Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

For several months now, the Prime Minister has been ferociously attacking their lordships in the other place simply for doing their constitutional duty by seeking to revise and improve this Bill. Tonight, we see the evidence of why it is so important that they did just that.

I wish to put on the record my thanks to the noble Lord Browne for his tenacity in securing a significant concession—and it is a concession—which promises that Afghans in the UK who have put forward credible claims and evidence of a connection to Afghan specialist units will not be deported to Rwanda. This has not gone as far as we would want it to, but at least the Government, albeit begrudgingly, have inched towards doing the right thing by standing by some of those who so bravely stood by us in the face of the Taliban. We owe them a debt of gratitude and it is a great shame that the Government, and in particular the Prime Minister, first turned their back on those to whom we promised sanctity by cancelling flights from Pakistan. They then spent months resisting Lord Browne’s efforts to prevent these brave Afghans from being sent to Rwanda despite repeatedly being pressed to do so and to do the right thing by our armed forces, and now finally they are being dragged kicking and screaming to where we find ourselves this evening.

Even this afternoon, the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who is not in her place at the moment, was revealing. She raised in detail a case of her constituent who supported British efforts, but whose family were stuck in Afghanistan, yet the Minister could not even bring himself to reassure my hon. Friend that he would meet her or even look into the specifics of that case. That is why it will be so important for us to hold the Government to account on this concession, because it is so difficult to take what Ministers say at face value.

Turning now to the amendment in the name of Lord Anderson, I find it staggering that Ministers still have not conceded on this very basic point: that this House is not just trying to legislate that Rwanda is safe now—in other words that white is black and black is white—but that Rwanda is safe in perpetuity. The noble Lord Anderson was right when he said in the other place this evening that this is a post-truth Bill. We cannot possibly legislate for something that is in the lap of the gods.

I spoke earlier about the dangerous and turbulent world in which we live and how, at any point, the situation in Rwanda could change radically, just as it could in any other country.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am aware that the only consistent thing in the Labour leadership is its inconsistency. Will the shadow Minister confirm that in the past decade Rwanda was assumed to be so unsafe that the UN safely rehoused there 30,000 refugees from other countries?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am very glad that he asks about what has happened in the past decade. Let us not forget that, just six years ago, 11 refugees were shot dead by the Rwandan police for protesting about food shortages, as reported by the UN. I thank him for his intervention, because he makes the point clearly for me: six years ago, 11 refugees were shot dead.

[Bob Seely]

rose—

[Stephen Kinnock]

I would welcome the hon. Member’s comments on that point.

[Bob Seely]

I am sorry about that incident, but 30,000 refugees have been safely rehoused in Rwanda. Rwanda is deemed to be safe by the United Nations. It is deemed to be safe by pretty much everybody apart from the Labour party. That is my point.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The whole point of this is that we do not have a crystal ball. The evidence of what happened six years ago should clearly give us some cause for concern. All that this amendment seeks to do is create a position whereby the independent monitoring committee, handpicked by the Government, is able to advise the Home Secretary on laying a statement, which is absolutely fair enough.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I listened carefully to the intervention that referred to 30,000 refugees in the past decade. Is my hon. Friend aware that within the past 12 months the UK has accepted a refugee from Rwanda?

[Stephen Kinnock]

It was not just one refugee; many refugees are taken from Rwanda by this country, which begs the question how safe Rwanda can be. All that the amendment would do is trust but verify. It would put in place the kind of mechanism that is embedded in thousands of pieces of legislation that are on the statute book. I simply cannot understand why the Government cannot simply accept the amendment and enable the Home Secretary to lay a statement on whether Rwanda is safe or unsafe. That would provide important safeguards. It is not in any way a wrecking amendment; just like all the other amendments that the Government rejected, it would not prevent flights from taking off.

At his press conference this morning, the Prime Minister boasted about the progress that he has supposedly been making to stop the Tory small boats chaos. Yet as he stood at the lectern, it emerged that small boat crossings have increased by 24% compared with the same period last year. Next, he refused to give details about the operationalisation of the Rwanda scheme, saying that

“we will not be giving away sensitive operational detail which could hinder all the progress made to date”—

or so he thought. It subsequently emerged that one of his Ministers had left behind under some chairs in the front row a secret document entitled “Official Sensitive”, which included—wait for it—operational details of how the scheme will work. You simply could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yet another day of chaos, empty boasts, and shambolic incompetence.

To be fair to the Prime Minister, he made one point in his press conference that Labour did agree with. In response to a question from the media, he clearly stated that the test for the policy will not be whether a few “symbolic flights” take off, as his former friend the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), the former Immigration Minister, said. In the Prime Minister’s words:

“Success is when the boats have been stopped.”

That is how he wants to be judged, and I assure the House that it is how Labour will judge him, and how the public will judge him too.

For two years, we have been urging the Prime Minister to stop the boasts and instead start stopping the Tory boats chaos. Sadly, he has chosen to ignore us on both fronts. Instead, we need Labour’s plan—[Interruption.]—to redirect the Rwanda money into a cross-border police unit to smash the criminal gangs upstream, and a returns and enforcement unit to remove those who have no right to be here, reversing the decline in removals that we have seen under this Government. Only Labour’s plan can fix our country’s broken asylum system—[Interruption.]—and only Labour’s plan can restore order at our border. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not want to hear it, but that is the reality of the situation. I hope that every Conservative Member will join me in the Division Lobby this evening.

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It was going so well, and then it descended into a Second Reading diatribe from a Labour Opposition that have absolutely nothing to say about the serious challenge of immigration. They pretend that they will do what the Government are doing, only slightly better, but they do not really approach the level of events and the seriousness of the issue. We face a blank page on the other side of the House.

Let us deal briefly with the issue that we have left. I still think that there is strong merit in what their lordships say about not just the way in which we designate Rwanda to be a safe country but the parliamentary mechanism that we have to deal with things changing in the future, if they do. It seems to me that in the absence of the amendment there would be the need for further primary legislation in the future, which I do not think is a great place for the Government to end up in. However, in the context of where we are in the detailed consideration of Lords amendments, there comes a time when the unelected House has to cede authority to the elected House. I think we are now approaching that moment.

While I in no way resile from the merits of the argument, we need to look at the bigger picture, remember the balance that we have to strike and, frankly, think ahead to what future Governments there might end up being—hopefully not of a different complexion to our own. We need to strike a balance between both Houses. I judge that now is probably the time for us to—