THE Government suffered “unprecedented” defeats on motions to amend the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill at its report stage within the House of Lords, on Monday afternoon.
The amendments were supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and bishops within the chamber. The amendments required hard evidence — and never simply the Government’s word — that Rwanda was a protected country to which to deport asylum-seekers, and sought to make sure the Bill’s compliance with domestic and international law.
The overall purpose of the Bill is described as to “prevent and deter illegal migration” — particularly by illegal routes — by “confirming” that the Republic of Rwanda is “a protected third country, thereby enabling the removal of individuals who arrive within the UK under the Immigration Acts”.
This is despite a Supreme Court ruling (News, 17 November 2023) that unanimously upheld a Court of Appeal ruling that the policy would depart people sent to Rwanda open to human-rights breaches (News, 7 July 2023). In 2022, the High Court had ruled that the policy was lawful (News, 23 December 2022).
Interpretation of the rule of law was central to the controversy on Monday.
Archbishop Welby told peers: “The point of international law is to stop governments going ahead with things which can be unsuitable. . . One thing I used to be brought up believing . . . was that it’s a basic rule of ethics and morality that two wrongs don’t make a right. So the indisputable fact that we’ve got done the unsuitable thing up to now doesn’t mechanically make it right today.”
He was referring to an argument made by the Conservative peer Lord Lilley on the rule of law within the UK, which, Lord Lilley said, “for 1000 years has meant that laws made and approved by our elected representatives are partially implemented by the courts. . . If we don’t just like the law, we will try to influence our elected representatives to alter it.
“If Parliament feels that the courts have interpreted laws in a way that Parliament didn’t intend or that’s out of line with the values and interests of the general public who elect it, Parliament can change the law. That is what we’re doing. We have an ideal right to achieve this so long as Parliament stays sovereign.”
Archbishop Welby was supporting an amendment from Baroness Chakrabarti, which, in her words would “require actual evidence of real implementation of the Rwanda treaty before that country is presumed protected, and only that this be presented by government to Parliament. That is all.”
This was also backed by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Martin Seeley. In a temporary contribution, he said: “I don’t consider that we will enshrine in law an announcement of fact without seeing and understanding the evidence that shows such an announcement to be true, specifically when such an announcement of fact is so contentious and for which the evidence may change.
“Ignoring for a second the strange absurdity of such declarations, we must also consider the actual impact that this might have on the possibly vulnerable people whom the Government intend to send to Rwanda.”
Lamenting the Government’s “nitpicking excuses” about its length, Baroness Chakrabarti withdrew her amendment and supported Lord Coaker’s similar, simpler amendment, which sought to insert that the Bill maintains “full compliance with domestic and international law”.
This was immediately voted on and agreed by 274 votes to 172 — a defeat that the Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, who was duty bishop this week, described on X/Twitter as “one in all the most important government defeats since we returned to in-person voting after the Covid period”.
He later applauded “two further large [government] defeats, by margins of over 100 in each case. . . No doubt there will probably be attempts to remove the changes within the Commons, however the clarity of votes — by almost unprecedented margins of around 100 — should give pause for thought.”
Both of those amendments were brought by the cross-bench peer Lord Anderson. The first, would, in his words, “allow ministers, officials, and courts to depart from the presumption that Rwanda is protected when presented with credible evidence that it shouldn’t be” — the second “would remove various detailed barriers to that course”.
He explained: “Their combined effect is to reverse two of essentially the most revolutionary — I don’t use that word in a positive sense — points of the Bill. They are the requirement for decision-makers, including courts, to stop their ears to any evidence that doesn’t agree with the Government’s position, and the requirement that they need to achieve this for an indefinite period, even when things in Rwanda — as all of us hope that they don’t — take a turn for the more severe.”
The first amendment was agreed by 258 votes to 171, the second by 260 votes to 169.
Speaking in support, Dr Walker told peers: “To enshrine in laws the notion that Rwanda will remain protected whatever seems to beggar belief. Who knows in what state that country is likely to be in six to 12 months’ time? Who knows how protected it is going to be then?
“The courts need the power to take recent facts into consideration, to recognise that Rwanda will not be the identical in a certain variety of weeks, months, or years because it was on this evening firstly of March 2024. We should have that flexibility.”
The amendments were also supported by Bishop Seeley, who later spoke on behalf of the Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Revd Vivienne Faull, in favour of including protections for current and potential victims of recent slavery.
Bishop Seeley said: “The provisions of the Bill are incompatible with protective obligations, but potential victims won’t even find a way to place this injustice to the courts under the Rwanda treaty. Not identifying victims or sending them to a different country before their claim has been properly assessed can even set us back in our efforts to bring perpetrators of recent slavery to justice.”
The debate was adjourned until Tuesday before a vote might be taken.
