The contentious Rwanda Bill has taken up the airwaves and conversations in Westminster over the past few days. It has generated whispered discussions in dark Westminster corridors and heated debate in the famous Tearoom. Whilst both sides agree that the Rwanda Bill is the ‘toughest piece of legislation ever put forward by a UK Government’, for some colleagues the Bill does not go far enough to prevent individual legal challenges, and others who argue that the Bill pushes the boundaries of the rule of law and do not want the UK to breach the rule of law, nor its international obligations.
The Prime Minister committed to stop the boats and he will deliver on that. The new, legally binding treaty with Rwanda responds to the Supreme Court’s concerns with Rwanda’s asylum system and ends the merry-go-round of legal challenges to the Government’s plans to stop the boats. Primarily it deals with the risk of onward refoulement from Rwanda to another country – which every single individual claim was based on during the High Court case on the first Rwanda flight. This new treaty, alongside the Rwanda Bill, is a small part of a wider raft of measures to stop illegal migration. The measures already in place show that real progress is being made with the number of arrivals down by a third – the first-year numbers have dropped since this problem started, while crossings to other European countries are up by 80%. This shows that the issue of illegal migration is not only a UK problem – it is Europe-wide. There is also good news on getting the backlog of asylum cases down, with the initial asylum backlog down from 92,000 to less than 20,000. The Government has removed over 22,000 people this year, and expensive asylum hotels are closing, replaced by former MoD sites, for example. Constituents will be relieved that the sudden closure of Pontins in Camber is not because of the Home Office, which has confirmed that is has no plans to accommodate asylum seekers there. I will hold them to that.
To fully solve this problem, we need a strong deterrent. As the returns agreement with Albania shows, deterrence works: Albanian arrivals are down by more than 90 per cent this year. This agreement aims to deter and disrupt illegal migration and reduce human trafficking. Only by removing the prospect that illegal migrants can settle in the UK can we control our borders and save lives at sea. Whilst the Government has entered into returns agreements with other countries, such as India, it is essential we also remove illegal migrants to Rwanda, rather than letting them stay in the UK.
The Rwanda Bill is the toughest anti-illegal immigration legislation ever and will make clear and unambiguous that Parliament deems Rwanda to be safe, notwithstanding UK law or any interpretation of international law, preventing the courts from second guessing Parliament’s assessment. The relevant sections of the Human Rights Act 1998 are disapplied by the key parts of the Bill and the Prime Minister has been clear that he will not allow a foreign court to block this policy; Parliament is sovereign, and the validity of an Act of Parliament is unaffected by international law. This means that if the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg chooses to intervene against the express wishes of Parliament, ministers alone decide whether to comply with Rule 39 interim measures from Strasbourg, or not.
Whilst the Bill will stop fictitious claims and appeals using modern slavery, refoulement or right to family life, it will still allow individuals to make an asylum claim or challenge removal in very limited circumstances, using an exceptionally high threshold of a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm, for example, you are heavily pregnant or have a serious medical condition that could not be dealt with in Rwanda. Whilst the exception is very narrow, and the circumstances would be rare, it will be debated whether the Government can further tighten individual claims without breaching international law.
The Government’s approach is justified as a matter of Parliamentary sovereignty, constitutional propriety, UK law, and the UK’s international obligations. It is worth noting, not a single Labour MP voted to prevent illegal migration.