Church of England to back Lords delay to Rwanda Bill

Peers seek to halt ratification of the treaty until the Government can show the country is safe for asylum seekers

The Church of England is set to back demands on Monday to delay the ratification of the Rwanda Treaty as Rishi Sunak faces the first test of the strength of the opposition in the Lords to his new legislation.
For the first time in modern history, peers have exercised powers to lay a motion in the Lords seeking to halt the ratification of the Treaty until the Government can show that Rwanda is safe for asylum seekers.
They have set out a ten-point plan for new laws and judicial measures which they say ministers and Rwanda must put in place before they say the Treaty can be endorsed.
The motion has been put down by Lord Goldsmith, who was Sir Tony Blair’s attorney general during the Iraq War, in his capacity as chair of the international agreements committee which plays a critical role in the scrutiny and ratification of Britain’s new treaties.
Any vote in favour of the motion will not be binding but could be used by asylum seekers in future court challenges to deportation as evidence that Parliament did not regard Rwanda as safe.
If it is backed by peers, ministers will have to decide whether to ignore it and push ahead with ratification – due within the next two weeks – or accept a delay which could last months and jeopardise the plans to get flights off this Spring.
Twenty four peers including Rachel Treweek, the Bishop of Gloucester, have been listed to speak in the debate which will provide the first public indication of the scale of opposition that the Prime Minister will face in the Lords.
She was one of the original bishops who signed a letter warning that the Rwanda plan was an “immoral policy that shames Britain.”
Among others expected to support the calls for a delay is Lord Kerr, a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and ambassador to the US, who said the legislation would struggle to get through the Lords in its current form.
“I am a former diplomat and I take international law and our tradition of respecting it seriously. It is completely incompatible with the refugee convention and a number of other international laws,” he said. “It suggests that this bill will have a long, tortuous passage in the Lords.”
The motion to delay ratification is also likely to be backed by two former independent reviewers of terrorism legislation Lord Carlile and Lord Anderson.
Lord Carlile said that it was not just treaty ratification but also the progress of the Bill through the Lords that should be delayed. “It is premature at best for the actual Bill to proceed until the Treaty said of it has been sorted out,” he said.
The motion states that “Her Majesty’s Government should not ratify the UK-Rwanda Agreement on an asylum partnership until the protections it provides have been fully implemented.”
The ten-point plan includes a new asylum law in Rwanda – which is expected to pass in two months’ time, a system to ensure migrants cannot be returned to their home countries to face persecution, the appointment and training of international judges and the creation of monitoring committees and appeal bodies.