Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I must say I am surprised that the Government are not concerned about the clash between the Bill and article 2 of the Windsor framework and the Northern Ireland protocol, given that the High Court in Belfast has ruled that legislation of this nature cannot apply in Northern Ireland because it is incompatible with the obligation in article 2 to accord with European law.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns, but I repeat that there is no incompatibility between article 2 and the Bill. He is right to cite the judgment, but there is to be an appeal, so it would not be right to debate it further at this stage. The Government’s position on this point is very clear, as set out in previous exchanges and also in the letter that is now in the House of Commons Library.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the smoke and mirrors that have been used about clearing the backlog—lots of administrative withdrawals and other ways of just getting people out of the backlog—are being combined with shortening the eviction period, which is leading to a staggering increase in homelessness among those who have been granted asylum. What is happening is frankly a stain on the conscience of our country. A total lack of co-ordination between the Home Office, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and our colleagues in local authorities is leaving those local authorities high and dry.

[Sammy Wilson]

Although the hon. Gentleman and I might not share many views on this Bill, does he share my surprise that the Government have refused to accept Lords amendment 8, which would require them to report on this Bill’s success? As the Government do not want the number of removals to be reported to Parliament, does he suspect that they know this Bill will not be as effective as they think?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his excellent question. Sometimes the mask slips in the Government’s response to amendments. Perhaps they have decided, very disrespectfully, to refuse to engage on any of the Lords amendments because, exactly as he says, they worry that lifting the lid on this box might show a total failure inside.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes the case with passion and conviction. I know that he has a number of asylum seekers and refugees in his constituency and he does a huge amount of work on their behalf. He is absolutely right: there are some issues that should really transcend the day-to-day political considerations that we have in this place, because they are issues that are based on moral imperatives. It is deeply disappointing that, in Lords amendments 9 and 10, the Government have refused even to use them as the basis for negotiation or some kind of compromise. We find that deeply disappointing.

[Sammy Wilson]

With regard to the earlier question of how many, does the hon. Member not agree that the simple answer is, “All those who served and who risked their lives to help us in a war that required the support of the local population”? We have records of the help and support they gave. Surely we cannot turn our back on those people if they are in danger.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said. What a contrast there is between his intervention and that of the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) from the Conservative Benches. I genuinely believe that when the hon. Member for Rother Valley reflects, he will regret making his intervention and perhaps reflect on what the right hon. Gentleman has just said.

We on the Opposition Benches are profoundly concerned about unaccompanied children being inadvertently sent to Rwanda. For this reason, we support Lords amendment 7, in the name of the noble Baroness Lister, which reverses changes to age assessment procedures established by the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation specifically to removals to Rwanda. It restores the ability of domestic courts and tribunals to fully consider suspensive judicial review claims regarding removal decisions taken on the basis of age assessment of unaccompanied children.

Lords amendments 1 to 6 all relate to the rule of law. We support all of those amendments, and they are all principles with which Government Ministers have said they agree. Indeed, the simple question that should be asked in relation to each one of these amendments is this: if Ministers believe that Rwanda is a safe country, then why are the Government refusing to support these amendments? They say that the Bill abides by international law, so why not make that clear in the Bill? They say that Rwanda is a safe country and is meeting its obligations, so let us see the evidence and agree a “trust but verify” mechanism. In that spirit, Lords amendment 1 is a Labour Front-Bench amendment that places a responsibility on the Government to comply in full with their current obligations under domestic and international law.

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[Sir Robert Buckland]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a powerful point. The amendment is capable of perfection. The suggestion that I think I made on Report was that the Bill should not to come into force until a Minister of the Crown was satisfied that Rwanda had met its treaty obligations both internationally and domestically. I take his point—more can be done—but there is force in their lordships pursuing that point, so that we marry up the reality with what we want to achieve legally. Unless that is done, I am minded to support Lords amendments 4 and 5, because I am yet to be satisfied that we are in a position where a deeming clause, although not unprecedented—they have been used on a number of occasions—or unconstitutional, is reflective of the reality.

The Lords amendments relating to clause 4 complicate the position. That clause is clearly drafted to deal with individual cases, and I do not think that we should upset that. Lords amendments 7 and 8 do not take matters significantly further. However, Lords amendments 9 and 10 have some force. Exemptions relating to modern slavery should be clear. We have led the world in our modern slavery legislation, and have a proud record on it. That work was led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and others in their lordships’ House. It would be unfortunate, to say the least, to end up with the Bill riding a coach and horses through our important provisions on modern slavery; I am sure that is not the intention of my colleagues on the Front Bench.

Finally, on the Afghan provision, both my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and I were in the trenches, working on that issue, back in the summer of 2021. I was helping to get judges out of Afghanistan, while she was working day and night to ensure that we saved people who had risked their lives for our way of life. I take her point and, in fact, would go further: although I expect the Government to be sensible and sensitive to the position of any future Afghan refugees and not put them into this scheme, it seems to me that we would lose nothing by accepting amendment 10.

For the reasons that I have given, the Lords amendments are a curate’s egg, as all Lords amendments will be, but there are times when it is important that a point is made. I am afraid that this is one of those occasions when I will make that point.

[Sammy Wilson]

The Democratic Unionist party supports the Bill, wishes it to come to fruition, and hopes that it achieves its objectives. I will not rehearse all the reasons why, which have been given plenty of times in other debates, but we must tackle the criminal gangs. We cannot go on with the pressures and costs that mass illegal immigration puts on society, the Government and the taxpayer. For that reason, we will oppose most of the Lords amendments. As the Minister and other speakers have pointed out, many of the amendments are designed to weaken the Bill, undermine it, and ensure that it does not work, so that we remain with the old, flawed system that we have been trying to put aside.

The Minister said that the Government oppose the Lords amendments because they do not want the Bill weakened, and he is right, but the Bill is already weakened in respect of one part of the United Kingdom. I seek assurances from him; how does he come to the conclusion that pushing the Bill through will safeguard all parts of the United Kingdom against illegal immigration that is being channelled through different parts of it? The Government promised in “Safeguarding the Union” that the Bill will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, but that was written in full knowledge that following a court judgment in Northern Ireland, the Bill could not apply there because of section 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and article 2 of the Windsor framework. Two more court judgments since then have made it quite clear that because of article 2, the Bill cannot apply to Northern Ireland, where the full weight of EU law and the full protections of the European convention on human rights and the European charter of fundamental rights apply. That means that many parts of the Bill will be disapplied in Northern Ireland. There are three court rulings on this.

The Government know what is in the Windsor framework, the withdrawal agreement and the withdrawal Act, yet they continue with the argument that, despite all that, the Bill applies to Northern Ireland. I would like to hear from the Minister where that assurance comes from, given that he knows the terms of the legislation and the Windsor framework, and about the three court judgments—from October, February and the end of February.

If Northern Ireland becomes the weak spot, the policy becomes meaningless. People think, “The boats aren’t going to come from France across the sea to southern Ireland on a 24-hour journey, and people will not come up through to Northern Ireland,” but it must be remembered that of 77 cities in the United Kingdom, Belfast already has second-highest number of illegal immigrants per 10,000 of population. There is already a channel through the Republic into Northern Ireland and then, of course, into England. That needs to be addressed, because a promise has been made in a Government deal, and because of how that could undermine the whole immigration policy. Of course, if Northern Ireland does become that channel, the real danger is that we finish up not just with a border for goods, but with passport controls for people moving from Northern Ireland.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Could you mention some of the amendments as well?

[Sammy Wilson]

Yes, I am doing so, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point I was making was that we will support the Government in rejecting Lords amendments 1 to 6 because they weaken the Bill, but the Government must recognise that their own inaction is also weakening the Bill.

I am surprised at the attitude that the Government have adopted to Lords amendment 8. Since the policy is designed to assure people that the Government have got on top of illegal immigration, I would have thought they would have welcomed the opportunity to publish daily the number of people who have been removed from the United Kingdom. In fact, I would have thought they might have done a Ken Livingstone: put a banner on the building across the river and published daily, “This is how many people we have removed.” Is the reality that the Government know that the Bill will not have the wanted effect, and that the publication of such information would be an embarrassment? We support that amendment, because we believe that there should be a very public way of judging the success of the policy.

I really cannot understand the Government’s attitude to Lords amendment 10, either. We have a duty to those who served with the Army in Afghanistan at difficult times, putting their life in danger, and who are now in danger of losing their life under the brutal Taliban regime, which wants to take revenge. It is not that people could use such a provision to sneak their way into the United Kingdom; we have good records on those who served the Army. They and their families are at risk, and surely we have a duty to them.

I remember speaking to people from Northern Ireland who served in Afghanistan. They spoke glowingly of the folks who interpreted for them, and the folks who gave them background knowledge, supplied them with information, went out with them on patrol daily and so on. We have a duty to those people. I cannot understand why the Government would resist Lords amendment 10. We will certainly be supporting it, because we believe we have that obligation. I would like to hear from the Minister how the promise made in paragraph 46 of the “Safeguarding the Union” deal will be delivered in Northern Ireland, given that courts have judged and ruled that the Bill cannot apply in Northern Ireland. If it cannot apply in Northern Ireland, are the Government aware of the consequences for Northern Ireland of being further isolated from the rest of the United Kingdom?