My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall speak also to my Motion B2 and to Amendment 3C in lieu.
I asked for these amendments in lieu to be put down because I believe that Lords Amendments 2 and 3, to which I propose Amendments 3B and 3C in lieu, raise important issues to which further thought needs to be given by the other place. I should make it plain that it is my intention, if I do not receive a satisfactory reply, to test the opinion of the House on both amendments.
Clause 1(2) of the Bill states that
“this Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.
That proposition lies at the very heart of this Bill; everything depends on it. Careful thought therefore has to be given to the use of the word “is” in that statement. What does it mean? What are its consequences and what does it lead to? I have been teased by some Members on these Benches behind me for picking on one of the shortest words in this entire Bill, but there is a really important point here. I am doing what lawyers tend to do and that is to look at words and ask what they really mean. That is why I suggest that we have to get that word right.
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The Act will come into force on the day on which the Rwanda treaty enters into force—that is what the Bill says. This means that your Lordships are being asked to say that, as from that very moment and without more, Rwanda is a safe country. I do not believe that your Lordships have been told enough to enable that judgment to be made. Moreover, as the Bill stands, the assumption seems to be that Rwanda will continue to be safe for ever after, come what may, because the decision-makers referred to in Clause 2 are required conclusively to assume that Rwanda is a safe country without any qualification whatever as to what may happen in the future. No provision is made anywhere in the Bill for what should be done if the facts were to change and everyone could see as clearly as daylight that Rwanda was no longer safe.
In view of a point that the Minister made a moment ago, I want to make it plain that I do not for a moment question the good faith of the Government of Rwanda when they entered into the agreement or when they seek to give effect to what the treaty says. I do not for a moment question their determination to fulfil the obligations that they are undertaking. That is not what my amendments are about. My first point is that before Rwanda can be judged to be a safe country, these obligations must be put into practice. Ratifying the treaty is an important step, but that is not enough. It needs to be implemented before Rwanda can be considered safe. Secondly, there must be some way of dealing with the situation if, for whatever reason, the facts change.
I do not want to take up time going over the ground in support of my first point. We discussed it very fully in Committee and on Report and we had the benefit of the report by the International Agreements Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, which was approved by this House by a very large majority. It set out a list of the
things that needed to be done before the treaty is put into operation. However, if the noble and learned Lord will forgive me, I will refer briefly to the Home Secretary’s letter of 14 March in response to his report, and to his reply of the same date. What they say reinforces my point that the treaty must be implemented before Rwanda can be considered safe and that the Bill should say so.
In his letter, the Home Secretary did not address any of the issues raised by the report. All he said was that the joint committee provided for by the treaty
“met last month to discuss readiness for operationalisation. Implementation continues apace”
and that more steps needed to be taken. There were no further details. In his reply, the noble and learned Lord said
“since the Bill asks Parliament to declare that Rwanda is a safe country based on the provisions of the Treaty, it is important that Parliament should be satisfied that the Treaty has been fully implemented. That can only be done by updating Parliament in detail on the outstanding issues highlighted in the IAC Report”.
He asked for a “substantive response” by the end of last week
“so that Parliament has this information as it considers the final stages of the Bill”.
I am open to correction but, as far as I am aware, there has been no such response. We cannot let the matter lie there. That is why it is so important that Parliament should be advised by the monitoring committee that the mechanisms listed in the treaty for its implementation have been created, before Rwanda can be considered a safe country for the purposes of the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out what these measures are, as the treaty provides. That is what my amendment in lieu seeks to achieve.
As for my second point, which is about the future, there was an interesting feature about the debate in the Commons on Monday. We often complain that the Commons pay no attention to what we say, simply disregard our debates and carry on without listening or picking up what we have said. However, on this occasion, my amendments were picked up by three very experienced lawyers speaking from the Conservative Benches in the other place.
It is enough for me to refer as briefly as I can to what they actually said. Sir Jeremy Wright began the debate by saying that he could not accept my amendments because they transferred authority to say whether Rwanda remains a safe country to the monitoring committee. He said that could not be right, as the Bill is intended to give Parliament that authority. I accept that criticism and, indeed, my Amendment 3C in lieu does my best to make it clear that the authority lies with Parliament and not with the committee.
The debate in the other place did not end there, however. Sir Bob Neill said that he thought my amendments were fair and honest if facts change:
“Facts change, and if Parliament sets itself up as an arbiter and decider on fact, it must have a means of changing its decision if the facts change … Can we find a way forward?”
Sir Jeremy Wright then agreed. He said that my amendments, flawed as they were, raised the valid issue of what happens if Rwanda at any point falls below the standard expected of it to justify its safe-country status:
“it is simply not sensible for Parliament not to be able to say differently, save through primary legislation, if the facts were to change”.
He said that the Government should give some thought to the situation under the Bill:
“It must be right for Parliament to retain the capacity to reconsider and if necessary revise it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/24; cols. 678-80.]
Then Sir Robert Buckland said that he agreed with Sir Jeremy Wright’s point about giving authority to the monitoring committee to decide that Rwanda is no longer safe. He went on:
“The amendment is capable of perfection … there is force in their lordships pursuing that point, so that we marry up the reality with what we want to achieve legally”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/24; col. 717.]
I regard that as an invitation for us to pass my amendment and send the matter back, so that the other place can consider the point. That, indeed, is what my amendments in lieu seek to do. Furthermore, in his reply, the Minister in the other place said that he would consider the points raised carefully, so my amendments, if approved by your Lordships, would give him that opportunity.
The point, however, really is this: if we do not send the matter back, the opportunity disappears because the point is not raised again. I know that some noble Lords feel that the Commons must have the last word, and that it is not really right to keep sending things back again, but on this occasion, in view of these invitations, I really invite those Lordships who are minded to take that view to think very carefully, because if we do not send it back, there is a hole in the Bill that needed to be filled and will be left empty and unfilled.