Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Roger Gale and Jeremy Wright

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. The Government and Opposition Front Benchers have, perhaps understandably, taken a certain amount of leeway in a broad-brush approach to the debate. Before we proceed, I remind Back Benchers that we are now debating Lords amendments; this is not a Second Reading debate. I call Sir Jeremy Wright.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I begin with an apology to you and others for the fact that I will not be in the Chamber for some part of the debate because of other parliamentary business that I have to attend?

I start my remarks by recalling that the fundamental purpose of the Bill is to locate with Parliament—rather than with decision makers in individual cases or with courts reviewing those cases—the decision on whether Rwanda is a safe country to send people to. A number of the amendments before us would undermine that fundamental purpose by transferring decisions on that question away from Parliament and back to the caseworkers and courts, so they are, I am afraid, wrecking amendments. They are incredibly elegant wrecking amendments, and they come from an honourable and fundamental opposition to the purpose of the Bill—an opposition that I entirely understand.

I confess that I did not find voting for this legislation a comfortable choice. It comes very close to the line on rule-of-law acceptability, but in my view stays just the right side of it. Crucially, it asserts parliamentary sovereignty on an issue of huge political significance, where that issue is central to the delivery of a key Government policy. That significant and central issue is whether the Government of the day are entitled to pursue a policy on illegal immigration that contains an element of effective deterrence, and I think the Government must be able to do that. For a deterrent to be effective, it must be clear. To economic migrants seeking to reach the UK under cover of our asylum system, the deterrent is that they might end up in a different country—in this case, Rwanda. For that deterrent to be meaningful, the prospect of transfer to Rwanda must be a real one that it is not easy to evade, which means that the headline judgment on Rwanda’s safety must be clear to all, subject of course, as it should be, only to persuasive individual circumstances.

I think that approach is worthy of support for two reasons. First, illegal migration is a huge problem, and the Government must be able to pursue innovative solutions to it, especially in the absence of credible alternatives.

European Convention on Human Rights: UK Membership

Debate between Roger Gale and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

There is a risk in this discussion that we make a little too much of what happened yesterday. Let us be clear. I have said a number of times, and the hon. and learned Lady has heard different members of the Government make it clear a number of times, what our policy is in relation to human rights reform. I say again that the Prime Minister has been clear and we have all been clear—we rule nothing out. It follows from that that we do not rule out withdrawal from the convention should we not be able to achieve the changes that we all believe are necessary.

I accept that the hon. and learned Lady’s party and the official Opposition do not take the view that the status quo is unacceptable; we disagree about that. What I find odd about her position and, indeed, that of the official Opposition is that, as far as I can tell, they are saying to us: “Whatever you do on human rights reform we will oppose it. There is nothing you can do that we will ever support. There is no reform you can bring forward that we would ever regard as valid, but would you please get on and bring forward your reforms, which we will oppose anyway whatever you say?” That is not a sensible position for her and her colleagues to take.

The hon. and learned Lady is right, of course, that whatever proposals we make, there will be significant devolution consequences. As she has heard me say, and ministerial colleagues say, when we bring forward proposals we will ensure that full consultation happens with the devolved Administrations to ensure that we work through those issues.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

Those of us who represent this House in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe are acutely aware of the fact that the convention on human rights has been extended way beyond the original remit that was drawn up, in part by the United Kingdom, in the immediate aftermath of the second world war. My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to seek to pursue changes. Will he do so as swiftly as possible to get the thing back under control?

[The Attorney General]

The difficulty, as I have said, is not with the convention but with its interpretation, which has been extended well beyond what the original drafters intended. Perhaps the most evident example of that is in so-called extra-territorial jurisdiction. It was not intended that those conducting themselves and making decisions on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan should be subject to European human rights law; we have international humanitarian law that does a good job in that field, and it was not intended that that should happen. My hon. Friend is therefore entirely right.