Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Alton of Liverpool

3rd reading
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, has made a plea on behalf of Members in another place. Will they have available to them the Government’s response to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which I asked for in Committee, on Report and again today? The Minister will recall that, last week, he said it was imminent. I hope he will be able to tell us that it is now available in the Printed Paper Office and that it will be made available to honourable Members down the Corridor.

I have a great deal of respect for the Minister and like him enormously. All of us agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard, that there is an issue that has to be addressed. Some 114 million people are displaced in the world today. When will His Majesty’s Government bring together people from all sides of the House and the political divide to look at what can be done to tackle this problem at its root cause? Unless we do that, we can pass as many Bills as we like in this and in the other place but, frankly, in the end, it will make very little difference.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

When the House voted to delay ratification of the treaty, it did so on the basis that there was unfinished business and on the basis of a list of 10 requirements, most of which were for the Government of Rwanda, which should be fulfilled before Rwanda could be declared safe. Among these was the requirement in Article 10(3) of the treaty

“to agree an effective system for ensuring”

that refoulement does not take place. The risk of refoulement was, of course, central to the Supreme Court’s finding that it would be unsafe to deport refugees to Rwanda.

I have asked a couple of times in the Chamber during our 40 hours of debate how we are getting on with that requirement, which binds us, as well as the Government of Rwanda, to agree a system for ensuring that refoulement does not take place. Most recently, I asked on 4 March —Hansard col. 1379—whether Rwanda had agreed with us an effective system. The Minister replied that he did not know but would find out and get back to me. I am still waiting. Can he tell the House the answer now? If he cannot, will he undertake that the effective system will be up and running and reported to this House before the treaty is ratified and before any asylum seekers are deported to Rwanda?

I note that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, who does reply to questions, assured me in a letter dated 4 March that the Rwanda legislation required to implement the treaty

“will be operational prior to relocations beginning”.

I think this point is quite relevant to the one made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, about delay.

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Alton of Liverpool

Committee stage
Thursday 7th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I will say a brief word on Amendment 8A. Contrary to the habit of a lifetime, I played by the rules and did speak at Second Reading. I made clear that I warmly welcome our accession to the CPTPP and that I have no difficulty with the main points in this Bill.

On Amendment 8A, I am sympathetic, but I think that one needs to think quite hard about the timing. Within 12 months of the passing of this Act, the Government would be required to submit reports on two important areas of performance: how the—very welcome—rules of origin provisions are working out, and how respect for geographical indications is being honoured.

I do not know when our accession will take effect—none of us does—because it will depend on who is last to ratify our accession. It is conceivable that it might take all of 12 months or more than 12 months before this happens. To say that the report will be required within 12 months of our passing the Act is slightly odd. If the report is going to be useful, it needs to take account of what has actually gone on—the experience—with regard to how the rules of origin are being respected and how self-certification of rules of origin is working out.

Although I support the principle of the report—because these are both extremely important provisions within the CPTPP, and a report to see how they are working out seems a good idea—I really do not think that it is a good idea to ask the Government to do so within 12 months of the passing of the Act.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, unlike my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, I am afraid that I was not present for the Second Reading debate—I was with the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, who spoke earlier on, as the other half of the reception committee that welcomed the President of the Republic of Korea. I hope that we played our small part in deepening the friendship and relationship between this country and the wonderful, vibrant democracy of the Republic of Korea, with which I hope we will deepen our trade relations as the years go by.

I also have an amendment for consideration later, which will probably be reached on our second day in Committee. It also has within it a reporting mechanism. I agree with my noble friend that 12 months may not be the right time, but the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, and my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, are right to have both articulated the need for Parliament to have reports laid before it. That is the principle, but how one does that, the mechanisms that we use and the timeframes we place on it are surely open to discussion. The Government should not quail at the idea of there being time for Parliament to look back at what has happened to something such as the CPTPP. I must say that I also welcome the CPTPP; I strongly believe that the Government have done the right thing in promoting this opportunity for the United Kingdom. I have no issues whatever with that; my issues would come later about some of the partners we might have in the future. We will discuss that later on.

This idea that Parliament should discuss the nature of trade is not new. With the help of the House of Lords Library, I was looking at the debates that took place in 1857 when the great champion of free trade, Richard Cobden, denounced the opium trade in a three-day debate in which two relatively young MPs—William Ewart Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli—joined forces across the political divide to support him, just as Cobden had stood with William Wilberforce in denouncing the trade in human beings. He was against the slave trade. There were red lines not to be crossed.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Alton of Liverpool

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I agree with the noble Lord—he made the point comprehensively—except that he pulled his punches. Yes, the last line of Amendment 36 is very important, for the reason he gave, but it is a paradox because the effect of the Bill, if we pass it in its present form, will be to increase people smuggling. It will produce more deaths in the channel because, instead of opening safe routes, we are criminalising unlawful arrival. We are criminalising people who come undocumented and seek asylum. We are putting into group 2, where they are to be discriminated against, people who come indirectly even if they come by a regular route—say, on an airline. Tell me: how do you come directly from Kabul? How do you come directly from Syria, if that is your country of citizenship but you are one of the 3 million Syrians who are in Lebanon and Turkey?

It is a Catch-22 situation, since 90% of asylum seekers who come to this country do so from countries where we insist that the people coming must have visas or entry certificates, but we do not issue entry certificates to people who want to come and seek asylum. The effect of this Catch-22 is to make safe routes impossible and close them down. The only way to stop deaths in the channel is to create more safe routes but the effect of the Bill, if passed in its present form, will be to produce more deaths there. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, when he says that we do not solve the problem by passing laws but, if we pass the Bill in this form, we will make the problem a lot worse.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to briefly support what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said to the House about the importance of creating more safe routes and dealing with the Catch-22 he described. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will recall that I raised with her the position of British embassies in parts of the world of the sort the noble Lord has just referred to and the role they might play in sorting out genuine asylum claims, which people cannot make. I gave the noble Baroness examples of the Yazidis and others in northern Iraq, which I visited in 2019, who, if they could have gone to a British post or embassy and had the matter dealt with on the ground, would have been saved much misery. I appeal to the noble Baroness to look at this question of safe routes and how we bring about a way in which incredibly vulnerable people are able to be sorted out and given a chance to come to places of safety and sanctuary.

I want to support what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said as well. So much in this Bill is about what can be described as the pull factors that the Home Office always refers to, but we have failed to give sufficient attention to the push factors that bring some of those more than 80 million who are displaced or refugees in the world today. There was a Cross-Bench debate only last month where Members from all sides of your Lordships’ House called for greater international efforts to be made, co-ordinating a campaign by the great nations in the way we have done over issues from COP 26 to Covid. Eighty million people displaced or refugees worldwide requires international action. We should be convening an international conference on that subject alone, and I would love to see this country taking the lead on that.

I would also like this country to take the lead in standing up to some of the internet companies that are referred to in Amendment 129, from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. It is outrageous that companies believe they can be above the law and do as they wish in enticing people—the kind of people the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, described—who feel they are destitute and at risk with advertisements for illegal routes to countries such as the United Kingdom. That is against the law; it should not require a new Act of Parliament to deal with it. I hope when the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, comes to reply to the debate, he will be able to tell us that more is going to be done about that now.