Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am pleased the right hon. Gentleman has asked me that question, as we often get this point about returns from Conservative Members. What I find fascinating is that, when we look at, for example, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are clearly safe countries in principle, we see that 80% of the applicants from those countries whose asylum claims fail are not being removed by this Government. For instance, the Home Office rejected asylum applications from 1,750 Pakistanis in 2023, yet Home Office data shows that just 620 people were removed to Pakistan in 2023. A clear proportion of those would have been asylum seekers—some may well have been foreign national offenders. The key point is that there are many, many countries to which it is more than possible to return people, yet the Government are simply failing to do so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) asked an extraordinary question in Home Office orals on Monday about a foreign national offender in her constituency who has been convicted of a sexual offence and has asked to be returned to his country of origin, but the Home Office has not facilitated that or allowed it to happen. Clearly, there is something going seriously wrong with returns. As I have mentioned, we have seen the number of returned failed asylum seekers plummet by 44% since 2010. We should be focusing on those countries with low grant rates, because that is where we can clear some of this backlog and return people to their country of origin when they have no right to be here.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. I find it interesting that he has suggested that all we need to do is ask India for emergency travel documents and it will immediately issue them. Has he made any attempt to find out what the issues might be there?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The key point is that, under the last Labour Government, returns were working. A part of that, I suspect, is based on proper, adult, grown-ups in the room having proper, adult, grown-up diplomatic conversations with the Governments with whom we mean to engage. What we have seen with this Government over the past few years is a consistent commitment to burning diplomatic relationships with a whole range of countries, and when we burn those bridges it makes it much more difficult to achieve what we need to achieve in our own national interest.

The Government have promised a whole range of things from that Dispatch Box, and the Lords amendments on these rule of law issues are simply seeking to put in the Bill what Ministers have promised. Why else are they rejecting the amendment in the name of my noble friend, Lord Coaker, which simply asks the Government to commit to promises that they have made? Likewise, why not support the Lords amendment in the name of the noble Baroness Chakrabarti, which allows Ministers, officials and courts to consider whether Rwanda is safe for individuals on a case-by-case basis, if the Government support the principle of appeals, as Ministers claim that they do?