place for the deportation of asylum seekers, they should be able to accept the Lords amendments without difficulty.

The amendments to clause 1, proposed by Lord Coaker and Lord Hope of Craighead, simply lay out the criteria by which Rwanda should be judged safe, and on the Government’s own terms based on the treaty that they have signed. I agree with the points made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) about the significance of Lord Hope adding his name to the amendments—I declare an interest because, many years ago, he conferred an undergraduate degree on me when he was chancellor of the University of Strathclyde.

The amendments to clause 4 in some way get to the heart of the debate and the issues at stake in the Bill. The debate is not really about whether Rwanda is safe in general terms. As I said on Second Reading, I visited Rwanda, as have a number of Members who have spoken, in 2018 with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. It is a beautiful country with huge potential. Its people have had to live through incredibly difficult circumstances. For wealthy tourists who fly in, go on safari and stay in nice hotels—or those who go on Select Committee or CPA visits—Rwanda is a safe and welcoming country. However, citizens who speak up too loudly with questions about the regime, who ask why international observers have been unable to report that presidential elections have been free or fair, or who belong to the LGBT community in that country, or Rwandan citizens living in London under the protection of the Metropolitan police because they are being stalked by their country’s intelligence services, might not find Rwanda quite as safe and welcoming.

The question is not whether Rwanda is generally safe, which is how the FCDO official travel guidance describes the country—it will be interesting whether it will update that guidance on the basis of the Bill. The issue is whether it is safe for asylum seekers and, even then, not for asylum seekers generally as some amorphous mass but every individual asylum seeker who might be sent there. Everyone’s personal circumstances are different; everyone’s story is unique. As the Refuweegee charity says, “We’re all fae somewhere.” Lords amendment 6 recognises that and provides for consideration and review of individual claims and cases. Those kinds of checks and balances ought to be expected in any kind of decision- making system, especially ones that make fundamental choices about the lives of the individuals concerned, but Ministers do not like to individualise the issue. They have lost sight of—or perhaps they have never really cared about—the wellbeing of the human beings at the centre of this debate.

Last week the Minister kindly accepted an invitation to visit Glasgow—something none of his predecessors has been prepared to do. I hope that when he comes, he will meet and listen to some of my constituents who are supported by the Maryhill Integration Network, Refuweegee, Glasgow Afghan United and other organisations that work with refugees and asylum seekers to make them welcome in the city. He will see how people who have come here on small boats, on the backs of lorries or through other irregular means have not done so for purely economic reasons. They have come fleeing war, climate change, persecution and many other situations barely imaginable to many of us who live in relative comfort and safety in Scotland and in the UK. All they want is to be safe and to be able to contribute to their new community and society.

There is nothing good about the Bill. It should be scrapped in its entirety. It is unnecessary, unworkable and unloved by all sides of the Conservative party and the House. The Lords amendments provide something in the way of mitigation, and the House should support each of them tonight. I hope that it has the chance to divide on each of them, too. The Government, their Back Benchers and everyone else who supports the Bill ought to be made to work for it. If they think walking around the Lobby for two hours is tough, they should try getting on a small boat or on the back of a lorry and see how they feel about that.

If the Government use their majority to send the amendments back, the Lords ought to think carefully about how their amendments in lieu might achieve similar aims, and not simply cave at the end of the first round of ping-pong. The Bill was not in the Government’s manifesto or even in the King’s Speech, so there is no convention, principle or anything else stopping the Lords from continuing to insist on versions of their amendments. We on the SNP Benches are not supporters of an unelected second Chamber, but if Members on the Government Benches—and, more pertinently, on the official Opposition’s Benches—think that an unelected House of Lords is a good idea and has a role to play in the UK constitution, they ought not be prepared to see the Lords simply cave in on this kind of legislation; Opposition Members should ensure that their colleagues in the House of Lords continue to hold the Government to account in the way that they think the UK constitution ought to work.

In reality, all this is getting us further away from the SNP’s vision of an independent Scotland with an open and welcoming asylum and immigration system—and the more that the Government and the official Opposition continue to push that divergence, the closer that independent Scotland will come.