Global Migration Challenge

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The MP asks the Home Secretary about whether the Rwandan agreement will be part of the Nationality and Borders Bill, seeking clarity on its legal obligations and how they align with international standards.

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The MP questions the Home Secretary regarding how the proposed changes will affect individuals seeking asylum through legal routes and whether they might be treated differently or face additional challenges under new policies.

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The MP inquires about the Home Secretary's plans for supporting local authorities affected by increased asylum seeker influx as a result of dispersal policies and how these changes will be implemented without causing undue strain.

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The MP challenges the Home Secretary on her justification for the Rwanda policy, citing concerns about its impact on individuals' rights and whether it aligns with the UK’s international obligations in terms of asylum seekers’ treatment.

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The Home Secretary's policies are unworkable, unethical and extortionate in their cost to the British taxpayer. There was no information provided about the costs today, with £120 million announced not covering a single person transfer; it is merely the price for a press release. This policy may cost up to £30,000 per person for three months' accommodation, which is three times more than ordinary asylum case costs in the UK. The Home Secretary should admit that this policy will make trafficking worse and harder to prosecute traffickers due to lack of deterrence against criminal gangs.

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Does my right hon. Friend agree that families will not be broken up as part of this policy? If so, where is her evidence that this will not lead to an increase in the trafficking of women and children?

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This is a cruel and catastrophic policy. It will not hurt smugglers but will further seriously harm people who have fled persecution. The international system of refugee protection will be damaged, and the UK’s reputation for upholding international law will suffer. This policy goes beyond temporary offshoring by completely avoiding responsibility. The UNHCR and Refugee Council condemn this policy as nothing short of cash-for-deportations. Despite 85% of refugees being in developing or least developed countries, wealthy Britain is offering money to take more. The only transparency is the dodgy timing and political motivation. The Home Secretary should publish a detailed estimate of costs for proper transparency.

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Does my right hon. Friend agree that the partnership with Rwanda will reduce reliance on hotels and small boat crossings?

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Who will be eligible to be sent to Rwanda? Will it be single young men or women and children? What percentage of asylum seekers does she think will be sent to Rwanda?

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Will she meet me to discuss concerns regarding the RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse, my constituency?

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How does she come to know better than a former Home Office permanent secretary who said her Rwanda policy is inhumane, morally reprehensible, probably unlawful and unworkable?

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Does she accept that many of us have grave concerns that the policy simply will not work? Will she confirm that military aircraft will not be used for removals and ensure costs per asylum seeker are known before voting?

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Has she negotiated a cap on the cost of this arrangement with Rwanda? What will be the cost per person sent?

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I am incredibly proud of this country and this Government’s track record in providing a safe welcome to more than 185,000 asylum seekers and refugees since 2015. What I find abhorrent and inexplicable is the way in which many Opposition Members have forgotten the images of children lying drowned on our beaches.

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Does she intend one of the criteria that prevents somebody from being sent to Rwanda to be their being under 18? Where will the processing and decision making as to whether or not somebody is under 18 take place?

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This is about evil gangs being paid money to take people across the channel. The only way we are going to stop the people smuggling is if we reduce the demand for it, and the Home Secretary’s Rwanda policy is absolutely right.

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Will the Home Secretary tell the House how many people she expects to send to Rwanda in the first 12 months of the scheme?

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What are the Government going to do from an ethical and moral point of view and to protect the British taxpayer against compensation claims?

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Such an approach weakens the very foundation of the 1951 refugee convention and contradicts steps agreed to by the UK upon signing up to the global compact on refugees. What legal assurances did the Government seek?

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Does the Home Secretary agree that there is both a moral and financial responsibility to bring small boat crossings to an end?

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However, on at least two occasions only last year, the United Kingdom called for an investigation at the United Nations into torture, deaths in custody, extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in Rwanda. Was that a slur by the UK?

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Can she tell me how she can assume that a set of criteria to determine claims is likely to be free from legal challenge if the criteria are not published and transparently available?

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On the basis of what evidence has the Home Secretary concluded that this policy of forcing some asylum seekers on to planes to Rwanda will have a deterrent effect on people getting into boats to cross the channel?

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In the interests of safety, can the Home Secretary confirm that if anybody does not want to go to Rwanda, they can claim asylum in France?

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The Home Secretary has been pressed several times on who will be included or excluded from the scheme and whether it includes women and children. If she knows how many people will be included in the scheme, surely she knows what the criteria are?

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What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give that she will continue to develop safe and legal routes for those people who have been left in refugee camps around the world?

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The Home Secretary will know that Israel introduced a similar scheme but abandoned it. Can she tell us why she believes her approach will succeed?

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Does the Home Secretary agree that a fair immigration policy should not rely on someone’s ability to pay or whether they are young enough to attempt the journey?

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The permanent secretary at the Home Office concluded that he could not tell whether this was value for money. Can she answer why the people traffickers will still make money even if some are deterred?

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Has the Home Secretary a plan to prevent potential emigrants from absconding before they can be sent to Rwanda?

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If only a very small percentage of those processed are sent to Rwanda, will not the people smugglers still be able to argue that it's worth handing money over?

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Does she agree that there is nothing moral at all about a system that perpetuates evil people-smuggling and puts a disproportionate burden on constituencies such as mine?

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The Secretary of State believes that this policy is about protecting people, when we all know it is harmful. This policy will also cost UK taxpayers billions of pounds.

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Does my right hon. Friend agree that the un-godly thing to do would be to have a mass drowning of children this winter?

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Is it not a moral requirement for the Home Secretary to explain why she will deport people who have arrived in this country, fleeing from desperate wars, famine and problems, prepared to risk all to cross a dangerous sea? Do they not deserve a sense of humanity from the Home Secretary, and not to be deported to incarceration in Rwanda?

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Given that three quarters of child asylum seekers who come to the UK are boys aged 16 or 17, what assurance can my right hon. Friend give me that the age assessment process will be fully completed before they become eligible for removal from the United Kingdom?

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The Home Secretary has been repeatedly asked this afternoon about the costs of this totally wrong policy. She said that she knew the costs involved in chartering aircraft from examples of our existing removals scheme, so can she tell us today what the cost will be of chartering one return flight to Rwanda and what the cost will be per person deported? Will she admit that this policy will cost far in excess of the £120 million that she said was just for development costs?

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May I commend my right hon. Friend on the proposals she has announced today, which offer the real prospect of breaking the business model of the people smugglers? Is it not the case that if anyone should be coming in for criticism, whether from this side of the Thames or the other, it should be those who are plying that disgusting trade and not those who are seeking to disrupt it?

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Global Britain used to be a byword for bad trade deals; now it is an excuse to outsource our asylum system to Rwanda. Of course, we all stand with the people of Ukraine in their fight to repel one dictator, but the Home Secretary is yoking the UK’s reputation to another. The Welsh and Scottish Governments have long asked for talks on a solution and on the establishment of safe routes for refugees. Did she engage with those two Governments, or does she only talk with dictators?

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My right hon. Friend has highlighted the opening of a reception centre at the former RAF base at Linton-on-Ouse, located between Harrogate and York. Can she give us a bit more information about that—for example, when might it open, what is its capacity and how many local jobs will be created?

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Between 2015 and 2020, the number of asylum applications decided early stayed constant at about 30,000 but the proportion decided within the Secretary of State’s six-month target plummeted from 80% to 17%, despite doubling the number of caseworkers. Is it not the truth that her asylum processing system is broken—sending refugees to Rwanda will not fix that—and that she is using those fleeing from the worst atrocities of war as a shield for her incompetence?

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Ever since this policy was announced over the bank holiday weekend, we have heard some very strong rhetoric from the Opposition parties, leaning into some very lazy tropes about Africa and dripping with European exceptionalism. Can I ask my right hon. Friend whether she agrees with me in condemning that kind of language when talking about Rwanda, and can I advise her to keep on this course because when I was talking to my constituents over the weekend, the one phrase everyone was using was “not before time”?

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Recently my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) joined many others throughout this statement in asking for evidence that this policy could possibly work in some way or another. In each case the right hon. Lady has declined to provide that evidence, so will she put in the Library of the House of Commons all the internal Government advice she has received on the legality, workability and cost of the scheme? That way at least we will be able to assess what the evidence-base is.

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I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and believe that the policy will work. Will my right hon. Friend explain what the successful implementation of her policy will look like on the ground, and in particular what impact she believes it will have on the number of vulnerable people willing to put their lives in the hands of ruthless people traffickers to gain illegal entry to our country?

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My constituents want none of this despicable plan. As the chair of the all-party group on immigration detention I went to Napier barracks. It is not fit for purpose: it is cold, bleak and lacking in dignity and privacy. Vulnerable people struggle to get medical, social and legal support but at least we could visit. Can the Home Secretary tell me how facilities in Rwanda will be scrutinised, particularly given that Human Rights Watch says of Rwanda: “Arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture in official and unofficial detention facilities is commonplace”?

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Does the Home Secretary agree that no one would spend thousands of pounds to go to one country and end up in another and that this policy will be a deterrent, which will save lives and save the taxpayer money?

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Given that many Rwandans seek and are granted asylum here in the UK, how can the Home Secretary possibly tell the House with a straight face that Rwanda is a safe country to send people seeking asylum to?

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It seems to me that some actively celebrate the porosity of the French border. That weakness has seen 28,000 irregular crossings, a huge number of appalling deaths and a trade that is bigger than the drugs trade. Contrast that with my right hon. Friend’s new policy, which will normalise proper immigration rules, taking people to safe countries for proper processing in the right way. Can she understand my confusion that people are not celebrating this new policy?

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When somebody is trafficked or smuggled into the UK, and then determines that they do not want to be deported to Rwanda, what steps will she take to uphold their rights under the Refugee Convention?

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People smuggling does not start at Calais; it can go through five different countries before people get to Calais. Then we have the abhorrence of people drowning in the Channel. I understand the concerns of the House about sending people to Rwanda, but we have one champion in the House who sadly is not in his place at this moment in time. When he was the shadow Secretary of State for International Development and became the Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) had a lot to do with Rwanda and he has the utmost respect from their Government. Will my right hon. Friend utilise his talents and use him in some ambassadorial way to allay the fears of Members of this House?

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May I challenge this lazy and probably sexist assumption that all young men are economic migrants? Does the Home Secretary not understand that in conflict situations—especially civil wars, whether in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Ethiopia or Sudan—one side will come to a town or village and either press gang all the young men to fight for them or kill them and then the other side will come and do exactly the same? These young men are not economic migrants but people trying to flee a war they want nothing to do with.

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The EU uses Rwanda for refugee settlement. The United Nations uses Rwanda for refugee settlement. Even the Labour Government legislated to use safe third countries to process asylum claims. Given this, does my right hon. Friend agree that exactly the same approach lies behind this partnership with Rwanda?

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We know that two-thirds of migrants arriving by dangerous routes have a legitimate claim for asylum. On the remainder, can the Home Secretary please tell us what new agreement she has struck with the top five countries of origin for economic migrants in respect of returning migrants, improving visa application processes and tackling people smuggling at source?

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I very much welcome measures that will offer a proper deterrent to those who are seeking to come to this country illegally. I also particularly welcome action to ensure that people are dispersed more fairly right across the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that for far too long areas like Stoke-on-Trent have taken far more than their fair share and that it is about time other parts of the country did their part?

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Can I try to get a clear answer to the question that others have asked? The Home Office factsheet on this proposal explains: “Every person who comes to the UK illegally, or by dangerous or unnecessary methods…will be considered for relocation to Rwanda.” The Home Secretary seemed to confirm that in her earlier comments. Will she confirm now that women and children who come to the UK through irregular routes fleeing conflict and repression will be eligible for transfer to Rwanda, and not just the adult men, as her Department briefed the media?

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May I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on this fantastic policy which people overwhelmingly supported when they voted for Brexit in 2016 and when they overwhelmingly voted for the Conservative party in Stoke-on-Trent for the first time across the board? Does she agree with me that it is about time that other local authorities did their bit, particularly in Scotland, and that the north Islington wokerati are more than welcome to come to Stoke-on-Trent and explain why they oppose it? Perhaps they should send the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) to explain why.

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I agree with the right hon. Member that our asylum system is broken and that the £5 million cost is too much. This includes people staying in hotels on South Lambeth Road in my constituency who are trying to help with their asylum claims. Many constituents worry about this policy, especially LGBT individuals fearing persecution in Rwanda. Can the Home Secretary guarantee that these people will be safe?

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Does my right hon. Friend agree that the partnership with Rwanda is for people attempting to come to the UK illegally? Has she noticed, as I have, that despite criticism from Opposition Members, they fail to propose an alternative thought-through and responsible plan?

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Like me, the Home Secretary is a daughter of east African Indian immigrants who sought sanctuary in this country. Does she not feel a personal moral responsibility to extend generosity shown by British communities and provide further safe and legal routes for refugees instead of sending them to Rwanda?