Rwanda bill voted through Commons and heads to Lords as International Agreements Committee says UK-Rwanda treaty not ready to be ratified

The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill successfully completed its path through the House of Commons tonight and will now go to the House of Lords.

Image credit: UK GovernmentMPs voted to approve the Bill by 320 votes to 276 at its third reading stage. Eleven Conservative MPs rebelled and voted against the Bill, including former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick.

During this evening's debate, Home Secretary James Cleverly said the Bill had been "meticulously drafted to end the merry-go-round of legal challenges" and "it will be in complete compliance with international law".

Labour's Yvette Cooper said the Bill was a "total con on the British people" and it would fail to stop Channel crossings, just as the previous Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and Illegal Migration Act 2023 had failed. Cooper said a lack of capacity in Rwanda means that the failing £400 million scheme is likely to cover less than 1% of the people who sought asylum in the UK last year.

The Guardian predicts that the House of Lords may try to derail or delay the Bill and even if it is passed, the Bill's declaration that Rwanda is a safe country will almost certainly face a renewed legal challenge in the courts.

According to The Sun, the Prime Minister is set to make a statement tomorrow morning and he will urge the House of Lords not to meddle with the bill.

The Institute for Government noted in a November 2023 explainer that the Lords will be able to block or delay the Bill. Importantly, the Government will not be able to use the Parliament Acts to overrule the Lords and force the Bill through Parliament, as the conditions that must be met cannot be fulfilled at this point in the electoral cycle.

Meanwhile, the House of Lords International Agreements Committee today published the report of its inquiry into the UK's asylum agreement with Rwanda. You can read the 21-page report online here or download it here.

The International Agreements Committee finds that the new UK-Rwanda treaty signed in December is not ready to be ratified and recommends that its ratification should be delayed.

The report states: "On paper the Rwanda Treaty improves the protections previously set out in the Memorandum of Understanding, but there are a significant number of legal and practical steps which need to be taken before the protections could be deemed operational such that they might make a difference to the assessment reached by the Supreme Court. Evidence that these arrangements have bedded down in practice is also needed. In short, the Treaty is unlikely to change the position in Rwanda in the short to medium term.

"We recommend that the Treaty is not ratified until Parliament is satisfied that the protections it provides have been fully implemented since Parliament is being asked to make a judgement, based on the Treaty, about whether Rwanda is safe. The Government should submit further information to Parliament to confirm that all the necessary legal and practical steps and training which underpin the protections provided in the Treaty have been put in place, and then allow for a further debate before proceeding to ratification."

The Committee identifies a number of areas where further legal and practical steps are required, in particular:

• a new asylum law in Rwanda;
• a system for ensuring that non-refoulement does not take place;
• a process for submitting individual complaints to the independent Monitoring Committee established to monitor the relocation process and compliance with the agreement;
• the recruitment of a Monitoring Committee support team;
• the appointment of independent experts to advise the asylum First Instance and Appeals Bodies;
• the appointment of co-presidents of the Appeals Body;
• the appointment of international judges;
• training for international judges in Rwandan law and practice;
• training for Rwandan officials dealing with asylum applicants;
• steps to ensure a sufficient number of trained legal advisers and interpreters are available.

The Committee noted with regard to its recommendation that the Government should not ratify the treaty: "In making this recommendation we draw to the attention of the House the terms of section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act which provide that the House of Commons has the power to delay the ratification of a treaty. The House of Lords can also resolve that a treaty should not be ratified but the Government can override this if it lays a statement before the House."