VULNERABLE children are being left unprotected under Government plans to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, and the implications for his or her well-being will probably be “devastating”, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, has warned.
“Good intent isn’t any basis for safeguarding,” she said, referring to the treaty struck between the UK and Rwanda, on which the Government is relying as evidence of the country’s safety despite a Supreme Court ruling on the contrary (News, 17 November 2023).
Dr Francis-Dehqani was contributing to the third day of the Committee Stage of the Government’s Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill within the House of Lords on Monday afternoon. She spoke in support of amendments tabled by the Labour peer Baroness Lister, who had expressed concern in regards to the lack of a child-rights impact assessment of the Bill. Her amendments, Baroness Lister said, would be certain that the “best interests” for each child were met consistent with the Illegal Migration Act.
The Bishop said: “We should always remember that each accompanied and unaccompanied children, and those that may be found to be children, are within the scope of the Bill, which the Government cannot confirm is compatible with convention rights under the ECHR.”
The treaty, the Bishop said, “excludes unaccompanied children from the partnership agreement, while acknowledging that they might be sent to Rwanda erroneously. This contradiction implies that the treaty . . . provides only vague details about Rwanda’s plans to safeguard children, a bunch surely more vulnerable than another we could possibly imagine.”
She continued: “It shouldn’t be my place to doubt the sincerity of the Rwandan authorities’ commitment to providing child-suitable safeguards, but good intent isn’t any basis for safeguarding, and sending children before the treaty is fully implemented can be a dereliction of our duty to them. This, combined with leaving a possible child with no suspensive legal redress against their removal, is just unconscionable.”
The treaty had identified the chance of sending a baby to Rwanda in error, but no mitigation had been included within the Bill, she said. “Has it been decided that the chance is tolerable, no matter all of the anguish and trauma it might cause to a baby?”
Dr Francis-Dehqani also agreed with concerns about age assessments. “Under the Bill, the repercussions of inaccurate age assessments are disastrous,” she said. “Even if a baby were to be returned to the UK after they were verified to be a minor, the impact can be devastating for his or her physical and mental well-being, and it might likely leave an imprint on them for the rest of their life.”
She concluded: “I don’t imagine that children searching for safety within the UK should face removal to Rwanda. But, at absolutely the minimum, the method should be certain that their welfare and best interests are considered, and maintaining a task for the panel would help facilitate this.”
Responding, Lord Sharpe said that the amendment would “undo Parliament’s previously agreed position in relation to the removal of families to Rwanda”, and guaranteed peers that “the welfare of a family will proceed to be on the forefront of choices to detain and take away them, whatever the proposed destination.”
Without his support, Baroness Lister withdrew her first amendment, and the remaining within the group were due to this fact withdrawn. She warned, nonetheless, that the questions being raised in the talk had not been answered adequately, or in any respect, by the Government, and that “There isn’t any real attempt to have interaction with what we have now said. I’m sure that we are going to come back to this.”
Earlier in the talk, the Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, spoke on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury in favour of a bunch of amendments which might prevent asylum-seekers from being deported to Rwanda while their claims were pending.
“We have seen the multiple difficulties faced by the Government in sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda,” he said. “Bearing that in mind, is it really plausible that, having sent an asylum-seeker to Rwanda, the Government will then give you the chance to return them to the UK on the idea of evidence that ought to have been considered while their case was reviewed here? This seems neither efficient nor plausible.”
Also supporting the amendments, the Conservative peer Lord Deben said that all and sundry must be treated equally. “There is a deeply essential religious, in addition to secular, truth. Once you distinguish within the rights between people, you say about people as an entire that they are usually not each value something. It is key, and inconvenience isn’t any excuse.”
Debate on this group of amendments continued afterward Monday night. Addressing the Bill’s incompatibility with the ECHR, Dr Warner said: “It is profoundly disturbing when, on the face of this Bill, we don’t find assurance of compliance with European and UN approaches to human rights or an adequate mechanism for addressing our own processes of law and the chance of significant harm.
“This is about principles, values, and rules to which we should always aspire as the muse of human dignity in an enlightened and humane society.”
The amendments weren’t moved.
Before the session ended, Dr Francis-Dehqani moved an amendment which might, she said, “insert a sunset provision for the Bill to run out two years after commencement, unless Parliament decides that it should remain in force and the Government has produced a report containing evidence that the Rwandan government is fulfilling its Rwanda Treaty obligations.”
The fundamental issue which the Government had not addressed was that “we’re being asked to make a everlasting judgment on the protection of Rwanda on the idea of the yet to be implemented arrangements outlined within the treaty. This is, after all, against the opinion of our highest court.”
It was not “rational” to argue that Rwanda is secure at present when the country was said to be “moving towards having the required protections in place”.
Lord Epsom said that the Government didn’t think the amendment “vital”. Without his support, Dr Francis-Dehqani withdrew it.
THE second day of the Committee stage took place late last week. During this debate, the Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Revd Vivienne Faull, said that the protections of the Bill shouldn’t allow individuals who were already victims of human trafficking to be removed to Rwanda “at the least before a conclusive decision is made on their case or without assessing what it means for his or her safety. Such consideration for victims is the least that we are able to do.”
She explained: “Since the beginning of 2022, greater than 4000 individuals who arrived on small boats have entered the national referral mechanism for contemporary slavery. Under the present proposals, they’re each suspected victims of crime and eligible for removal to Rwanda. They may have been trafficked here against their will, as we have now heard, they usually at the moment are facing further jeopardy. We have to be certain that this jeopardy is removed, so far as we possibly can.”
She supported three amendments which she said offered “greater transparency” on this issue. “As currently drafted, the Bill could have a potentially devastating impact on survivors of contemporary slavery and our nation’s ability to tackle this crime.”
Bishop Faull also spoke in favour of one other set of amendments brought by Lord Carlile and supported by the Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, who couldn’t be present. These concerned the effect of the Bill on the rule of law, specifically the connection between the Government and the judiciary.
She said: “Where the Supreme Court has ruled that Rwanda shouldn’t be secure, it’s an abuse of Parliament’s powers . . . for it to try and declare otherwise. We are concerned that the Bill represents a dangerous step. The amendments . . . try and preserve the essential principle that facts must be considered by the courts. We must surely give you the chance to bear in mind credible evidence that Rwanda shouldn’t be a secure country.”
With the exception of the final risk to vulnerable people, this was the “most worrying aspect” of the Bill, she suggested.
Lord Deben argued that the Bill was problematic because “it proposes that the sovereignty of Parliament is in a position to make a situation true, whether it’s or not”.
Endorsing this supposition, the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, cautioned that “there may be a difference between truth and factuality. Something may be not factual, but it will possibly be true.” He gave the instance of a parable. “If I say I’m a banana, it doesn’t make me a banana. There must be some credible questioning of that. I’m not a banana. A rustic doesn’t change into secure because someone says it’s, even when a Government says that. That must be demonstrated.”
Later in the talk, Dr Francis-Dehqani supported an amendment from the Conservative peer Lord Kirkhope, which sought to stop delays in addressing human-rights concerns brought by the judiciary. This can be in the shape of a press release, inside 28 days of a court ruling that an individual shouldn’t be sent to Rwanda on the grounds of human-rights concerns, from the Government setting out the explanation why this must be overruled.
Dr Francis-Dehqani said: “We shouldn’t forget that the Government have been unable to make a press release within the Bill that it’s compatible with convention rights. As the Government nevertheless wish Parliament to proceed with the Bill, it seems prudent to probe what the role of Parliament can be in determining how any potential incompatibility must be addressed. . .
“The Human Rights Act doesn’t compel the Government or Parliament to treatment an incompatibility, but Parliament must give you the chance to take steps to achieve this. It shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Ministers to elucidate — and to elucidate immediately — why they might not be bringing forward a remedial order.”
Speaking on behalf of Archbishop Welby, the Bishop of Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Martin Seeley, supported an amendment to remove a clause within the Bill by which, he said, “large chunks” of the Human Rights Act had been disapplied. This can be replaced with a “limited disapplication of the Act to permit the Secretary of State to put positive UNHCR advice before Parliament”. This supported earlier amendments tabled by Baroness Chakrabarti (News, 16 February).
Responding, the Conservative peer Lord Stewart said that the Government considered the removal of sections of the Human Rights Act to be “fair, vital and lawful, because we have now now addressed every reason that has been used to stop removal to Rwanda”.
