I wish to make some progress. The hon. Gentleman will be able to contribute later on.
I wish to touch on what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said about this. It has reviewed the updated UK-Rwanda scheme and it says:
“It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated in the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme, does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible”—
it is not compatible—
“with international refugee law.”
Equally, this Bill does not have any kind of sunset clause, or a set of circumstances by which it can acknowledge a change in the situation in Rwanda. That is foolhardy, and it is bad legislation. The clauses that talk about mere monitoring of the situation do not go far enough. That is a prime example of the incompetence of this legislation and how it cannot really be made to work.
There has been ongoing tension, for example, with the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where recently re-elected President Tshisekedi has been quoted as saying in relation to Rwandan-backed M23 rebels:
“If you re-elect me and Rwanda persists…I will request the Parliament and Congress to authorise a declaration of war. We will march on Kigali. Tell Kagame those days of playing games with Congolese leaders are over.”
I ask Conservative Members what would happen to their precious treaty and to this legislation should such a situation escalate. None of us wants to see that, but it could happen. More importantly, what would happen in the interim to anybody the Home Secretary had sent to this unsafe situation in Rwanda? They would not be able to bring them back. That person would be stuck in a situation of conflict.
It is beyond me how Conservative Members, including former Ministers and members of the legal profession, can sign up to amendments shredding the rule of law and human rights. Our amendments 46 to 50 are, at the very minimum, an attempt to reinstate the powers of our courts and tribunals to do their work. They are the people qualified to make these decisions, and they do so for the most part with great diligence. Their services are stretched and there is much more that could be improved were the UK Government not chucking away hundreds of millions of pounds on distractions such as this legislation that they bring here today.
The Government have recently published their consultation response on safe and legal routes, following the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and it offers nothing. It offers no change whatsoever—no new safe and legal routes that would help to resolve the situation. The Refugee Council has presented a credible alternative, and the Minister could not be less interested.
I honestly do not know what to say about the amendments of the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and his cabal. It sickens me that they would treat people in this way. Surely the only way in their minds that they can justify treating asylum seekers in this way is if they consider them to be less. If they do not matter, they can therefore be shipped off as if they were some kind of inconvenient waste. This is stirring up fear and hatred of people who only came here to ask for our protection. These are real lives; it is not some political game. I say to Conservative Members who are focused on this Tory psychodrama that this is about real people and real people’s lives. We on the SNP Benches see them as humans, just like us. Shame on all those Members.
1.45 pm
I would like to have seen much more from the Labour party in opposing this vile legislation. Labour Members concern themselves today simply with the risk of
refoulement, not the tawdry practice of offshoring asylum seekers. Labour’s new clause 6 merely seeks to monitor the shoddy deal, not to dismantle it. Last week, they would not be clear whether it was the principle of Rwanda or just the costs that they found problematic. I ask the shadow Minister, would he revoke this legislation?
We are seeing courts being overruled and people being treated as if they were less than human—as if they were not entitled to the rights that we all expect. These are dark days. This is not normal and nor should it become so. We on the SNP Benches will fight this rotten Bill all the way—today, tomorrow, and any opportunity that we get. Not in our name.