Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Cashman and Baroness Meyer

Report stage
Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I am standing to tell the truth. As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I was also in Rwanda very recently. We had a packed programme. Everyone we met told us that Rwanda is a safe country. This included women’s rights and the LGBT organisation, which told us that that is how they felt. We were also told that Rwanda has the largest LGBT community in Africa. Many people from that community flee neighbouring countries to go to Rwanda because they feel safe.

Critics also tend to overlook the fact that Rwanda has one of the lowest levels of corruption in Africa and that it is committed to the rule of law. It has more women participating in the labour market than in any country in Africa. The Supreme Court's decision, mainly based on the UNHCR report, failed to take any of those factors into account. The UNHCR representative we met admitted that Rwanda was at the forefront of improving its legal system and Rwanda was a safe country as such, but not safe enough to accept relocated individuals from the UK, as the current system was not capable or experienced enough to deal with them.

I need to point out that this was before the new agreement, in which a lot of the concerns of the Supreme Court have been addressed. She also pointed out that refugees from the UK came from different backgrounds to refugees from neighbouring countries. That comment was in direct contradiction to all the positive attitudes we witnessed. Everyone who we met expressed genuine readiness to accept and welcome the refugees coming from the United Kingdom.

The UNHCR representative’s conclusion, which I found most revealing, was that the UK should accept all immigrants arriving to its shores, rather than sending them off to Rwanda. But it is unrealistic to say that the UK has a responsibility to accept all asylum seekers, particularly if they come to our shores for economic reasons and line the pockets of traffickers. We are one of the most generous countries when it comes to refugees, but we have a responsibility towards our citizens, which includes securing our borders to ensure that no one takes advantage of our system.

Most of the people we met in Rwanda were surprised, if not deeply hurt, by the negative attention their country has received from both Houses and the media. I have to say that I was embarrassed. I felt that we are criticising a country that has had a terrible genocide and, in the past 30 years, has done so much to improve everything. It is so willing to accept new migrants. I was embarrassed. To be honest, Kigali is a beautiful city—I fell in love with it. It is clean, tidy and well organised. It has a young population full of optimism, looking forward to its future. I would not mind living there. I recommend that noble Lords who criticise Rwanda should go there, check for themselves and decide what they think, rather than making observations on hearsay and possibly—

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

The noble Baroness referred to the LGBT situation in Rwanda. Can she indicate to the House which LGBT organisation she met?

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

We met the Rwanda Women’s Network, which was very interesting. We also met the Hope and Care Organization, the Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre and My Rights Alliance. They campaign for LGBT rights.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that and will not detain the House any longer, but it is important to put this on the record. I say this with some knowledge of Rwanda, having been the chief election observer for the European Union in Rwanda in 2008, with subsequent knowledge since. The noble Baroness quoted the Hope and Care Organization, which does do a great deal of work. But I thought your Lordships should be aware of a recent quote. I will not name the individual, for fear of placing anyone at risk—but it is in my records if anyone needs it. It reads:

“Homosexuality is not criminalized in Rwanda, but many LGBTI people keep their sexuality and gender identity secret in an attempt to avoid rejection, discrimination and abuse, which in the long run inevitably denies them their basic human rights”.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

I am not LGBT, so I have no idea, but from the evidence we heard it seems to be a little frowned upon among the older generation or in the countryside—probably like in the United Kingdom. But, in Kigali, the capital, we were told that two men walking in the street holding hands is absolutely fine. This was the report we received.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

Again, I shall not detain the House, but I shall refer to this situation and the expression of one’s sexual identity in a later grouping—the fifth grouping. I thank noble Lords for their patience.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Cashman and Baroness Meyer

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to speak against this amendment. We should remind ourselves that when we talk about trans women and trans men, we are talking about men and women who have faced very difficult choices about their identity and whom they believe themselves to be. Once they face that choice and make the decision, the transition is a very lengthy process and, again, it is not undertaken lightly because, as we have heard, so often it leads to gender reassignment.

I occasionally go on Twitter. I have read the tweets and received messages from people who, in relation to what we are discussing tonight, have said that if they thought that they were going to prison as a trans woman or a trans man, they would rather commit suicide than face what they believe would be inhumane treatment within the United Kingdom Prison Service. We have to deal with these fears. We are being asked to deal with fears on both sides of this argument, and I want us to deal with both equally. The balancing of rights always poses for us the greatest problem, but I believe that the Ministry of Justice, in its policy on assessing trans prisoners, has got it absolutely right.

It is late and we have other important work to do, so I will begin to wind up. But I wish to associate myself wholeheartedly with the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I could go through the policy section by section stating why I believe it is right. I am not going to do that, but if your Lordships wished to return to it, I would do so.

I will finish with these reflections. This amendment, even though it has been placed in good faith and, as the mover said, with good intention, deeply concerns me because it perpetrates the stereotype of trans women and trans men as sexual predators—as a threat to other women, and trans men as a threat to the wider society. It also, as was said in debate on the previous amendment, creates further inequalities; it does not reduce them.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment, and the first thing I want to say is that we are talking only about men who have not transitioned to women, which is quite different.

Although we have come a long way since the 2007 Corston report to improve conditions for women in prisons, we are now failing them. Indeed, something has recently gone badly wrong. Women prisoners have a right to the security of a single-sex space. By definition, women are deprived of this security if men are admitted to their prison, including trans women prisoners of male sex, whether or not they have the benefit of a GRC. By the same token, a women’s prison is no place for vulnerable at-risk males. Prison policy must provide for the protection of everybody, and this amendment makes that clear.

How then have we allowed prison policy to be captured by a concern for the protection of trans prisoners at the cost of imprisoned women’s most fundamental rights? There is no balance or fairness in that. The answer of course is that government departments have allowed themselves to be influenced, even intimidated, by noisy and modish pressure groups, whose wilful ignorance of basic science has all the features of a cult.

I have never visited or been to a prison, but as a woman I can imagine how it must be to be incarcerated and threatened. On this note, I very much support this amendment and thank my noble friends Lord Blencathra, Lord Farmer and Lord Cormack for tabling it.