The Rwanda Bill and Human Rights

Refugees travel here, seeking a place of safety. The 1951 Refugee Convention recognised that people fleeing persecution may have to use irregular means in order to escape and claim asylum in another country. As there is no legal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum, some people attempt the extremely dangerous journey in small boats, across the English Channel. These are classed as ‘irregular arrivals’.

‘In November 2023, the Supreme Court found the Government’s policy of removing individuals who enter the UK without authorisation to Rwanda was unlawful.’

The Rwanda Bill is the Government’s response to that judgement, ‘intended to establish that Rwanda is a safe country and to prevent legal challenges to that conclusion.’ However, at the same time as the Government was arguing Rwanda was a safe place to send asylum seekers, four Rwandans were granted refugee status in the UK, over “well-founded” fears of persecution.

The bill was read a third time in the House of Lords on the 12th March 2024, and after debate was passed .

The Government believes this Bill will prevent and deter irregular arrivals.

A recent proposal (13th March 2024) for a ‘voluntary’ scheme has been put forward by the UK government. This would offer people who have been refused asylum in the UK money to move to Rwanda. Currently, there are no further details

You might not think so, but it is interesting that when we look deeper within our own families, many of us will find that we do have migrants within it, either newly arrived or from many generations before. Traditionally migrants to the UK have come from Ireland, Europe, India, Asia and Africa as well as both South and North America. When we look at why they came in the first place, we find a plethora of reasons: for economic security, to join family, to study, to escape persecution. People arriving in the UK from other countries is not a new phenomenon.

In the UK we have a proud record on human rights, protecting us all against any public authority breaching these rights under the Human Rights Act 1998 and permitting us to take our case to court. Here in the UK, we are very critical about the human rights of other countries. For example, the Government has publicly accused China of gross human rights abuses against its Uighur population. However, if this Bill becomes law, the human rights of all of us will be threatened – as the Houses of Commons and Lords Joint Committee on Human Rights, concluded “the Bill does not comply with the UK’s human rights obligations and would place the UK in breach of international law.”

Other countries also have the experience of irregular migrants arriving on their shores and some have adopted similar policies. Australia, Israel, and Denmark have implemented or sought policies that seek to hand responsibility for irregular migrants to other countries. The EU has recently (December 2023) agreed on a Pact for the long term, providing ’certainty, clarity and decent conditions for people arriving in the EU to manage and normalise migration’ although this has been criticised by civil society organisations who state that “in its current form, the Pact greenlights detention, pushbacks, and racial profiling, effectively undermining the fundamental human right to seek safety,”

In addition, the EU has agreed with Turkey (in a UN funded scheme) to send vulnerable refugees from Libya to Rwanda- with their consent. Finally, Albania has agreed to accommodate asylum seekers from Italy while their claims are processed although there is opposition to this scheme.

Rwanda is a landlocked country lying south of the equator in east-central Africa with a population of 13.86 million. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Rwanda currently hosts over 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers as of 30 September 2023. However, the UK Supreme Court raised concerns as to whether Rwanda is a suitable country to send people to and raises issue about its poor human rights record, serious and systematic defects in its asylum processing. There are also concerns over whether it will return irregular migrants to the country they came from and could be at risk of prosecution (called refoulement).

It is almost impossible to estimate how much this scheme, if implemented, will cost our country. The National Audit Office (2024) states that under a partnership with Rwanda the UK government would pay £370million to support economic growth in Rwanda: this amount increases in relation to the number of relocated people: so, another £120million to Rwanda once 300 people have been relocated. The Home Office would also pay a total of £151,000 per individual relocated to cover costs. This doesn’t include the set-up costs in Rwanda for the UK government estimated at £28 million by the end of 2024.

When these NAO figures were published the Guardian Newspaper reported that the first 300 people sent to Rwanda will cost the taxpayer a staggering £1.8millon per person.

Not necessarily. Research indicates that irregular migrants may not be put off arriving as often their motivation is to join family, to escape persecution, and often have no idea about the policies of the countries they are trying to reach. An internal Home Office report looked at why migrants choose particular countries. They found that many had little or no understanding of current asylum policies and the economic conditions of a destination country”. A 2022 Home Office report drew on 65 interviews with asylum-seekers and found that none of the reasons listed for coming to the UK were related to asylum policy. There are no guarantees this very costly policy will deter arrivals.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (2024) state that, in relation to the Safety of Rwanda and Immigration Bill ‘we note that the UK has a reputation for respect for human rights and the rule of law of which we should be proud. Legislation that seeks to disapply or fails to respect international law risks damaging that reputation and encouraging other states who are less respectful of the international legal order.’ If the rule of law is to be suspended for these irregular arrivals, whose human rights might be breached next? Yours or those of your family? This eloquent poem below from the Second World War spells this out for all of us.