My Lords, on behalf of the Government Front Bench, I will first speak about noble Lords who have recently passed out of this Chamber and out of this life. I echo everything said about my noble friend Lord Cormack. I did not know Baroness Henig as well as her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, did, but I mourn her loss and those better able to speak about her will do so in due course.
As to Lord Cormack, I can say something. If the welcome which he extended to the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on his entering the other place was as kind, heartening, pleasant and wise as the one which he extended to me on my coming among your Lordships a scant few years ago, I would not be very surprised. The House will miss his contribution to our deliberations.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, set out, Amendments 1, 3 and 5 add the purpose of compliance with the rule of law to that of deterrence in Clause 1, requiring the Secretary of State to consider all relevant evidence and lay a statement before Parliament that Rwanda is currently a safe country. Amendment 10, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, would mean that decision-makers cannot conclusively treat Rwanda as safe if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, even if Parliament had declared it safe.
The overarching purpose of the Bill is to deter dangerous and illegal journeys to the United Kingdom, which are putting people’s lives at risk, and to disrupt the business model of people smugglers who are exploiting vulnerable people. Picking up a point that my noble friend Lord Hailsham made, we know that deterrence can work. We have seen this through our Albania partnership, where we have removed more than 5,700 people, and the number of small boat arrivals has dropped by 93%. The number of migrants crossing the channel has fallen year on year for the first time since current records began, with the total arrivals in 2023 down more than a third on 2022. We know that this is not a Europe-wide trend—there has been a 16% increase in detected irregular arrivals to Europe.
This Government’s joint work with France prevented more than 26,000 individual crossings by small boat to the United Kingdom in 2023. Since July 2020, the
joint intelligence cell and French law enforcement partners have dismantled 82 organised criminal gangs responsible for people smuggling of migrants via small boat crossings. However, as we know, the small boats problem is part of a larger global migration crisis—one that this Government are committed to tackling, along with our international partners.
The migration and economic development partnership—MEDP—with the Government of Rwanda is one part of our wider programme to stop the boats. This partnership will not only act as a strong deterrent but demonstrate that it is not necessary to take dangerous and unnecessary journeys to find safety, as promoted by the smugglers. This partnership with the Government of Rwanda has now been set out in a new treaty, binding in international law. As your Lordships’ House heard from my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth a moment ago, it has been ratified by the lower house of the Rwandan Parliament and is moving on to its upper house. This treaty has been agreed by the Governments of the United Kingdom and Rwanda and was worked on by both parties with close care and attention.
As was set out repeatedly in earlier debates, the Government respect the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of AAA v the Secretary of State for the Home Department. However, I remind noble Lords that the Supreme Court’s conclusions were based on evidence submitted prior to the High Court hearing in September 2022 and did not consider the subsequent, ongoing work that has been undertaken between the United Kingdom and the Government of Rwanda since the partnership was announced, to prepare for the operationalisation of the partnership and, later, to address the findings of the Court of Appeal.
Indeed, the Supreme Court recognised that changes may be delivered in future which could address the conclusions they reached, and as I have just set out, we have done this through the treaty. I repeat: the Bill and the treaty do not overturn or disregard the Supreme Court’s decision; they act on it.
Article 10 of the treaty ensures that people relocated to Rwanda are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. It ensures that people relocated to Rwanda who are not granted asylum will receive the same treatment as those recognised as refugees, including permanent residence. It strengthens Rwanda’s asylum system, including through the constitution of a new appeal body composed of judges, from Rwanda and other countries, with asylum and humanitarian protection expertise to hear individual appeals. It clarifies the availability of free legal representation for all stages of the process and availability of free legal representation for court appeals, and it enhances the functions of the independent monitoring committee.
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The United Kingdom and Rwanda have been working together to improve systems and to develop the partnership. That work and the assurances we have negotiated in our legally binding treaty with Rwanda address the findings of the Supreme Court and make detailed provision for the treatment of relocated individuals in Rwanda, ensuring that they will be offered safety
and protection with no risk of refoulement. The implementation of those provisions in practice will be kept under review by the independent monitoring committee, the role of which, as I just set out, was enhanced by the treaty and which will ensure that the obligations under the treaty are complied with in practice. The amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady D’Souza, are therefore not necessary. Although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, set out, the amendments in her name take into consideration the views expressed by noble Lords in our debates, they would delay the operationalisation of the partnership.
I repeat: the treaty does not override the judgment. It is precisely to address the concerns of the Supreme Court that the Government have concluded this international treaty with the Republic of Rwanda with additional safeguards and guarantees, as well as publishing an evidence pack on what has changed. The changes, along with our wider evidence pack, address the findings of the Supreme Court.
Furthermore, Amendment 3 appears to be intended—here, I follow the reasoning of the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, in his earlier contribution—to require persons whose claims are successful in Rwanda to be returned to the United Kingdom. That goes against the spirit and intention of the treaty. Those relocated to Rwanda will not be returned to the United Kingdom, except in limited circumstances; they will be given safety and support in Rwanda.
As previously set out, it is our view that Parliament and the Government are better suited to address the sensitive policy issues involved in the legislation and the matters with which it deals, and, ultimately, to tackle the major global challenge we face of illegal migration. The Government’s published legal position makes it clear that Parliament is able, with clear and express words, to limit access to the domestic courts. While previous attempts have not always prevailed, Parliament has done that in ways that have been upheld in the courts in the recent past. Those recent successes have been clauses which, while they ousted most claims, did not oust all claims. As the recent judgment in the case of LA (Albania) v Upper Tribunal made clear, the fact that an ouster provision was not a total ouster was an important consideration for the court to give effect to that ouster. The court decided that the ouster did not offend the rule of law and gave effect to it.
The Bill allows Parliament to confirm that it considers that it has sufficient material before it to judge that Rwanda is safe in general, and that that finding should not be disturbed by the courts. The Bill also allows for an exceptionally narrow route to individual challenge to ensure that the courts interpret the relevant provisions in accordance with the will of Parliament, recognising that it is not, however, possible for Parliament reasonably to conclude that Rwanda will always be safe for every potential individual liable to removal at any point in the future irrespective of their specific personal circumstances.
Completely blocking any court challenges would be a breach of international law and alien to the United Kingdom’s constitutional traditions of liberty and
justice. The Bill limits unnecessary challenges while maintaining the principle of access to the courts where an individual may be at a real risk of serious and irreversible harm. Taken as a whole, the limited availability of domestic remedies maintains the constitutional balance between Parliament being able to legislate as it sees necessary and the powers of our courts to hold the Government to account.
Regarding Amendments 1, 3, 5, 10 and 43, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and—