Rwanda Asylum Partnership

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As the noble Baroness is aware, the foundation for this is a memorandum of understanding that, it is strongly believed, covers the various points that she made. I cannot answer precisely who is responsible at the Rwandan end, but there are teams of Home Office personnel in place who will also monitor progress.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, when will—

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, most of the—

[Noble Lords]

Foster!

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

She is just reading her question out!

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, most of the Rwanda Cabinet were refugees and understand the difficulties that people face, particularly coming from war-torn countries. Rwanda has moved forward massively from the days when it suffered war and genocide. Does my noble friend agree that we need to kickstart this process for illegal immigrants as soon as possible as we cannot sustain the levels as they stand and be seen to support people traffickers, who continue to make money on the backs of human misery?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The most reverend Primate refers to refugees, so I will too. It is fairly self-evident what we have been doing for refugees, including BNO passport holders from Hong Kong—over 130,000 such visas have now been issued—Ukrainian refugees and Afghan refugees. I remind noble Lords that at the moment the taxpayer is spending about £2 billion a year on this problem. This is about asylum seekers arriving from safe countries, and about trying to put the criminal gangs out of business.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords—