Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1D.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

Lords amendment 3E, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 6D, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 10D, and Government motion to disagree.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Madam Deputy Speaker, here we are again—you were in the Chair the last time we considered this Bill. This House has now voted several times, including in our strong endorsement of the Bill on Second and Third Readings. We need to bring this process to a conclusion to get the Bill on to the statute book and to get the flights off the ground as soon as possible.

Lords amendment 1D says we should have “due regard for” the Children Act 1989, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015, but why stop there? Why not the Equality Act 2010, the Data Protection Act 2018 or any other Act? Why not list the whole statute book? The answer is because it is not necessary. Together, the treaty, the Bill and the evidence demonstrate that Rwanda is safe for relocated individuals and that the Government’s approach is tough but fair, is lawful, has justification and seeks to uphold our international obligations.

As I set out in our earlier debates, the Government respect the Supreme Court’s decision, and it was precisely to address the Supreme Court’s concerns that we brought forward the treaty with the Republic of Rwanda. We have also prepared an evidence pack on what has changed and how those concerns are being addressed.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I am struck by how reasonable Lord Hope’s amendment seems in setting up an independent body to assert that Rwanda is a safe place, as the Minister says. What could possibly be wrong with that?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I will address that amendment in a few minutes, but there already is an independent body: the monitoring committee is part of the treaty. I am not speaking to that amendment at the moment, but I hope to allay some of the hon. Lady’s concerns in a few minutes’ time and then to see her in the voting Lobby.

Having considered the lengthy and extensive exchanges throughout the Bill’s passage, the Government now invite Parliament to agree with our assessment that the Supreme Court’s concerns have indeed been properly addressed and to enact the Bill accordingly.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

My party will support the Government, with the exception of one amendment. I have previously asked the Minister about freedom of religion or belief. We have that freedom in the United Kingdom, but some disquiet has been expressed to me, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, about that freedom in Rwanda. People have repeatedly asked me this question, which I sincerely and graciously ask the Minister to answer. Is there the same freedom of religion or belief in Rwanda as we have in the United Kingdom?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman that any two countries’ systems are the same. As I have previously said, those freedoms are in Rwanda’s constitution. He has previously asked me that question, and I have read out the precise wording. I endeavour to do so again before the end of this debate.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Many people share the Government’s ambition to stop the boats. Would these Lords amendments not muddle the legislation in a way that, once again, would leave us open to an unnecessary court challenge? Can he reassure us that, unamended, the Bill will do the job?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I know my right hon. Friend has taken a close interest in the Bill since the outset, and he is right. The amendments fall into two categories: those that are simply unnecessary and those that are worse than unnecessary. The second group are wrecking amendments deliberately designed to prevent the very things that the Bill was designed to do—namely, stopping the boats and getting the planes off the ground.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has previously accused me of repeating myself from time to time—heaven forfend—but he is right, because our approach is justified as a matter of parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional propriety. Indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) has even said that it is not unprecedented, and he is right. It also meets our international obligations.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I reciprocate the Minister’s comment because, in so far as I may have rather infelicitously suggested that he has repeated himself, I have to confess that I, too, have repeated myself. [Hon. Members: “No!] Yes, and I have done so for extremely good reasons.

My amendment, which I will not go into now, received huge support in this House but was not accepted by the Government. It still presents a serious question that has to be answered. Going back to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said, there will come a time when this Bill is passed, hopefully in the immediate future, after which it will receive Royal Assent. At that very moment, as sure as anything, a claim will be made straightaway by Matrix Chambers, or by one of the other doughty chambers or whoever. The question will then be what the Supreme Court is going to do about it. That is the subject to which I keep returning.

As the Minister knows only too well, when we said that we were concerned that the Bill will not work, it was not because we did not want it to work; it was the exact opposite. We want it to work, but given that the Opposition are still going on about international law, we need to be sure that the wording is clear and unambiguous so that the Court rules in the Government’s favour. If not, it is all over.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Once again, I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He has a tendency to repeat himself from time to time, as he admits, but he is right to do so. He has previously mentioned paragraph 144 of the Supreme Court’s judgment, which I can cite in full:

“in any event, the principle of legality does not permit a court to disregard an unambiguous expression of Parliament’s intention such as that with which we are concerned in the present case.”

It has been our joint endeavour to ensure that this legislation is clear and unambiguous.

On the treaty’s implementation, I reiterate that clause 9 clearly sets out that the Bill’s provisions come into force when the treaty enters into force, and that the treaty enters into force when the parties have completed their internal procedures. We will ratify the treaty only once we agree with Rwanda that all the necessary implementation is in place for both countries to comply with the obligations under the treaty.

The monitoring committee, as I told the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), will undertake daily monitoring of the partnership for at least the first three months to ensure rapid identification and response to any issues. This enhanced phase will ensure that comprehensive monitoring and reporting takes place in real time.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister ensure that the report is laid before Parliament so that we can review it?

[Michael Tomlinson]

The monitoring committee’s work is independent. Commitments have already been made that there will be an update in Parliament, which is one of the amendments in lieu that we agreed to last time. Today, the right thing to do is to push back on all these amendments, which are either unnecessary or wrecking.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I appreciate the tone and manner in which the Minister is approaching this difficult issue, but can he help on one matter? I understand his point that some amendments might have the effect of delaying the Bill, or might give rise to challenges and delay the policy objective, but I am troubled about why that should be thought to apply to Lords amendment 3E, proposed by Lord Hope of Craighead, who is a distinguished jurist and whose amendment is proposed in moderate and unpartisan terms. The rub of what will happen going forward is whether or not Rwanda is safe. Parliament can legislate, as a matter of sovereignty, to say that it is safe, but for the legislation to be effective we have to deal with the fact that we have chosen to make ourselves judges of fact, but facts may change. Given that we have put in place the mechanism, with the monitoring committee and enhanced arrangements, which are all to the Government’s credit, I struggle to see what is in the Hope amendment that undermines the operationality of the Bill, rather than helping it. If facts did change, would it not be helpful to have such a mechanism to enable us to review that, on an informed basis?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his engagement in the Chamber during previous debates and outside the Chamber. I hope over the next few minutes to persuade him as to why this specific amendment is in fact unnecessary. I share his respect for the noble Lord Hope, as should we all, but I respectfully disagree with him that this amendment is necessary. Let me explain why.

The implementation of these provisions will be kept under review by the independent monitoring committee that we have been discussing. That role was enhanced by the treaty from that originally envisaged. The commitment from our friends and allies in Rwanda is evident given the progress that has already been made. Let me set out two or three concrete pieces of evidence to help my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill).

On Thursday 21 March, the Rwandan Senate passed legislation ratifying the treaty. The domestic legislation to implement the new asylum system has been approved by the Cabinet and is now with Parliament for consideration. The complaints process has been set up. This, plus the wider assurances on the training process, which will ensure the quality of decision making and build capability in Rwanda’s asylum system, all reaffirm the fact that we have confidence in Rwanda’s commitment to delivering this partnership and in its status as a safe country.

As is evident from our numerous debates, Rwanda has a strong track record of welcoming asylum seekers and looking after refugees, and it has also been internationally recognised as generally safe and stable. A further piece of evidence is that Rwanda’s overall score in the World Justice Project’s rule of law index has increased consistently. It is the first in sub-Saharan Africa and 41st globally. In fact, it is higher than both Georgia and India, which this Parliament has in the recent past confirmed are safe countries. Those relocated to Rwanda will be given safety and extensive support, as detailed and set out in the treaty. I am grateful to all the officials in the Government of Rwanda who have been working so hard on this.

Lords amendment 6D, which I characterise as a wrecking amendment, would simply encourage illegal migrants to continue to frustrate the system through lengthy legal challenges in order to prevent their removal, running contrary to the core purpose of the Bill. The Bill strikes the appropriate balance of limiting unnecessary challenges that frustrate removal, while maintaining the principle of access to the courts. Taken as a whole, the limited availability of domestic remedies maintains the right constitutional balance—the balance that we have all been seeking in this Chamber—between Parliament being able to legislate as it deems necessary, and the powers of our courts to hold the Government to account.

Turning to the final Lords amendment, amendment 10D, I acknowledge, as I acknowledged during our previous exchanges, that this Government recognise the commitment and responsibility that comes with combat veterans, whether our own or those who have shown courage by serving alongside us. I repeat: we will not let them down. Section 4 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 enables the Secretary of State to specify categories of persons to whom the duty to remove will not apply. Once the United Kingdom’s special forces Afghan relocations and assistance policy review, announced on 19 February, has concluded, the Government will consider how to revisit our immigration legislation and how it will apply to those who will be eligible as a result of the review.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It is one thing to hear the Minister give the assurances he has given today, but the fact remains that we have been out of Afghanistan for some time now. There is considerable evidence that those who helped us, and put themselves in danger as a result, have not been able to get easy access to the United Kingdom and get immigration status. The Government have not dealt with the issue in the past, despite the fact that the difficulty that these people are facing has been made quite clear, so why should we believe their assurances that they will deal with it in the future? Therefore, this amendment is necessary.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The answer is that this Prime Minister has placed around his Cabinet table the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer)—a veterans’ Minister sitting at the highest level. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has served our country, as have many right hon. and hon. Members across the House. We will not let veterans down. That is the reassurance that has been given from this Dispatch Box and in the other place by the noble Lord Sharpe.

The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) expressed optimism on Monday. I confess that I too am an optimist. May I take this opportunity, perhaps in the optimistic hope that this might be my last opportunity during the passage of the Bill, to thank all the Bill team in the Home Office for their extraordinary work? It is a team effort, but may I praise one who has gone above and beyond, whose voice, I hope, recovers? She knows who I am talking about. I thank the parliamentary Clerks for their advice and assistance, not least in our marathon Reasons Committee sessions. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for always ensuring that I have been in order.

To conclude, we have made it abundantly clear that our priority is to stop the boats. We simply cannot stand by and allow people smugglers to control who enters our country and to see more lives being lost at sea. We have an obligation to the public and to those who are being exploited by criminal gangs to stop this vile trade and protect our borders. Letting this Bill pass now will send a clear signal that if people come to the United Kingdom illegally they will not be able to stay. I commend the motion to the House.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords in the other place for all the hard work they have done in trying to amend the Bill, which is quite frankly a sham and a con. I would like to highlight the restraint that they have exercised. Despite the deeply damaging nature of this legislation, in terms of its impact on our constitutional conventions and our adherence as a country to the rule of law, none of the amendments before us today seeks to wreck the Bill or the unworkable, unaffordable and unlawful scheme the Bill seeks to enact. Not one of them would prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off or stop the Government flogging this dead horse of a policy. Instead, the amendments seek only to commit the Government to the promises they have already made about who will be sent to Rwanda, and to clarify the mechanisms that will underpin that process.

Ministers claim that there is tremendous and pressing urgency, but if that is the case why did the Government forgo the opportunity to use Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 March for debates and divisions on the Bill? Could it be because they needed extra time to scramble high and low for an airline that wanted to be associated with this unworkable, unaffordable and unlawful scheme? Or could it be because the Home Secretary is unable to decide who should be exempted from deportation to Rwanda? Indeed, it has been reported that, because of his dithering, the entire hare-brained scheme has been given a “red risk” rating in the Home Office.

That brings me to the permanent secretary’s comments at the Public Accounts Committee on Monday—namely that 40,000 asylum seekers are currently stuck in the truly Kafkaesque perma-backlog of inadmissible cases whose claims for asylum the Government are refusing to process. Forty thousand requires an awful lot of flights, given that the Government have not managed to get one flight off the ground and given what we know about the Rwandan Government’s capacity to process just a few hundred cases a year.

Therefore, given that a maximum of around 1% of the asylum seekers who are in the perma-backlog can be sent to Rwanda, what is the Minister’s plan for the remaining 99% who are stuck in this indefinite limbo of his Government’s own making? Is the plan to keep them in taxpayer-funded hotels, of which hundreds are still in operation, according to what the Minister for Legal Migration and the Border said on Monday, despite the Government’s boasts? Or, perhaps they will have an amnesty, which the hon. Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) warned about last year, and which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) warned about at that very Committee.

Well, we know what we would do: we would deliver our backlog clearance plan, surging the number of decision-makers to process claims quickly, and set up our new returns and enforcement unit with 1,000 new staff to remove those who have no right to be here.

It is quite frankly shocking that the number of foreign criminals removed has dropped by a staggering 27 % under the Conservatives, and also profoundly worrying that the number of failed asylum seekers being returned has plummeted by 44 % in that time, with just 2%—2%!—of small boat crossers removed since 2018. What a sorry state of affairs.

Our new returns unit, together with our cross-border police units to go after the criminal smuggler gangs operating in the channel upstream—funded, of course, through redirecting the money that has been squandered on Rwanda—gives us a compelling and realistic plan. It is a plan that is based on hard graft, common sense and effective international co-operation, in stark contrast with the headline-chasing gimmicks, empty gestures and blank cheques that have come to define the way in which successive Conservative Governments have broken our asylum system and lost control of our borders.

The Government’s refusal to engage constructively with the other place on this Bill is deeply disappointing, given that their lordships have simply been fulfilling their constitutional duty to revise and improve the draft legislation that we convey to them. The noble Baroness Butler-Sloss received a tiny concession for her commendable attempts to stop the Government sending victims of modern slavery to Rwanda, but let us be clear: that concession was barely worth the paper that it was written on.

It is utterly shameful that Ministers are still refusing to accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord Browne. We owe a debt of honour and gratitude to the Afghans who so bravely fought alongside British troops, and the idea that we might send them to Rwanda is simply unconscionable. Lord Browne’s amendment is not only driven by a moral imperative; it is underpinned by our national interest and by military logic, for the simple and obvious reason that the ability of our armed forces to recruit local allies will be severely constrained if this Bill passes unamended.

Let me turn now to the other amendments before us today. It cannot be repeated often enough that adherence to the rule of law must remain at the heart of our constitutional conventions, and as a cornerstone of our liberal democratic values. It is therefore profoundly concerning that Ministers continue to refuse to recognise how important it is for Britain to abide by these principles, and to have this commitment in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Minister.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. With the leave of the House, I would like to make a few remarks; I fear that I do not have time to respond to each and every point that has been made, but I thank right hon. and hon. Members right across the House for the contributions they have made.

I want to pick up on one contribution, which is the intervention that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) made on the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). The shadow Minister cannot actually say what Labour would do: he says that he has a plan, but all Labour can say it would do is exactly what the Government are already doing. It has said that it would scrap the Rwanda scheme even when it is up and running, but it has not found a deterrent. Worse than that, as my hon. Friends the Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster) have also said previously, it is incumbent on anyone who disagrees with this policy to come up with their own solution to the problem of how we deal with people who enter the country with no legitimate, credible case for claiming asylum and who cannot be returned to their home country. As ever, answer came there none from the Labour party.

Letting this Bill now pass will enable us to send a clear signal: “If you enter this country illegally, you will not be able to stay. You will be detained and swiftly returned to your home country or to a safe third country, namely Rwanda.” I urge this House to once again send a strong message back to the other place that these amendments are not necessary.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1D.