UK Parliament / Open data

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to an interesting debate on this important point.

Clause 4 provides that a Home Office decision-maker, or a court or tribunal, can consider a claim that Rwanda is unsafe only

“based on compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s individual circumstances”.

Subsection (2) prevents a decision-maker or the courts considering any claim where it relates to whether Rwanda

“will or may remove or send the person in question to another State in contravention of any of its international obligations”.

Where the duty to remove under the Illegal Migration Act does not apply, subsections (3) and (4) prevent the courts granting interim relief unless that person can show that they would face

“a real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm”

if they were removed to Rwanda. This is the same threshold that can give rise to a suspensive claim based on serious and irreversible harm under the Illegal Migration Act. Subsection (5) provides that the consideration of “serious and irreversible harm” will be in line with the definition set out in the Illegal Migration Act, with any necessary modifications. Any allegation relating to onward removal from Rwanda is not an example of something capable of constituting serious and irreversible harm, as the treaty ensures that asylum seekers relocated to Rwanda under the partnership are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened.

Regarding the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, spoke to in opening, I remind noble Lords that the evidence pack published alongside the Bill details the evidence the United Kingdom Government have used to assess the safety of Rwanda. It concludes that, alongside the treaty, Rwanda is safe for the purposes of asylum processing, and the policy statement outlines the key findings. As experts on the bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and Rwanda and its development over the past 30 years, FCDO officials based in the relevant geographic and thematic departments, working closely with colleagues in the British high commission in Kigali, have liaised with the Home Office throughout the production of the policy statement.

As my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom and I set out in earlier debates, the United Kingdom Government and the Government of Rwanda have agreed and begun to implement assurances and commitments to strengthen Rwanda’s asylum system. These assurances and commitments provide clear evidence of the Government of Rwanda’s ability to fulfil their obligations generally and specifically to ensure that relocated individuals face no risk of refoulement. In answer to the points raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, which were adopted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester, and by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, from the Opposition Front Bench, among others, the position is that a person cannot argue this fundamentally academic point over a long period of time, occupying court resources. It is a point rendered academic because of the provision of the treaty governing the Bill.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
836 cc407-9 
Session
2023-24
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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