PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
UK-Rwanda Partnership - 6 December 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)
Debate Detail
Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment on this Government’s migration and economic development agreement with Rwanda. In that judgment their lordships upheld the view of the High Court and the Court of Appeal that it is lawful to relocate illegal migrants, who have no right to be here, to another safe country for asylum processing and resettlement, but upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which means that the Government cannot yet lawfully remove people to Rwanda. That was due to the Court’s concerns that relocated individuals might be “refouled”—removed to a country where they could face persecution or ill treatment. We did not agree with that assessment, but of course we respect the judgment of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court also acknowledged that its concerns were not immutable and were not an aspersion on Rwanda’s intentions, and that changes may be delivered in the future that could address its concerns. Today I can inform the House that those concerns have been conclusively answered and those changes made, as a result of intensive diplomacy by the Prime Minister, by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, by the Attorney General’s Office and by the Home Office. We have created a situation that addresses the concerns.
Our rule of law partnership with Rwanda sets out in a legally binding international treaty the obligations on both the United Kingdom and Rwanda within international law, and sets out to this House and to the courts why Rwanda is and will remain a safe country for the purposes of asylum and resettlement. This is a partnership to which we and Rwanda are completely committed. Rwanda is a safe and prosperous country. It is a vital partner for the UK. Our treaty puts beyond legal doubt the safety of Rwanda and ends the endless merry-go-round of legal challenges that have thus far frustrated this policy and second-guessed the will of Parliament. I want to put on record my gratitude to President Kagame, Foreign Minister Biruta and the Rwandan Government for working with us at pace to do what it takes to get this deal up and running with flights taking off as soon as possible.
Rwanda will introduce a strengthened end-to-end asylum system, which will include a new specialist asylum appeals tribunal to consider individual appeals against any refused claims. It will have one Rwandan and one other Commonwealth co-president and be made up of judges from a mix of nations selected by those co-presidents. We have been working with Rwanda to build capacity and to make it clear to those relocated to Rwanda that they will not be sent to another third country.
The treaty is binding in international law. It also enhances the role of the independent monitoring committee, which will ensure adherence to obligations under the treaty and have the power to set its own priority areas for monitoring. It will be given unfettered access to complete assessments and reports and to monitor the entire relocation process, from initial screening to relocation and settlement in Rwanda. It will also develop a system to enable relocated individuals and legal representatives to lodge confidential complaints directly with the committee.
But, given the Supreme Court judgment, we cannot be confident that the courts will respect a new treaty on its own, so today the Government have published emergency legislation to make it unambiguously clear that Rwanda is a safe country and to prevent the courts from second-guessing Parliament’s will. We will introduce that legislation tomorrow in the form of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, to give effect to the judgment of Parliament that Rwanda is a safe country, notwithstanding UK law or any interpretation of international law.
For the purposes of the Bill, a safe country is defined as one to which people may be removed from the United Kingdom in compliance with all the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law that are relevant to the treatment in that country of people who are removed there. This means that someone removed to that country will not be removed or sent to another country in contravention of any international law, and that anyone who is seeking asylum or who has had an asylum determination will have their claim determined and be treated in accordance with that country’s obligations under international law.
Anyone removed to Rwanda under the provisions of the treaty will not be removed from Rwanda, except to the United Kingdom in a very small number of limited and extreme circumstances, and should the UK request the return of any relocated person, Rwanda will make them available. Decision makers, including the Home Secretary, immigration officers and the courts, must all treat Rwanda as a safe country, and they must do so notwithstanding all relevant UK law or any interpretation of international law, including the human rights convention; the refugee convention; the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights; the 1984 UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, which was signed in Warsaw on 16 May 2005; customary international law; and any other international law, or convention or rule of international law, whatsoever, including any order, judgment, decision or measure of the European Court of Human Rights.
Where the European Court of Human Rights indicates an interim measure relating to the intended removal of someone to Rwanda under, or purportedly under, a provision of immigration Acts, a Minister of the Crown alone, and not a court or tribunal, will decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the interim measure. To further prevent individual claims to prevent removal, the Bill disapplies the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998, including sections 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The Bill is lawful, it is fair and it is necessary, because people will stop coming here illegally only when they know that they cannot stay here and that they will be detained and quickly removed to a safe third country. It is only by breaking the cycle and delivering a deterrent that we will remove the incentive for people to be smuggled here and stop the boats.
This legislation builds on the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which the House passed this summer, and complements the basket of other measures that the UK Government are employing to end illegal migration—for example, the largest ever small boats deal with France. Tackling the supply of boats and parts, the arrest and conviction of people smugglers, and illegal working raids have all helped to drive down small boat arrivals by more than a third this year, even as the numbers are rising elsewhere in Europe.
Parliament and the public alike support the Rwanda plan. Other countries have since copied our plans with Rwanda, and we know from interviews that the prospect of being relocated out of the UK has already had a deterrent effect. This will be considerably magnified when we get the flights to Rwanda. This treaty and this new Bill will help to make that a reality, and I commend this statement to the House.
There is total chaos in the Government and the Conservative party. These are the desperate dying days of a party ripping itself apart. It is clearly totally out of ideas and has lost any sense of leadership or direction. We have the Home Secretary making a statement, but there are rumours that the Immigration Minister has resigned. Where is he? Perhaps the Home Secretary could make that the first question he answers: does he still have an Immigration Minister in place? The Conservatives have open warfare on their Back Benches, the starting gun has been fired on the next leadership election and, once again, the whole country is paying the price for this chaos.
This is the third Home Secretary to go to Rwanda with a cheque book and come back waving a piece of paper making grand promises. This is the third piece of new Tory legislation on channel crossings in two years. Each time, they have told us that new laws would stop all the boat crossings and send everyone who arrived to another country, but they had to partially revoke the first law because it was making things worse and they have not implemented the second one because they know it will not work. Now, they are on their third new law. Forgive us for not believing that this one is going to solve anything, either.
The previous Home Secretary seems to agree with us, because she is already saying tonight that the Bill is “fatally flawed” and that it will not stop the boats. One side of the Conservative party is warning that it does not come close to meeting Suella’s test; the other side is appalled that the Home Secretary, who used to wander round the world promoting international law, just boasted in his statement about a new British Bill that tells the courts not just to ignore international law, but to ignore the facts. What kind of party have they become?
What of the view from No. 10? The Prime Minister has just met his Back Benchers, and the official briefing from that meeting says that he has told MPs that the Government have gone as far as possible, but Rwanda did not want to be part of anything that broke or disapplied international law. The statement from the Rwandan Government says:
“Without lawful behaviour by the UK, Rwanda would not be able to continue with the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.”
You could not make this up!
Our Supreme Court says that the Rwanda scheme is a problem because of evidence that Rwanda is not complying with international treaties on the treatment of asylum seekers, but the only thing stopping the British Government ignoring international law completely is the Rwandan Government. It is the Rwandan Government keeping us on the straight and narrow. The Prime Minister is too scared to defend a policy in its own terms and too scared to tell his Back Benchers what he really thinks—too scared to take a view. Instead, he is hiding behind President Kagame. Weak, weak, weak. He does not deserve to be running the country if he cannot even sort out the issues and the divisions on his flagship policy in his own party.
And all of this for what? For a scheme that will likely cover less than 1% of the people who arrive in this country to claim asylum and will cost hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Will the Home Secretary tell us about the cost? In 2022, the UK taxpayer paid Rwanda £140 million, but the permanent secretary has said that there are additional payments each year. Will the Home Secretary tell us, on top of that £140 million, how much more has already been sent as an additional payment this year? Is there a secret commitment to make annual payments under the migration and economic development partnership even if no asylum seekers are sent to Rwanda? Will he confirm that the British taxpayer will also have to pay additional millions to sort out the problems in the Rwandan asylum system, even though the Government are totally failing to sort out the problems and delays in the British asylum system, which the Conservatives broke? Will he also confirm that the UK is paying costs for people sent to Rwanda for five years? Will he tell us how much that will cost? Will he confirm that it will be at least twice as much as dealing with those cases here? Will he also tell us, instead of trying to hide the information, the total sum that he will be paying to Rwanda?
Will the Home Secretary tell us how many people are going to be covered? The treaty says that it is limited by capacity in Rwanda, and the Court of Appeal said that it would be 100 people and that talk of thousands of people was “political hyperbole”. Will he now admit that even if he ever gets this failing scheme off the ground, it will cover less than 1% of the people who applied for asylum last year? Will he tell us how many Rwandan refugees the UK is going to take, and who is going to pay for them?
The Home Secretary has a treaty and a law that he knows will not stop dangerous boat crossings. We should be taking action to stop those crossings, to go after the criminal gangs and to clear the asylum backlog, and he knows that Labour’s plan to set up a new cross-border unit would have far more effect than the things that he has been talking about today. He says Rwanda is not the “be-all and end-all”, but his Back Benchers think it is do or die—that is why he is in so much chaos. He thinks—he has said it privately—that this whole thing is “batshit”. That is nothing on what he has had to swallow to come forward and make this statement today.
This is total chaos. The Government are arguing about full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed options—it is a full-on milk war in the Tory party, which sums up this failing Government. They cannot solve their own Tory boats crisis. They cannot defend our border security. They cannot solve their broken asylum system, and they cannot hold their party together. They do not deserve to run the country. Britain deserves better than this.
It is quite interesting that, once again, we see the mask slip on the Opposition Benches. The right hon. Lady was critical about the financial arrangement that goes hand in hand with the agreement that we have come to with Rwanda. It is interesting that hers is the same party that was very critical of this Government when we were forced by circumstances to reduce our official development assistance expenditure. I just want to understand the Opposition’s thinking. They seem comfortable with the idea that the UK gives away money to countries such as Rwanda to help them develop, but they seem deeply uncomfortable when those countries actually earn the money by bringing forward reform. It is, I think, a rather distasteful state of affairs that they would like to view Rwanda exclusively through the prism of development and aid, but are deeply uncomfortable when a country like Rwanda earns the money.
The simple truth is that Rwanda is making huge progress in professionalising and strengthening its institutions, working alongside the UK and other international partners. I believe that we are duty-bound to support countries such as Rwanda when they play their part in addressing the issues that the world is facing. They are helping to resolve problems, rather than being part of a problem, and they deserve our thanks for doing so.
We will pursue this legislation, which supports a treaty that sees Rwanda strengthening its institutions and addressing some of the world’s most intractable challenges, and we support it as it is supporting us.
The point is that we want to make sure that a country, Rwanda, which is working with us, strengthening its institutions and seeking to do the right thing by both European refugees and African refugees, is supported in doing so. We have a robust legal system and a robust parliamentary system here in the UK; we should have some more self-confidence in those systems and use our experience to help capacity building in partner countries such as Rwanda.
The Home Secretary comes here today while the Rwandan Minister says:
“It has always been important to both Rwanda and the UK that our rule of law partnership meets the highest standards of international law, and it places obligations on both the UK and Rwanda to act lawfully. Without lawful behaviour by the UK, Rwanda would not be able to continue with the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.”
So if this deal does break international law and our treaty obligations, the deal fails to exist. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary says it does not, but it is not a matter in which they can just overlook the human rights convention, the refugee convention and all those other conventions and disapply them when it suits. International law does not work that way.
This is an assault on human rights. We should not let this stand from this House, because human rights are universal and they are for everybody, not who the Home Secretary thinks they should apply to. This Bill is a dangerous distraction; it is part of a march towards fascism. Every single piece—[Interruption.] I do not say that lightly, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not say these things lightly. Does the Home Secretary believe that human rights are universal or does he not? That is the key question on this legislation, because we have been told, on every piece of legislation we have passed so far, that it would be a deterrent, yet none of them has worked. This illiberal, toxic piece of legislation today is supposed to be a deterrent, when all the others have failed.
The Home Secretary’s plans for Rwanda have been found to be unlawful. They are immoral. They are a waste of money. They should be scrapped. Scotland wants none of this—none of this—appalling legislation.
I was also struck that the Supreme Court, in its judgment, made heavy reference to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The UNHCR was critical of Rwanda, and yet on the day after the judgment was handed down by their lordships, it flew 160-plus refugees to Rwanda. I judge it by its actions, not necessarily by its words. Rwanda has made huge progress with our help and that of others, so it is now in a situation where it can sign a treaty that protects refugees sent there. I am very confident that that will be the case.
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?
“on the grounds that…Rwanda is not a safe country for the person in question”,
based on that individual’s particular circumstances. Can my right hon. Friend say why that clause was inserted in the Bill, and can he assure the House that it does not in any sense frustrate the Bill’s intent?
“unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights”?
The point is that an appeal process is an important part of any legal process. It will not preclude people from being sent to Rwanda. This is a robust scheme that strengthens our position and ensures that the decisions we make in this House—that he, I and others make in this House—define the UK’s immigration policy, not decisions made by unelected people elsewhere.
My question for the Home Secretary is this: is he proud of driving a coach and horses through the British constitution?
“Without lawful behaviour by the UK, Rwanda would not be able to continue with the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.”
Without lawful behaviour, Home Secretary? It is being reported in the press that the Rwandan Government are getting cold feet because this deal is too toxic for them. Is that the case?
“we must build Nightingale-style detention facilities to deliver the necessary capacity… The only way to do this…is with the support of the Ministry of Defence.”
Russia is on manoeuvres, more than 20,000 British troops are being deployed across northern Europe next year, and the Conservative Government are seeking to shrink the Army to 73,000. Does the Home Secretary, who was the Foreign Secretary last month, think that our armed forces should be training for war or for kettling asylum seekers into camps?
“Other countries have since copied our plans with Rwanda”.
I can find no evidence that that is accurate. Can you advise on this point of accuracy, Mr Deputy Speaker, because no country is copying the plan with Rwanda?
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