Rwanda bill will be ‘immune’ to court challenge
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Emergency laws to declare Rwanda safe for asylum seekers will be “immune” to court challenges, a Home Office minister has pledged.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, said the Government would do “whatever it takes” to ensure the Rwanda Bill was “completely watertight” and “immune” to being struck down by the courts.
The Bill was announced as part of the Government’s plans to get flights to Rwanda off the ground in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that the policy was unlawful.
It was due to be presented to Parliament on Wednesday after James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, on Tuesday signed a new asylum treaty with Rwanda designed to answer the criticisms by the Supreme Court.
However, it is unlikely to be published before Thursday amid wrangling within the Government over how tough the legislation should be. Mr Philp said it would be unveiled “within days, not weeks”.
‘Removing the right of judicial review’
Rishi Sunak is reportedly veering towards a compromise option where the Government would take powers to disapply the Human Rights Act (HRA) in asylum claims. This would force a claimant to take their case to Strasbourg, during which time its advocates hope the policy could be shown to have worked without hitches.
However, Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, is fighting a rearguard action for the toughest “full fat” version of the legislation, which would remove the right of judicial review and include “notwithstanding clauses” allowing ministers to ignore not only the HRA but also the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on asylum.
The Telegraph understands that one compromise being considered by Number 10 to resolve the impasse would give ministers reserve powers in the legislation. These would allow them to ignore ECHR rulings if the courts attempted to block the Rwanda policy, but not stating that would automatically be the case. This would be in addition to powers to disapply the HRA.
‘Full fat approach’
Mr Philp refused to be drawn on which option the Government favoured but told LBC: “We are going to bring a bill shortly to make this completely watertight and immune from being struck down.
“We will do whatever is necessary to make sure this arrangement [the Rwanda policy] is legally watertight and cannot be unpicked. Parliament is sovereign. It’s what the public expects.”
The Prime Minister, who faces his weekly Commons’ question time at lunchtime, has to find a path between two factions in his party. The One Nation group of more than 100 centre-Left MPs on Tuesday issued a warning that “overriding” the ECHR would be a “red line”.
The “full fat” option is, however, demanded by three groups on the Right of the party: the New Conservatives, the European Research Group (ERG) and the Common Sense Group, led by Sir John Hayes, a close ally of Suella Braverman, the former home secretary.
MPs from the three have been meeting this week to discuss tactics if the Prime Minister steps back from the “full fat” approach. They are expected to lay amendments to implement the toughest option, which they believe is the only way to get the flights off to Rwanda.
‘Respect parliamentary sovereignty’
Mark Francois, the ERG chairman, said on Tuesday that the group’s reconvened “star chamber” of lawyers would scrutinise the legislation before MPs vote on it. “They will look at the question of whether it fully respects parliamentary sovereignty and whether it contains unambiguous wording that would facilitate planes taking off to Rwanda,” he said.
However, the former deputy prime minister Damian Green, chairman of the One Nation group, said on Tuesday: “The Government should think twice before overriding both the ECHR and Human Rights Act and not rush such long-term, difficult decisions.”
Mr Philp warned the House of Lords that whatever option was chosen, they should back the decisions of the “democratically elected chamber” and respect the public’s support for stopping the boats.
He said the Rwanda policy would deter migrants from making Channel crossings in small boats, in a similar way to the Australian Sovereign borders strategy of turning back migrant vessels and the fast-track deportation deal with Albania that had slashed the number of illegal migrants from the country by 90 per cent.
“Getting this deal active and effective will have a huge deterrent effect on stopping the illegal arrivals that we’re seeing across the English Channel. We’ve seen it work elsewhere,” he told Times Radio.
“What we’re looking for here really is a deterrent effect. So we’re not expecting to have to send an entire year’s worth of illegal arrivals before that deterrent effect will happen.”
