I rise to reject and oppose all 10 of the Lords amendments. In the other place last week, peer after peer spoke of this Bill as an outrageous affront to the law or “international law”. With great respect, there seemed to be a collective amnesia that it is Parliament that is sovereign and that Parliament secured sovereign authority over generations from what had previously been an absolute monarchy. It probably stems from the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Parliament for centuries now has had sovereign authority to pass any law whatever.
No law that Parliament passes can be “outside the law”. In our system, it is Parliament that is supreme. Despite the misnomer of the court that Tony Blair invented, it is Parliament that is supreme, not lawyers or judges. That is unlike the United States, for example, where judges can strike down a law passed by Congress as unconstitutional. In fact, the UK legislature could do
the opposite of that, and strike the Supreme Court down out of existence, if such were Parliament’s will. That is, after all, what Tony Blair himself did when he abolished the 150-year-old principle of the Law Lords and the House of Lords as our highest court and created the Supreme Court just a few years ago. Many think that was an act of constitutional vandalism, and I happen to agree, but whether or not one does, it is axiomatic that what Blair did, one of his successors can at least in theory undo. That is the nature of our system.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) said earlier, Parliament derives its authority from the people, and that is why parliamentary sovereignty is so important. It is not an aggrandisement. The law is a living, fluid concept. People change and people’s views change, which is why it is right that the people’s elected representatives in Parliament can have sovereignty over decisions that are made. Two hundred years ago, drawing graffiti on Westminster Bridge was an offence punishable by death; now people can block ambulances on Westminster Bridge and receive no more than a small fine. The law has changed in 200 years, and it is imperative that we bear in mind that it is a fluid concept. It has to keep up with the wishes and will of the people.
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The point is that society changes and the law changes with it, and that is a major advantage of the English common law system. Today, the British people have elected leaders—such as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of this country—who advocate a policy of increased vigilance on immigration, and the elected politicians must be able to enact laws in accordance with the wishes of the people, even if lawyers and Members of the other place do not like it. That is the very essence of democracy. I have worked in the law all my life—it is 30 years since I was called to the Bar—and I know that the law is not the master of the people, but a servant of the people, as is this House. It must serve the wishes of the British electorate and, if necessary, adapt accordingly. The British people’s current wishes on immigration are clear, and the Prime Minister is right to enact them.
This is not just a constitutional position. Nine people have died trying to cross the English Channel in small boats this year alone. The latest victim of the smuggling gangs was a seven-year-old girl, whose overloaded boat capsized in a French canal. For this reason, stopping the boats is not just a political imperative; it is a moral necessity. Only when those coming to the UK illegally know that they cannot stay will they stop risking their lives and the lives of others. I am sorry to say, however, that to Labour and Crossbench peers in the House of Lords last week, it seemed to be an outrage to try to stop this trade in human misery by establishing what would be an effective deterrent through the Rwanda partnership.
Notwithstanding the contributions of some Members in the other place who were opposing this process, it is clear to anyone who reads the Supreme Court’s judgment of last year that the Bill is the constitutionally appropriate response to it. The judgment related to the conditions in Rwanda at the time of the original challenge in June 2022, and Lord Reed, the senior judge in the Supreme Court, was explicit about the fact that the issues identified could be addressed in future. In other words, the Supreme Court explicitly invited Ministers of the Crown to remedy the problems that they had identified in their judgment,
and that is precisely what His Majesty’s Government has now done, with a treaty that is binding under the international law frameworks that Labour and Crossbench peers so admire.
Nor does the Bill oust the jurisdiction of the courts. That is another misapprehension. Judges will be able to consider human rights claims and judicial reviews; they will just do so after people have been sent to Rwanda—unless, of course, claimants can prove that they will face a real risk of serious harm in Rwanda, in which case they can stay in the UK while the appeal is heard.