Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Roger Gale Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I have never been an apologist for other European countries: they make their own decisions, but the clear issue is that this House has been asked to decide on a matter of law when that is a matter for the courts. If there is evidence that Rwanda is safe, we present that evidence to the court. That is the proper way to go about it, and the hon. Gentleman knows that. My opinion on whether a place is or is not safe is neither here nor there; the issue is whether the courts have considered the evidence in front of them. The evidence in front of the courts was that Rwanda was not safe; we do not deal with that by just declaring it to be safe, which is unconstitutional and also ridiculous. We present the evidence, and if the Government have evidence they should present it to the court.

I want to go back to the issue of deterrence, which I was leading into before the intervention. If we want to deter people who do not have a legitimate claim from coming to the United Kingdom, we should be some use at removing those people who do not have a legitimate claim. The fact is that only a quarter of those people who are denied asylum once they have gone through the process are removed, and that is the problem. We have a Government who are incompetent at doing the basics, inefficient, and weak at tackling those people who eventually do get assessed and are shown not to be refugees. The problem is not activist judges, but weak and incompetent Government.

I am not accusing everyone on the Government Benches as being populists, but one of the hallmarks of a populist is that they look at a huge and difficult problem and they come up with a simplistic solution. The reality is that we need to be honest that this is a difficult problem that is not easy to solve. It is a global problem, and we have to work with other countries to try to address it. For example, some of the issues around Yemen will no doubt have been exacerbated by this country choosing to reduce its aid to Yemen.

If we want to influence and stop the flow of people away from troubled parts of the world, we should get alongside those places and try to deal with these things at source. I would not make any pretence that that will solve the problem, but let us not pretend that trying to attack one part of the symptom is an answer. It is dishonest to claim that this Bill is an overall answer to the problem.

The third false premise is that the provisions of this Bill will even remotely work. At best, on the Government’s own figures, a maximum of 1% of the asylum seekers coming to this country will end up being removed to Rwanda, at the cost of £240 million and counting. We could just say, “Why not put that money into a better Border Force? Why not put that money into clearing the backlog? Why not put that money into doing things that actually would deter people from coming?” The Bill will not work, though, and it will not deter people, and let us just think why it will not deter people.

Many refugees who end up in this country, including by coming over the channel, come from Eritrea in the first place. Many would refer to it as the North Korea of Africa. Isaias Afwerki is an awful, appalling dictator. Among the things he does that is a cause of people seeking refuge from that country is conscripting all young men at 18. Many of them, particularly from Christian communities, are then sent to murder their own people. People ask, “Why are so many of the people coming young men?” That is one of the reasons. They seek asylum. Where do they go next? Many will stay in the region.

It is important to understand deterrence. Let us say that some young men—maybe a couple of brothers—have escaped. It was hard to escape in the first place from Afwerki and his evil henchmen, so they leave the country. They end up at some point going through the lawless horror that is Libya. It is utterly appalling, and a country without rules. The experience of what happened post-Gaddafi is a reminder that there is nothing so awful in this world that you cannot make it worse, and Libya is even worse than it was then. They pass through that country with its human trafficking, a massive murder rate and the appalling human rights experiences, and they eventually make it to the Med.

They cross the Mediterranean on to mainland Europe, and then at some point they are asked to make a decision about whether they will cross the 20 or 30 miles of the English channel. That is a piece of cake compared with the horrors they have endured so far. Do we genuinely think that the 1% chance they might get sent to Rwanda is a deterrent at all? It is a reminder, is it not, that Rwanda is a huge distraction from the issues we face.

This Bill assumes a state of affairs that is not true. It assumes that the only way to deal with the situation is to act unconstitutionally, and in a very anti-Conservative and un-Conservative way, I might add. It assumes that the scheme will work when it blindingly obviously will not. Amendments 6 and 7 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) are there to challenge the assumption that to control migration we need to exempt vulnerable people from domestic laws that protect their human rights. We do not need to try to duck out of our obligations under the ECHR by ignoring interim injunctions. These provisions are morally wrong. They are constitutional vandalism and constitute a failure. This Bill is about seeking to distract the electorate from the reality of people’s daily lives.

We have a Government failing to govern or to tackle the cost of living and the NHS crisis. One in nine people in my constituency are currently on an NHS waiting list, and the Government are wasting their time on something that is morally outrageous, unconstitutional and will not even do the thing it is set up to do.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Before I call Sir John Hayes, may I remind the House that this is not Second Reading debate? It is certainly a debate about the clauses standing part and the amendments, but it is not a Second Reading debate—there is a distinction.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Just before we proceed and I call Jerome Mayhew, can I gently say that it has not escaped the notice of the Chair that a significant number of Members have wandered in, after many hours of debate during which they have not been here, and then sought to participate? Technically, the Chair has no power to control that, but Members must understand that we deprecate this. I take a very dim view of it as bad manners. I hope that is clearly understood. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) sat in his place for five hours waiting to speak. I believe that any other Member who wishes to speak in a debate should afford the Committee the same courtesy.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Roger. I should start my speech with a personal apology for not having been here for the full course of this debate. I very much wanted to be here, but I had duties in Westminster Hall in two debates during the course of the afternoon which prevented me from taking a full role in this debate. I am grateful to you for nevertheless agreeing to call me in what is obviously a very important debate. I have heard sufficient of the back and forth of the debate to know that there has been criticism from the Opposition Benches that the Bill goes too far, and that there are even some words of advice and criticism on these Benches that it perhaps does not go far enough. Before I get down into the nitty-gritty of the amendments, it is worth going back to base principles and looking at the fundamentals of why the Bill is necessary in the first place.

It is without doubt that every Member of this House, irrespective of their party loyalties, must agree that the current position in relation to small boats crossing the channel is deeply wrong and has to be addressed. What is happening at the moment is just not fair. We have seen the small boats programme on our television screens for the last two or three years, ever since we plugged the last gap in our external borders by making it harder for illegal immigrants to get on to lorries or on to the Eurostar—that goes back almost a decade, in fact. The business model is such that where we restrict one point of illegal access, the model will seek out the next weakest point in the border of our country, and right now that is small boats crossing the channel.

However, these are not individuals buying dinghies and setting off across the channel. We all know that this is a massive commercial opportunity for organised criminal gangs making masses of money—tens of millions of pounds—from the misery of others. That money is going into organised crime, which then finds a vent in other crime, both in Europe and in our own country. Criminal gangs are imposing violence on the vulnerable people who are then exploited by them in their crossing of the channel. It must be right that any responsible Government would take steps to challenge a set of circumstances where vulnerable people are being exposed to risk and violence, not only the risk of death as they cross the channel—my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) said that there were five deaths just last week as a result of this dangerous process—but the violence of the criminal gangs imposing their will on these migrants.

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[Michael Tomlinson]

With your permission Sir Roger, may I on behalf of His Majesty’s Government pass on my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Sir Tony Lloyd, the former Member of Parliament—

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt on such a sensitive issue, but Mr Speaker intends to make a statement about that later.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am very grateful for that guidance.

May I start by turning to those who have contributed to this debate? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his powerful points, challenging, forensic and learned points. He once again questioned what solutions are being offered by the Labour party, and he was right to do so. Answer came there none.

May I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)? As so often, he debated in poetry, and I will come back to some of his remarks in due course. I also thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). She was right to ensure that she did not make a Second Reading speech, but she did mention one or two amendments and other matters, and I shall turn to those in due course.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). He is always thoughtful, measured and so often right, and I am grateful to him for his contributions and also for his interventions during the latter stages of this debate. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) cited Robert Burns and asked what he would have to say to those on the Conservative Benches. My hon. Friend and neighbour, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), rather cheekily from a sedentary position suggested that Robert Burns might say to Conservative Members, “How can I join you?” That was not the gist or the thrust of her speech, but it was a cheeky intervention that I enjoyed none the less. I shall turn to her amendments in due course.

I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), as I always do, and I hope to be able to turn to some of the points that he made and hopefully allay some of his fears. He said sometimes the Chamber empties, or is not as full, when he speaks. That sometimes happens to Ministers as well—that not everyone is back when they are responding to Members’ contributions. But my hon. Friend is here, and I am grateful to him for sitting through so much of this debate and for his characteristic courtesy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) spoke with passion, as he always does, and I am grateful to him for his contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) spoke at some length, and I am grateful to him for that. He delved into the principles of the ECHR, and he was enticed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) to make some pronouncements on some of its judgements, which I thought was a little mean. None the less, my right hon. and learned Friend did proffer one suggestion, namely the case of Hirst, and I am grateful to him for that.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) for his intervention and for being on duty not only in Westminster Hall, but also here in this Chamber.

The course of the debate has been constructive, on the whole. I agree that it has been broadly thoughtful and instructive. We have had exchanges on scripture, and as a lawyer, it was a joy indeed to hear the word “otiose” not once or twice, but several times. We once even heard “otiose with bells on” from my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and I am grateful to him for that. I have not heard that expression before; it must be a legal reference that I brushed past in my youth.

We also heard about box sets from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and I will need to do a bit more research on that. We touched on ECHR membership, although my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark rightly said that this was not the place to have that full debate, but he set out some of the parameters for future debates that I am sure we will have.

Clause 1 sets out the rationale for the Bill. It sets out the legal obligations and how the treaty to which the Government of Rwanda have agreed addresses the concerns that were set out by the Supreme Court. Amendments 39, 40, 41 and 42, tabled and addressed today by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), and amendments 43 and 44, tabled by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), seek to exclude the core of those provisions. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central was clear about her intention in that regard. The treaty is binding in international law and, in accordance with Rwandan law, will become domestic law in Rwanda on ratification. That is set out in detail and confirmed in article 3(6) of the treaty. It rules out anyone relocated to Rwanda being removed from there, except to the United Kingdom. That is an important part of the treaty, set out in article 10(3), and that is regardless of whether the individual is found to be a refugee or to have another humanitarian protection need. That removes the risk of refoulement.

Everyone relocated to Rwanda will receive the same treatment. Those with refugee status, those with a humanitarian protection need and even those without that status will be able to stay in Rwanda and will receive the same rights and treatment. That addresses head on the concern that the Supreme Court set out. The asylum decision-making process is being significantly reformed. Annex B of the treaty—if I have time, I might turn to the details of that—contains strengthened monitoring arrangements, and there are also strengthened monitoring arrangements to ensure adherence to the obligations.

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for his engagement. I do not believe that his concerns are right. He said “offensive or otiose”. I would suggest that neither is right, and I hope to be able to reassure him, because clause 1 makes clear that Parliament is sovereign and that its Acts are valid notwithstanding any interpretation of international law. I will come back to that “notwithstanding” terminology, which has been so contentious, perhaps, in recent history. What it does not mean is that we are legislating away our international obligations. The purpose of the Bill is to say that, on the basis of the treaty and the evidence before it, Parliament believes that those obligations have been met. It does not mean that we do not care whether they have been met. He mentioned dualism and was right to do so.

The parts of the clause to which my right hon. and learned Friend’s amendments are directed do no more than make clear what we mean by a safe country, which is a key definition applied to Rwanda, namely that the United Kingdom can remove people to that country in compliance with its international obligations and that Rwanda will not remove anyone in breach of any international law. As a former Attorney General, he also mentioned the Law Officers convention. I was grateful to him for that, for so often in this Chamber it goes unnoticed. It is an important convention, and as a former Law Officer myself I abide by it very strictly, as I know he does, so I am grateful to him for reminding the House of it.

Turning to the amendments tabled by and the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon, I am grateful for his contributions not just today but yesterday. It is important that the will of Parliament is made clear and that, following the mammoth efforts between our Government and the Government of Rwanda, the obligations that we have agreed are fully set out. Clause 1 ensures that it is crystal clear that it is Parliament that has considered and concluded that Rwanda is a safe country. I know his concern about this sort of clause, but he will know that it is not unique and that it is not dissimilar to clause 1 of the Illegal Migration Act—[Interruption.] I suspect he is encouraging me not to pray that in aid, but it is a fact all the same that it is not unprecedented to have a clause such as clause 1 in a Bill.

I turn to clause 3. The United Kingdom has a long-standing tradition of ensuring that rights and liberties are protected domestically and of fulfilling our international human rights obligations. We remain committed to that position and will ensure that our laws continue to be fit for purpose and work for the people of the United Kingdom. Though some of the provisions in the Bill are novel, the Government are satisfied that the Bill can be implemented in line with the convention rights.

However, it has become clear that people will seek to frustrate their removal by any means. Therefore, this Bill goes further than the Illegal Migration Act, which was taken through by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman). As we have heard, that Act only disapplies section 3 of the Human Rights Act, whereas this Bill, and particularly clause 3, disapplies further elements of the Act. The effect is that the duty under section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act is disapplied for any public authority, including any court or tribunal, that is taking a decision based on the duty under clause 2 of the Bill to treat the Republic of Rwanda as safe.

I turn now directly to the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, starting with his amendments 11 and 18. He is right that the Bill does not seek to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act; it does not, in fact, disapply the declaration of incompatibility provisions in section 4. That is the only substantive remedy against the conclusive presumption that Rwanda is safe. Retaining declarations of incompatibility is important, but of course the final say on this matter will rightly remain with Parliament and with the Government because of section 4(6) of the Human Rights Act, which makes it clear that a declaration cannot affect the operation or the validity of domestic legislation.

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[Michael Tomlinson]

May I finish my point in response to the hon. Member for Belfast East? I hope I can reassure him that we have already achieved the aim he seeks. The Bill will apply across the whole of the United Kingdom, in line with the application of our sovereign immigration policy across all four nations of the UK as a territorial whole. I am grateful to the hon. Member for his kind and generous comments about me personally, and for his engagement. I will continue to engage with him on this issue.

We have made progress towards stopping the boats, with small boat crossings down by a third in 2023, but we must do more. The only way to do so is if it is abundantly clear that illegal entry will never lead to a new life in the United Kingdom. The power of deterrence is proven beyond reasonable doubt by the success of our agreement with Albania. Parliament and the British people want an end to illegal immigration, and we need a deterrent. We have a plan—a plan to stop the boats—and I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to back it.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Amendment 11 has been proposed. Mr Jenrick, do you wish to press it to a vote, or do you wish to withdraw it?

[Robert Jenrick]

With your permission, Sir Roger, I would like to withdraw it. However, if you are agreeable, I wish to press amendment 23 instead.

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

We will come to that in due course.

[Robert Jenrick]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.