This has been a very interesting Committee, ranging from the metaphysical to MPs feeding each other baked beans, and from a constitutional tour of the history of Scotland to the case of John Hirst, who lived in Hull. He put an axe through his landlady’s head, went to prison and fought a campaign for prisoners to have the right to vote—we have discussed prisoners’ right to vote in the past.
We have also heard a lot of criticism of lawyers, but I have to say that some of the best speeches we have heard this afternoon have been from lawyers. I do not know whether they count as leftie lawyers, as they were sitting on the Conservative Benches in the majority of cases.
I am conscious that this is not Second Reading, but I refer the Committee to the report on small boat crossings produced by the Home Affairs Committee 18 months ago:
“There is no magical single solution to dealing with irregular migration. Detailed, evidence-driven, fully costed and fully tested policy initiatives are by far most likely to achieve sustainable incremental change that deters journeys such as dangerous Channel crossings.”
We also said that the No. 1 issue the Government needed to address was the backlog, on which I am pleased there has been some progress. The backlog is still about 90,000, but that is an improvement on where we were last year.
I am concerned about amendments 11 to 18 and 23 to 25, tabled by the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), because if they were accepted, they would put the United Kingdom on a collision course with international law. I also want to speak to amendment 36 and new clause 7 in relation to the cost of the Rwanda policy.
Clause 3 disapplies the Human Rights Act, and amendments 11 to 18 would extend this disapplication, thereby extending the permission this Bill grants for public authorities to act in ways that are incompatible with human rights. Specifically, amendments 11 and 12 appear to extend the disapplication of the Human Rights Act to anything done under the Illegal Migration Act relating to the removal of a person to Rwanda. This could potentially include a person’s detention and treatment prior to removal, meaning that not only would no legal challenge be possible under amendment 22, which we discussed yesterday, but there would be no specific legal obligation on public authorities to act in compatibility with human rights. Extending the disapplication of sections 2 and 3 of the Human Rights Act to all immigration legislation, as it relates to a person’s removal to Rwanda under this Bill or the Illegal Migration Act, would raise serious concerns about unforeseen consequences and unintended human rights violations.
It should also be noted that amending the Bill to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act, which has never been done before, does not have any clear legal purpose. It would simply prevent the courts from telling the Government and the public their view on the law. As the Secretary of State has already said on the face of the Bill that he is unable to say that it is compatible with convention rights, no one could reasonably presume that a statement of the same from the courts would have any impact at all, which is why I am querying these amendments.
The former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark, opened the debate with amendments 23 and 25, and he talked about taking the pin out of a grenade. Clause 5 concerns interim measures of the European Court of Human Rights, stating that it will be for a Minister, and only a Minister, to decide whether the UK will comply.
At this point, let me again pay tribute to the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), for their clear explanation of the current situation on these interim injunctions; for setting out clearly what the UK’s involvement with that Court is and our long-standing commitment to it; and for setting out that a review is taking place on those interim injunctions, which is very helpful.
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Amendments 23 and 25 would stipulate that interim measures from the European Court of Human Rights—the so-called “pyjama injunctions”—which halted the removal of the asylum seekers to Rwanda in 2022 are “not binding” on the UK and have “no effect” on a person’s removal to Rwanda. Although the amendments allow that a Minister may choose not to remove someone where interim measures have been indicated, amendment 25 makes amendments to existing provisions on the treatment of interim measures in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 that are designed to make it clear that the Secretary of State, immigration officers and the courts must not have regard to interim measures in relation to removals to Rwanda. As we have been discussing, these interim measures are made under rule 39 of the rules of procedure of the European Court of Human Rights and therefore do not form part of the text of the convention ratified by the UK. However, the Court, the body that determines the meaning of the convention, has held consistently that failing to comply with interim measures amounts to a breach of article 34 of the convention itself: the obligation not to “hinder in any way” the right to bring claims before the Court. Therefore, any decision of a Minister not to comply with interim measures would be inconsistent with the UK’s obligations under the convention. The legal advice that the Home Affairs Committee has received is that the amendments before us this afternoon would therefore put the UK directly in conflict with the European Court of Human Rights. Worryingly, there have also been reports today in the media that the Government are considering amending the civil service code to require civil servants to ignore interim measures from the Court. The general secretary of the FDA has described that as “madness”. Interestingly, there may be some synergy here with the Minister’s approach, because I understand that when he was Solicitor General he backed the Attorney General’s advice stating that ignoring a rule 39 order would breach international law and that the Government should not even indicate that they would refuse to comply.
Amendment 36 and new clauses 5 and 7 relate to costs, and I want to look at another aspect missing from the Bill and deserving of some scrutiny: how much this policy will cost. I want to speak to those proposals particularly because of what has happened recently with the attempt by the Home Affairs Committee and Public Accounts Committee to find out about the cost of the
Rwanda policy. There is far too much that we do not know about how much policy will cost and how much taxpayers’ money is going to be spent. That is why new clause 7, which would require the Secretary of State to promptly notify Parliament of any payments made under the Rwanda treaty, has merit. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at that new clause. It is why amendment 36, requiring the publication of a full impact assessment on the costs involved in removals to Rwanda and publication of the financial memorandum signed with Rwanda, also carries great merit. As I was saying, the Home Affairs Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have found it very difficult to get basic financial information from the Government on the Rwanda scheme, which is why new clause 5 is also worthy of the Minister’s careful consideration.
New clause 5 would place the monitoring committee for the Rwanda treaty on a statutory footing, which would enable greater oversight of the implementation of the treaty. Crucially, it would ensure that Parliament can do its fundamental job of scrutinising Government policy.
As the Home Affairs Committee spelt out 18 months ago in our report, which I quoted from earlier, dangerous channel crossings will stop only when we have the evidence-driven, fully-tested policy initiatives I have talked about, and when they are properly costed. It seems to me that that is plainly not the case at the moment. That is crucial for us not only to delivering a policy that stops small boats, but more widely to ensuring the responsible and effective use of public money.
It is important to remember that when the Rwanda scheme was announced, the permanent secretary at the Home Office required a ministerial direction from the Home Secretary to implement the policy, as the permanent secretary judged—he still holds the same view—that there was no evidence that the scheme would constitute value for money. On that basis, one might think that the Government would be keen to demonstrate exactly how much public money they are spending, to allay fears that the money is not being well spent.
I am very concerned about the position they have got themselves into, as we still do not know how much will be paid to Rwanda in the final two years of the migration and economic development partnership, or the per person cost of relocating an individual to Rwanda. The most substantive update we have received recently on the cost of the scheme came about by accident, because someone apparently mucked up and published details in the International Monetary Fund’s board papers. We found out about that unwitting disclosure in a similarly haphazard way, with a late-night letter from the permanent secretary to myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which he then posted on the Home Office website. It appears that Rwandan MPs are able to find out exactly how much money the British Government are paying for the scheme, but British MPs are not allowed to have the same information made available to us, unless it is disclosed seemingly by mistake.
What we do know is that following the £140 million paid to Rwanda in the financial year 2022-23, there was an additional payment of £100 million in April 2023 and a further £50 million will be paid in the financial year 2024-25. As I have said, the deal with Rwanda is
for five years and the Government are still not willing to tell us exactly how much is pledged in those final two years.
As for the money paid to Rwanda already, we now have some information. I am grateful that the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration was able to provide some information in a letter, which the Home Affairs Committee has published today. It sets out how the £120 million is being spent, saying 39% is spent on education, 21% on infrastructure, 19% on job creation, 13% on health, 5% on agriculture and 3% on information and communication technology.
We know that the Government have also pledged to pay Rwanda a certain amount in relation to each asylum seeker removed there, but yet again we do not know how much that will be. All we have been able to glean from the Home Office is from the economic impact assessment to the Illegal Migration Bill, published at the tail end of its progress through Parliament, which estimated that the cost of relocating a single individual seeking asylum to a third country—Rwanda—would be £169,000 per person. We are told that that represents
“additional costs incurred relative to processing an individual through…the current migration system.”
I understand from previous Immigration Ministers that the cost of processing an individual in the United Kingdom is around £12,000, so there is quite a differential between £12,000 and £169,000.
It is not just those core costs that we are unclear about. There are multiple layers of other possible, probable and prescribed payments involved in the delivery of the policy that we have not been given any detail on. For instance, the treaty with Rwanda establishes a new appeals body for individuals applying for asylum that will be staffed by judges from, we are told, “a mix of nationalities”. Will the United Kingdom be paying for that new international appeals body and its staffing? If so, how much will that be?
The treaty also specifies that any person sent to Rwanda will be entitled to a permanent residence permit. This deals with the refoulement issue that the Supreme Court was concerned about, and it means that a person will stay in Rwanda even if their asylum claim is unsuccessful. We do not know what the financial implications of that are for the British taxpayer and what payments will be paid, if any, to the Rwandan Government in connection with those unsuccessful asylum applications.
The treaty also specifies that the initial asylum decision will be made by individuals who are appropriately trained, and that, for the first six months, no claim will be rejected unless advice has been taken from a seconded independent expert. Will the UK be providing any additional money to Rwanda to train these decision makers and employ these independent experts?
The treaty guarantees free legal advice to claimants during the asylum process. Will the UK be making any payments to Rwanda to back up that guarantee? Again, we have not had anything from Ministers to tell us this basic information to enable us to effectively scrutinise the policy. That is also before the announcement that was made in the written ministerial statement yesterday where the Lord Chancellor set out that there will be 150 lower-level judges appointed to the Upper Tribunal in the United Kingdom to hear appeals quickly. I think
that that was a concession to Conservative Members who were very concerned about the number of appeals that might flow from the Bill.
I did hear the Minister on the news this morning being asked about the cost of the 150 judges, and he was not able to say what that cost was. Again, that is another factor that we need to consider when we are looking at the value for money of this policy. So, given the failures that I have talked about in relation to transparency and given the resistance that the Home Affairs and the Public Accounts Committees have encountered in getting more details on the cost of the Rwanda scheme, amendments 36 and new clause 7 would be very helpful to Parliament in getting that information.
Those are the main points that I wanted to raise today, but, again, I reiterate that a huge amount of political capital and parliamentary time are being spent on this Bill. What we do know, and what the Home Affairs Committee said 18 months ago, is that we still do not have the evidence that this Bill will actually do what the Government think it will do, which is to deter people from getting in small boats and crossing the channel. There is a huge amount of resource going into this, but, as I said at the start, there must be a range of initiatives to deal with illegal migration. There is no one magic policy that the Government can use to stop the problem that we have with small boats. I hope the Minister will take that into account in his closing comments.