No, they did not. I am sorry, but the facts are otherwise. The essential point is that they were doing this work—whatever the noble Lord thinks the situation was, it is not what I think, but we can check the facts—in order that people could be admitted to Australia. That was the point; they were doing it somewhere else in order that they could come to Australia.
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Trying to clear that knowledge and understanding, which we did at Second Reading, on these amendments in particular, the first thing we can say is that introducing scrutiny of the safety of Rwanda is a necessary and essential point, given the resolution and determination of this House. If the Government want to proceed and get this House to change its mind, we have to find a route for ourselves that allows us to do so. The amendments acknowledge that in this House we do not have credible evidence in order to make a finding of safety; whether we should do so or not is another matter, which we will examine in group two. It is right that the evidence should be broadly based; that whoever makes that decision should look not in one corner but at the evidence of NGOs, civil society and working groups on the ground in Rwanda in order to find out exactly whether a decision is the correct one. So, we would not limit the advice to that of the United Nations HCR, even if it was prepared to give it, but we do take the advice it gives us.
I just want to mention the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, raised at the outset. He said that outsourcing a positive recommendation on an asylum case to the UNHCR would be unacceptable, and that we should not give this decision to another body. Yet, at the same time, as we speak, and as the Home Office report of 12 January showed clearly, the only remaining global resettlement scheme is the UK resettlement scheme, which relies exclusively on a positive reference from the UNHCR. So, the UK does not seek to influence the cases the UNHCR refers. The fact is that we have passed that responsibility to the UNHCR, or are ready to do so. It is clear that we need a much broader understanding of the new information and advice that we need.
Amendment 34, of course, would create a rebuttable presumption. It is essential that this not be seen as a rock that can never be moved if the situation were to change one way or the other, from safe to unsafe, in the future. It is also right that court jurisdiction be restored, recognising the rule of law and the separation of powers. More of that to come.
On Amendments 11 and 12, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the decisions taken on refugees seeking asylum with us who are being sent to Rwanda to have their cases heard should be subject to the rules we impose ourselves—the laws and rules we have in front of us. The amendments say that we recognise the UK’s laws and responsibilities in this matter, and we want Rwanda to use those because we want the standards we accept to be accepted in Rwanda.
These amendments give us some basis for thought and for some major proposals in the future, but at the moment they are signposts rather than a milestone.