Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I cannot say that at the moment, but, as I have said, they will be published on a regular basis.

The monitoring committee will be supported in all its work by a new support team, as set out in Article 15.(8) of the treaty. The new support team will consist of individuals who do not work for either the UK Government or the Government of Rwanda. The monitoring committee has already met three times since its inception and has agreed to the publication of its terms of reference and enhanced monitoring plan, which are both available online as part of the supporting evidence document that the Government have published. Therefore, we consider that Amendment 86, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is unnecessary.

Amendments 81 and 82 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and my noble friend Lord Hailsham seek to ensure that the Act does not come into force upon ratification of the treaty but instead requires secondary legislation to be laid before commencement requiring a JCHR report on the safety of Rwanda and agreement on this point from the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, would introduce a new clause whereby the Secretary of State must lay a statutory instrument before Parliament every six months stating that their assessment is that Rwanda is a safe country. This Bill reflects the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments given in the treaty to people transferred to Rwanda in accordance with the treaty. The treaty, alongside the evidence of changes in Rwanda since summer 2022, already enables Parliament to reach the conclusion that Rwanda is a safe country. There is therefore no requirement for any further legislation or additional reporting prior to commencement.

The UK-Rwanda partnership is a long-term policy and forms part of a wider set of measures to tackle illegal migration. A review of the policy every six months or two years would be an inefficient use of both government and parliamentary time. Furthermore, as I have set out, this is not needed, as the functions of the independent monitoring committee have been enhanced to ensure that obligations under the treaty are adhered to in practice. These arrangements, which have been carefully agreed with the Government of Rwanda and will be binding in international law, will ensure continued compliance with all the terms of the treaty.

It is also worth noting that Article 4.(1) of the treaty sets out clearly that it is for the UK to determine the timing of a request for relocation of individuals under the terms of the agreement and the number of such requests made. The treaty does not place on the UK an obligation to make any such request. This means that the Government would not be obligated to remove individuals under the terms of the treaty if there had been, for example, an unexpected change to the in-country situation in Rwanda that required further consideration. As is the case in many scenarios, the Government would be able to respond and adapt as necessary.

I turn to Amendments 69 and 87 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and Amendment 74 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. This legislation does not impact the financial agreement with Rwanda which was reached in 2022 through the memorandum of understanding for the migration and economic development partnership. Noble Lords will be aware that we have provided Rwanda with £220 million as part of the economic transformation fund and £20 million as an advance credit to pay for operational costs in advance of flights commencing. The spend on the MEDP with Rwanda so far is £240 million. In response to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, the £100 million is not a credit line, as he indicated last week.

There was an initial investment of £120 million in 2022 as part of a new economic transformation and integration fund, ETIF, created as part of the MEDP. The ETIF is for the economic growth and development of Rwanda. Investment has been focused in areas such as education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure and job creation. A further payment of £100 million was made in 2023 through the ETIF as part of the partnership. We anticipate providing another £50 million in the next financial year. This is not new but follows the same arrangement from 2022. We also made a separate payment of £20 million to the Government of Rwanda in 2022 in advance of flights to support initial set-up costs of the asylum and processing arrangements under the MEDP.

With regard to the question of whether there will be another tranche of funding for the Hope hostel in the next financial year, procurement of accommodation is for the Government of Rwanda. Accommodation costs are covered by the funding stream for operationalisation, and it is then up to the Government of Rwanda as to which accommodation they procure. This legislation also does not impact the process for removals to a safe third country, so the appraisal set out in the illegal migration impact assessment remains unaffected. The published economic note on this legislation explained that the exact cost will depend on the details of the implementation and the level of deterrence. The Government are already committed to disclosing further payments made as part of the economic transformation fund and the per-person relocation costs as part of the department’s annual accounts in the normal way.

Your Lordships will also be aware that the National Audit Office will be producing a factual report on the costs of this partnership. Officials have been working closely with the National Audit Office to ensure that they have the relevant information required for this. I cannot give any opinion on the date of publication, but it will likely be in the near future.

Finally, with the—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the elements of the ETIF and the MEDP, but could he place in the Library a more detailed breakdown? The £20 million credit line for operational does seem to be one part of a credit line. The Minister says that I was incorrect in stating that there was a total of £100 million. I will happily take him at his word if that is the case, but a more detailed breakdown of how much of the expenditure of the Rwandan Government will be UK taxpayers’ money would be helpful. Also, can he confirm whether this is being scored as overseas official development assistance or not?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am happy to commit to providing as much detail as I can in the letter that the noble Lord requests. I am afraid that I do not know the answer to the foreign development aid question, so I will have to look into that and come back to him.

With regard to Amendments 35 and 90 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, it is right that this Bill should apply to anyone arriving after the Rwanda treaty enters into force. It is the treaty, working together with the provisions in this Bill, that underpins the safety of Rwanda. As such, once the treaty is in force the basis for removal under this Bill is established. Clause 9(1) ensures that the Bill and the treaty come into force on the same day. This legislation builds on the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and other immigration Acts. To the extent that those Acts have retrospective effect, this Bill does nothing to change that.

Accommodating migrants in hotels is costing us £8 million each day. That is billions per year, which is clearly not sustainable. If people know that there is no way for them to stay in the UK, they will not leave safe countries such as France to risk their lives and pay criminals thousands of pounds to arrive here illegally. It is therefore only right that we stop the boats and break the business model of the criminal gangs who exploit vulnerable people. The Government consider this partnership to be a vital investment and therefore I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the two amendments just mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cashman. I remind the Committee, in relation to the LGBT community, that when the law was changed in the mid-1960s in this country it did not end the persecution of homosexuals. For years afterwards, there was a constant terrorising of the gay community. “Queer rolling” is a term that noble Lords will remember—men being attacked simply because it was suspected that they might be homosexual, or they were in a particular place at a particular time of night. The situation was really grave.

When I was a young lawyer in the 1970s and 1980s, one found oneself in court representing people who were being framed for the offence of importuning, which is still a criminal offence in Rwanda. The police harassed and monitored particular venues known to be habituated by gay men. It took many years before we ended that cultural underplay, which exists in societies even when the law is changed. We know that this is the situation in Rwanda, which has a high level of persecution of gay people still.

I also support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Dubs, which relates to freedom of religion and belief. Many of those fleeing Afghanistan are Hazara. It is a religious minority of the Shia tradition, and they are sorely persecuted in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I conducted an inquiry, which concluded at the beginning of last year, into the persecution of the Hazara. It is one of the main reasons that our security services put them on a high level of risk of being persecuted by the Taliban and other extremist groups. Unfortunately, they are likely to continue to be persecuted by others in Rwanda because of their particular religious beliefs.

I, too, feel that there is a misunderstanding about what “safety” means. In this Bill, when we talk about safety, it does not mean that, in declaring that Rwanda is safe, a person cannot say, “It’s not safe for me”. That is the point. When someone comes to a court and says, “This place is not safe for me because I am gay, or because of my religious beliefs or my non-religious beliefs”, those are bases on which any court protecting people’s human rights would declare that the place was not safe. I want that to be in the minds of noble Lords as they ruminate on this Bill and the amendments to this Bill—that questions of safety cannot be rubbed out of existence simply by a declaration of Parliament that a place is safe.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, spoke very powerfully in moving them, and I shall not seek to repeat anything that he said. It is a pleasure to follow the experience and knowledge of noble Lords who have spoken before me in this group.

I just wish to refer to two elements of why I have supported the amendments. I know that my noble friend Lord Scriven will speak to this group after me. The first is a general point with regard to the assessment of safety in a country where the Government have made a political decision that it can be nothing other than safe. This is what we debated on a previous group. That is illustrated in this group to an alarming degree. We can refer to the equality impact assessment with regard to the legislation; that assessment was carried out after the Bill had been agreed by Ministers, as I understand it. Ministers stated that Rwanda was to be a safe country.

The assessment says, in paragraph 3a, in consideration of the duty of eliminating

“unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act”,

that:

“We consider that removal to Rwanda would not risk discrimination or less favourable treatment as it is a safe country”—


and that is it. Ministers had already decided that it was a safe country, so equality impact assessments are now rendered almost completely pointless when it comes to Ministers deciding this.

That is notwithstanding the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, stating in this House that he could not say that Rwanda was safe yet, because safeguards were not in place. So we are in a situation where the contradictory nature of the decisions about safety, especially for those who may be more vulnerable than others if they are relocated, has now become political and not evidence based. That should be alarming for all legislators.

The second point that I wish to make is the inconsistency of what the Government are saying, because it is led from the political decision that was made for this Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, quoted the current FCDO travel advice for someone travelling to Rwanda voluntarily. If they are travelling to Rwanda voluntarily and are LGBT+, they are warned by the Foreign Office that they

“can experience discrimination and abuse, including from local authorities”—

that is the Government of Rwanda. So the Foreign Office advises voluntary travellers that they can experience discrimination and abuse from the Government. The Home Office is saying that, for someone being located there involuntarily, there is no possible experience of discrimination and abuse from local authorities. So which one trumps? Is it the Foreign Office or the Home Office that has the best advice to receive on this situation?

On the FCDO traveller advice, with regards to discrimination and abuse from local authorities, the Minister has an opportunity in responding to the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, to outline in clear terms at the Dispatch Box some examples of discrimination and abuse from local authorities. The reason why this is important is that it is the Government’s policy that those who are relocated to Rwanda, once they have been processed, will then become residents of Rwanda in local authority areas. The Government state in their travel advice that there is a recognition of a general concern about discrimination and abuse but that, with regard to this legislation, only specific and personal high-bar thresholds for potential discrimination and abuse can be considered.

The final thing I consider to be relevant is the country note for Rwanda, which is the basis on which the decision-makers will make their decisions, either for remedies or in seeking some form of injunction or relocation. It was cited by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. The country advice that was withdrawn had an interesting comment on potential crimes against LGBTIQ+ persons:

“Lack of reporting of crimes against LGBTIQ+ persons, due to stigma and fear of harassment, results in limited information”.


The Government, with limited information, can make categorical decisions—but of course, they will be made on a political basis. So perhaps any amendment we move to make this objective is futile, because it is not going to change the fundamental position: that Ministers have politically decided that Rwanda is safe and will always be so.

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[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly on that point to support the noble Baroness. We have heard in previous groups the concerns of the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr, who is not in his place, and other noble Lords, that the debates which we are having in this House are being keenly viewed outside this House and very keenly in the United Nations Human Rights Council.

It is a depressing fact today that the top news story on the UN global news website is commentary on this Bill going through this Parliament. The UN Human Rights Council, which will be gathering next week, will be discussing the atrocities in Sudan and the Israel-Gaza conflict. It is a time of great turmoil and danger for many people, but the fact that the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, today in the preparatory meetings of the council singled out the United Kingdom and the safety of Rwanda Bill as an illustration of the undermining of basic principles of the rule of law and of the risk of delivering a serious blow to human rights is deeply troubling.

The statement referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, which was made today, said:

“Settling questions of disputed fact—questions with enormous human rights consequences—is what the courts do, and which the UK courts have a proven track record of doing thoroughly and comprehensively. It should be for the courts to decide whether the measures taken by the Government since the Supreme Court’s ruling on risks in Rwanda are enough”.


The statement continued:

“You cannot legislate facts out of existence”.


I appeal to Ministers considering this Bill. Many in the world are watching us. We have led in these areas. We should be leading the discussions in the Human Rights Council about global abuses of the rule of law and human rights. We should not be being singled out for abusing them ourselves.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support these amendments for a very fundamental reason. The separation of powers is crucial for the freedom of all our people and I find it very distressing that the Government have not understood how deeply offensive this element of these proposals is.

It is deeply offensive simply because it purports to say that something is true which is not true. It suggests that the sovereignty of Parliament extends to the decision on whether something is or is not. That is a decision which has always been the purview of the courts, simply because the courts have a structure that enables them to listen to the evidence on all sides and make a decision at the end.

I fear that the Government have presented this because it is inconvenient that the courts should take a part in it. The price of liberty is inconvenience. You cannot be a free nation unless you accept that there are processes that are embarrassing to Governments, to Oppositions, to people of standing, to people who have got other views. You have to accept that it is the price we pay. This Government are suggesting that, because they have got to get something through before the end of the year because they said they would, they can claim that inconvenience is something they will not accept.

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[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to an interesting debate on this important point.

Clause 4 provides that a Home Office decision-maker, or a court or tribunal, can consider a claim that Rwanda is unsafe only

“based on compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s individual circumstances”.

Subsection (2) prevents a decision-maker or the courts considering any claim where it relates to whether Rwanda

“will or may remove or send the person in question to another State in contravention of any of its international obligations”.

Where the duty to remove under the Illegal Migration Act does not apply, subsections (3) and (4) prevent the courts granting interim relief unless that person can show that they would face

“a real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm”

if they were removed to Rwanda. This is the same threshold that can give rise to a suspensive claim based on serious and irreversible harm under the Illegal Migration Act. Subsection (5) provides that the consideration of “serious and irreversible harm” will be in line with the definition set out in the Illegal Migration Act, with any necessary modifications. Any allegation relating to onward removal from Rwanda is not an example of something capable of constituting serious and irreversible harm, as the treaty ensures that asylum seekers relocated to Rwanda under the partnership are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened.

Regarding the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, spoke to in opening, I remind noble Lords that the evidence pack published alongside the Bill details the evidence the United Kingdom Government have used to assess the safety of Rwanda. It concludes that, alongside the treaty, Rwanda is safe for the purposes of asylum processing, and the policy statement outlines the key findings. As experts on the bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and Rwanda and its development over the past 30 years, FCDO officials based in the relevant geographic and thematic departments, working closely with colleagues in the British high commission in Kigali, have liaised with the Home Office throughout the production of the policy statement.

As my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom and I set out in earlier debates, the United Kingdom Government and the Government of Rwanda have agreed and begun to implement assurances and commitments to strengthen Rwanda’s asylum system. These assurances and commitments provide clear evidence of the Government of Rwanda’s ability to fulfil their obligations generally and specifically to ensure that relocated individuals face no risk of refoulement. In answer to the points raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, which were adopted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester, and by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, from the Opposition Front Bench, among others, the position is that a person cannot argue this fundamentally academic point over a long period of time, occupying court resources. It is a point rendered academic because of the provision of the treaty governing the Bill.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for stating clearly that the Government of Rwanda have begun putting the safeguards in place. That is consistent with what he said earlier in Committee—that the Government of Rwanda are moving towards putting safeguards in place—but he accepted that Rwanda will be a safe country only when those are place, which may be after Royal Assent. Will an applicant be able to argue, even after Royal Assent, that Rwanda is not safe until the measures that are being moved towards are put in place?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, on the passing of the Bill, the Act will decree that Rwanda is safe. Just because work is being done to render a place safer it does not make it unsafe.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The Minister just said that Rwanda is becoming safer, but in his earlier comments he said that it has begun to put measures in place, and he has previously confirmed to me that until they are in place, it cannot be determined that Rwanda is safe. The Bill will decree that it is safe before the measures are in place so that it is safe. Surely someone would be able to argue in a court that it is not safe until those measures are in place. That is what the Minister just said.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, what I said was that on the passing of the Bill, Rwanda is safe. What I say is that it is—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

You said that the safeguards had to be in place.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

I did not. I said that just because safeguards have not yet been fully put in place, it does not mean, as a result, that Rwanda cannot be deemed safe.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

I reiterate my previous answer: the fact that further work is being done does not mean that the safety or otherwise of a place is conditional on the completion of that further work.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, cited the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, concerning a journalist. She is quite correct: I did not address that specifically when I spoke earlier. The question was not pressed on me subsequently, but given that the noble Baroness has returned to it, I will look into the matter with officials and correspond.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I have one final point for the Minister. If this legislation decrees on Royal Assent that Rwanda is a safe country, what is the point of having the safeguards he has mentioned?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, any work being done to improve a place is desirable of itself.

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[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

The point I am making is that I have been told the body is up and running. That does not touch on the matter of the recruitment of a support team, which is the basis of the noble and learned Lord’s supplementary question.

From the Opposition Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, touched on advice said to have been given by the former Solicitor-General and by the Attorney-General. I think he is aware—I have touched on it from the Dispatch Box at earlier stages—of the existence of the law officers’ convention. I will return to it again in a later group, but the essence of that convention is not only that the content of advice given is confidential but also that it is confidential that advice has even been sought. The reason for that, accepted by Governments of every stripe over the years, is to assist with the passage of decision-making and the consideration of legal matters that touch on legislation to be passed. As I said, if I may, I will revert to that in consideration of a later amendment.

The assurances and commitments that the Government have received, together with the treaty and conclusions from the FCDO experts reflected throughout the policy statement, allow his Majesty’s Government to state with confidence that the Supreme Court’s concerns have been addressed and that Rwanda is safe. As the point has been taken in this debate, albeit in passing, I stress once again that this is a matter not of overturning the findings of the United Kingdom Supreme Court but rather of acting on them.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The Minister is being generous in giving way, but what he just said contradicts what he said previously in Committee. At col. 70 of 12 February’s Official Report, I asked about the mechanisms for safeguards. It had been the Government’s position—until today, it seems—that the requirements of the Supreme Court would be met by the implementation of the treaty, which includes the safeguards within it. These include the appeals mechanism and the training and capacity-building. They have to be in place. If they are not in place, the treaty is not operative. Progress is being made towards them, as the Minister said, but he has just said that the Government’s view is that the requirements of the Supreme Court have been met. These comments are contradictory. This is important because, when I asked,

“can the Minister at the Dispatch Box reconfirm that position: that no individual will be relocated before the safeguards—including the appeals mechanism, the training and the capacity-building—are in place?”,

the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, responded:

“I can answer the first part of the noble Lord’s question in the affirmative”.—[Official Report, 12/2/24; col. 70.]


Is that still the case, or did he mislead the House?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

The point I was making was in answer to the point raised earlier in the debate by noble Lords, who were characterising the Government’s actions as going back on, or overturning, the Supreme Court’s decision. As I said, the point is that the terms of the Bill and the treaty are a response to the Supreme Court’s decision.

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[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

If the noble Lord were to be threatened with refoulement, it could only happen to him once the Bill and the treaty were in place. A person could not be relocated to Rwanda until the Bill and the treaty are in place, and once the Bill and treaty are in place, there is no risk of refoulement.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am very concerned with what the Minister has literally just told us. The Minister has just said that, once this Bill has passed, there is no risk of refoulement. Article 10 of the treaty says:

“The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur”.


Those are not consistent. The effective system has to be in place, because that is what the treaty says; the effective system is not the passage of this Bill. So can the Minister now correct the record?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are working with the Government of Rwanda to implement new protections to the Rwandan asylum system, including the introduction of new legislation. I am reverting to a point that was taken earlier, but I give the same answer that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. Protections offered by the treaty will prevent refoulement from Rwanda to elsewhere.

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[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, I will expand on the matter in the correspondence to which I referred the noble Lord.

I will go into more detail about the work that has been and is being conducted between Rwandan and British officials. Officials from the UK and Rwanda have worked closely together to strengthen Rwanda’s asylum system. We have already developed and commenced operational training for Rwandan asylum decision-makers and strengthened procedural oversight of the MEDP and asylum processes.

In November 2023, technical experts from the Home Office, working with the Institute of Legal Practice and Development, delivered a training course aimed at asylum decision-makers in Rwanda. It focused on applying refugee law in asylum interviews and decision-making, and on best practice in assessing credibility and utilising country-of-origin information.

Furthermore, as set out in paragraph 14.1.15 of the published country information note on Rwanda’s asylum system, once the treaty is ratified there are provisions for Rwanda to move to a case-worker model when deciding asylum claims. Under that model, for the first six months Rwanda’s decision-making body will consider advice from a seconded independent expert prior to making any decision in relation to a claim.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Under CRaG, the scrutiny period for the treaty has now been concluded, so, for clarification, when will the UK ratify the treaty?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

That is a decision not for me to take. It will be taken by the Government collectively. I am not in a position to give a date to the noble Lord, if he was asking me to give one. In the circumstances, I cannot supply him with any further information.