UK Parliament / Open data

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

I say directly to my hon. Friend that I will continue to work with him on this. I will come back to his specific points, and I hope I will address his very concern, perhaps in response to the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones).

My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, my hon. Friends the Members for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and others spoke powerfully and directly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham rightly talked about the UNHCR and the EU. How galling it was to see that, the very day after the UNHCR advocated in the Supreme Court that Rwanda is not safe, the UNHCR itself sent 168 refugees to Rwanda as part of hundreds and thousands under a scheme that is already up and running, and supported and backed by the EU to the tune of millions of euros. We need to hear more of that, so I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) raised a specific point that I want to address head-on. This Bill will apply in full in Northern Ireland, in the same way that it applies in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is explicit, it is on the face of the Bill and will always be the case, reflecting that immigration policy is a UK-wide matter. I want to be particularly

clear that nothing in the Windsor framework or the trade and co-operation agreement affects that. Where people have raised concern is on the rights chapter of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which I want to be clear does not affect any clause in this Bill in any way.

I think I have time to address the specific concern that the hon. Member for Strangford raised. It is important to be clear that the 2005 procedural directive is not within the annexes of the Windsor framework.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
742 cc848-9 
Session
2023-24
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Back to top