UK-Rwanda Partnership

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We do not do this because it is easy, or because it is convenient; we do it because it is incredibly important. If, collectively, the UK and other European countries do not address the issue of people smuggling, the winners will be the people smugglers; the losers will be the people who are manipulated by the people smugglers, the ones who are robbed, beaten, raped and murdered, or who drown in the Mediterranean or in the Channel. Those are the people we are trying to help by bringing in a structure that breaks the business model of the people smugglers. The vacuum that he talks about on the Labour Benches means that the silence when it comes to ideas is deafening. Opposition Members choose to oppose at every stage, but they do nothing—nothing—to address the evil of our time.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will soon be updating us on when the next personal statement might be made to the House.

Those in Kigali appear to understand and agree with Winston Churchill. The point of international treaties and the European Court of Human Rights was to tackle oppressive Governments and the things they did to citizens. We do not sign up to international treaties just on immigration law, so a change to anything in our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights will have an impact, potentially, on the trade and co-operation agreement, because that specifically states that if we end judicial co-operation, there would be a problem. The Good Friday agreement also has the ECHR at the heart of it. Will the Home Secretary therefore tell us what conversations he has had with the European Union and the Irish about this legislation?

[James Cleverly]

This legislation does not change our relationship with the ECHR.