St Helena: UK Immigration

Lord German Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

As to whether the agreement was reached with the entire Legislative Council, we respect the democratic autonomy of St Helena. It is for St Helena to determine what consultation or engagement it wishes to have; it is not for the UK Government to take those decisions on behalf of St Helena, which has the right to take them and has chosen to handle this in this way. The Minister from St Helena’s comment is very clear.

On offshoring, I think the noble Earl is trying to probe how this may or may not relate to the previous Government’s Rwanda programme. Noble Lords will recall that that programme cost £700 million and returned four migrants, voluntarily.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, it is good news that the Government have reached an agreement with Mauritius in principle, although there are of course still concerns about the involvement of the Chagossians in the process. Will any migrant who gets to these territories and is then transferred to St Helena have an opportunity to apply for asylum in this country, given the role we are playing in the interim period before Mauritius takes over its responsibilities? Will the Mauritius agreement be subject to scrutiny by the International Agreements Committee of this House? If so, when is it likely to come before us? Will the Tamil asylum seekers, who were kept in awful conditions on Diego Garcia without a solution being found until recently, be able to seek asylum in this country, even though they may have to transfer elsewhere in the interim? If so, what will be the timescale?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

These are theoretical migrants, as no migrants would be subject to the new agreement with St Helena. It is not an international agreement in the same way that our agreement with Mauritius is; it is an agreement with one of our overseas territories, so it is slightly different. In the very unlikely event that any new migrants arrive in the Chagos Islands, they would be removed to St Helena and it would be for St Helena to process them and make any decisions about their status. It is our position that Diego Garcia is not a suitable place for the current migrants; most have left, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago. They will not be subject to this agreement and will be dealt with separately.