UK Government’s Plans to Deport Refugees to Rwanda Hits a Blockage

While non-binding, the vote on the new UK-Rwanda treaty gives an indication of the level of opposition Rishi Sunak is likely to face when the Bill is debated in the Lords.

As the BBC reports, in the first vote of its kind, the House of Lords has called for the new UK-Rwanda treaty to be delayed until Kigali improves its asylum procedures.

Peers backed a motion calling the government not to ratify the treaty by 214 votes to 171. The motion is not binding on the government.

The treaty, signed in December, is central to Rishi Sunak’s scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda but is separate to the Rwanda Safety Bill.

Downing Street has yet to comment.

Next week peers will begin debating the Bill itself, which aims to prevent legal challenges to deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

While non-binding, the vote on the treaty gives an indication of the level of opposition Sunak is likely to face when the Bill is debated in the Lords.

Below is what Lord Alton had to say during the debate.

Lord Alton of Liverpool

My Lords, the whole House is greatly in the debt of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for giving us the opportunity to debate the Rwanda agreement, to consider the nature of our international obligations and to make the judgment to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just referred on whether Rwanda is a safe place to which we can send asylum seekers.

Along with the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence – who are in their places – I serve as one of six Members of your Lordships’ House on the 12-Member-strong Joint Committee on Human Rights, under the admirable chairmanship of the Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South West, Joanna Cherry. I note that another of our Members, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is also in your Lordships’ Chamber.

We were in session last Wednesday taking evidence from the Refugee Council, Justice, the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, Chatham House, Migration Watch, and Professors Sarah Singer and Tom Hickman KC. On Wednesday this week we will hear from, among others, Lord Sumption and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst KC, who spoke earlier in this debate.

It is the job of Parliament to hear different views and to assess the arguments carefully. Too often, as my noble friend Lord Hannay indicated, we put the cart before the horse: we do not do it, which is not good governance. Too often, we pass legislation in haste and repent at leisure. The treaty before us, the Bill that will come and that which we already considered in 2023—the Illegal Migration Act—are examples of that.

In the 5,000-word report that the JCHR produced on that Act, we said that “this Bill breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations and risks breaching others”.

We went on to say that “this gives us significant cause for concern” and that: “The Government is rightly concerned about the loss of life in the Channel. So are we”.

This echoes the point that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, made trenchantly in his speech. The loss of life and the scale of the migration crisis are such that politicians of all persuasions must respond to the widespread concern and anger at the failure to tackle the crisis, both here and in other jurisdictions. It does the process no good when we are seen to stampede things through both Houses.

When the Joint Committee asked the then Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to appear before us and justify the measures that were in the previous Bill, she declined. I do not believe that is how Parliament should be treated. It does nothing for public confidence in our processes.

The Government rightly insist that the criminal, mafia-like gangs who make their fortunes by preying on the desperation and misery of the vulnerable must be hunted down and jailed. I agree. I also commend the Government and agree with them that they have achieved a great deal in their bilateral agreement with Albania and the progress made towards a pan-European initiative at the European Political Community Summit of 47 European leaders in Granada last October. But is it really the case that the EPC will not meet again until June? Perhaps the Minister will tell us. This requires urgent international strategy and decisions. Our Joint Committee on Human Rights report is insistent that the global crisis of displacement – UNHCR puts the number at 110 million people – means that:

“Given the sheer scale of this global crisis, it cannot be solved by one country alone”.

Let us recall that eight out of 10 refugees – many millions – end up in neighbouring countries, not in the United Kingdom, so there are plenty of other countries which need to join an international alliance and promote an international strategy.

Two years ago, on 6 January 2022, on behalf of my noble friends on the Cross Benches, I moved a Motion which noted “that 82.4 million people are displaced worldwide, 42 per cent of whom are children, and 32 per cent of whom are refugees, and (2) the case for an urgent international response to address the root causes of mass displacement”.

That 82 million was two years ago, the number is now 110 million, and it will go on rising. Unless we tackle the fundamental reasons for displacement, the tsunami of desperate people will continue to be washed up on Europe’s shores and seabeds.

Nine months since I chaired an inquiry into the situation in Sudan, we have seen 7 million people in Sudan alone displaced. Half a million people have fled Darfur in recent weeks and are now in Chad. Add to that the numbers from Tigray and from Eritrea – a tiny country from which half a million people are displaced, having escaped the cruel conditions that prevail there. The JCHR was told last week:

“Unless there is a collective global effort to create stability through conflict resolution and the promotion of rights in those countries, the number of refugees from those specific countries is unlikely to decrease”.

It was Winston Churchill who promoted so much that we now take for granted, including the European Convention on Human Rights. He rightly believed that such international architecture – based on the rule of law, democracy, human rights, security and economic recovery – represented our best hope for the future. That brings us directly to the Motion brought by the noble and learned Lord, and what Parliament is being asked to agree.

As we have been reminded, it was the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in November, based on the identification of a number of concerns about Rwanda – including poor compliance with its international obligations, poor understanding of the refugee convention and a poor human rights record – that led to the International Agreements Committee producing the report that we have been considering. That report says that

“the Rwandan government does not possess the practical ability to fulfil its assurances to the UK government, at least in the short term. That is not something that can be fixed by entering a binding treaty alone”.

To confirm that, last week the JCHR heard evidence of the inadequate in-country access to legal remedies in Rwanda, a lack of independence for the judiciary and legal representatives, and a bad track record in complying with other international agreements.

Finally, I turn to the central issue of safety. Once again, we have the Home Secretary unable to give a Section 19(1)(b) statement on the face of the Bill to affirm that the Bill coming before us next week is compliant with the convention, which I presume can mean only that the Government do not regard Rwanda to be a safe destination. Witnesses to the JCHR last week put it to us that if the Government were confident about the safety of refoulement, they would not be afraid of independent judicial oversight.

The question today is simply whether we can honestly say that Rwanda is a safe country, and it was put to the JCHR that this also engages the separation of powers between the judiciary and Parliament, a point made earlier by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Professor Singer said:

“To contradict the Supreme Court in this way is, perhaps, not showing the respect to the court that should be owed as a constitutional principle. Furthermore, the legislation prohibits the UK courts from reopening and considering the question of whether Rwanda is safe”.

The JCHR was left in no doubt that if this new Bill is rushed through, the courts will once again be asked to decide whether Rwanda is safe and whether circumstances have changed. Guess what – if the verdict is that Rwanda is still not safe, the law will have to be changed yet again. Meanwhile, the Government of Rwanda have themselves said they would not want, as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, reminded us, to implement a scheme said to be contrary to international law.

In considering the issue of safety, the House will want to take into account the new analysis that the UNHCR published last week, in which it once again insisted that Rwanda is not a safe country, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. That analysis includes the following:

“As of January 2024, UNHCR has not observed changes in the practice of asylum adjudication that would overcome the concerns set out in its 2022 analysis and in the detailed evidence presented to the Supreme Court”.

At a minimum, the Government need to tell us what has changed on the ground in Rwanda since the Supreme Court decision. What evidence do they have, for instance, in regard to political oppression or LGBT people? What examination have the Government made of the reasons why Burundi has closed its borders with Rwanda, and of Rwanda’s links with the M23 militias in the eastern DRC – what analysis has been made of that? What is the Government’s response to the 2023 Human Rights Watch report stating that

“Commentators, journalists, opposition activists, and others speaking out on current affairs and criticizing public policies in Rwanda continued to face abusive prosecutions, enforced disappearances, and have at times died under unexplained circumstances”.

Like others, I visited Rwanda, in my case in the aftermath of the genocide, and saw terrible mass graves. Huge strides have been made to recover from the deaths of between half a million and 800,000 people, as my noble friend Lord Kerr reminded us earlier, but it is deceptive to describe Rwanda as a safe country for refoulement.

It is passing strange that we have five alleged genocidaires living in the UK that we have not sent back to Rwanda, for fear that they would be at real risk of not receiving a fair trial if returned. The primary issue in those extradition proceedings was whether they were at real risk of a flagrant denial of justice if returned to Rwanda; they expressed fears that they would be tortured and executed.

When the cases came back to the courts in 2015 and 2017, Lord Justice Irwin and Mr Justice Foskett said: “Our concerns focus on the political pressures on the judicial system, the independence of the judges, the difficulties and fears of witnesses and particularly the capacity of defendants to allegations of genocide to obtain and present evidence and be adequately represented in their defence”.

We should think very carefully before stampeding through treaties, agreements or, indeed, next week, new legislation. I do not believe that public concerns about migration will be assuaged by offloading our responsibility, as my noble friend Lord Kerr said. It would clearly allay many public concerns if we were more efficient in dealing with applications more swiftly and sorting out the genuine from the false, but instead of this we are told we must make a Faustian pact and trade our commitment to international law and the safety of asylum seekers in return for measures that even their supporters say will not work.

For all those reasons, I will vote for both Motions that the noble and learned Lord has placed before the House, and I hope that the rest of the House will too.