Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Roger Gale

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.