{"id":10636,"date":"2024-01-23T14:37:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T14:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=10636"},"modified":"2024-01-23T14:37:24","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T14:37:24","slug":"rwanda-asylum-scheme-uk-house-of-lords-vote-against-approving-rwanda-treaty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/10636\/rwanda-asylum-scheme-uk-house-of-lords-vote-against-approving-rwanda-treaty\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda asylum scheme: UK House of Lords vote against approving Rwanda treaty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

In the first vote of its kind, the House of Lords has called for the new UK-Rwanda treaty to be delayed until Kigali improves its asylum procedures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Peers backed a non-binding motion urging the government not to ratify the treaty by 214 votes to 171.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The treaty,\u00a0signed in December, is central to Rishi Sunak’s scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda but is separate to the\u00a0Rwanda Safety Bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron urged his fellow peers to back the bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

“It’s not acceptable to have people travelling from a perfectly safe country – France – to another safe country – Britain – and to be able to stay, and that’s what the Rwanda plan is all about,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

In a news conference last week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged the House of Lords not to block the “will of the people” by voting down the bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Next week peers will begin debating the proposed legislation which aims to prevent legal challenges to deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

While non-binding, the vote on the treaty gives an indication of the level of opposition Mr Sunak is likely to face when the bill is debated in the Lords.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

But only one Conservative – the Earl of Dundee – rebelled against the government in Monday night’s vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The vote was the first to be held under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 – which set out new methods for the Lords to reject treaty ratification.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Once the Rwanda Bill is passed, the treaty will officially be ratified – though the government does not need the backing of parliament to approve the treaty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The UK-Rwanda Treaty forms a central plank of the government’s plan to deter migrants from crossing the Channel in small boats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The treaty was drafted in response to the\u00a0Supreme Court ruling\u00a0that the Rwanda policy is unlawful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Home Secretary James Cleverly signed the new legally binding treaty in Kigali, which he said would ensure people relocated to Rwanda are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened – a process known as non-refoulement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The treaty also establishes a new appeal body, which will be made up of judges with asylum expertise from a range of countries, to hear individual cases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The government says Rwanda’s asylum system would be monitored by an independent committee, whose powers to enforce the treaty would be beefed up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The Monitoring Committee will develop a system which will enable relocated people and their lawyers to lodge complaints, the government says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

But the House of Lords backed a motion on Monday saying the treaty should wait until the government is able to prove Rwanda is safe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The motion was proposed by a Labour former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, on behalf of the cross-party\u00a0International Agreements Committee<\/a>\u00a0which listed 10 outstanding issues in the Rwandan asylum system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The committee published a report last week that argued protections promised by the Rwanda Treaty, have not yet been introduced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Lord Goldsmith said: “The government has already presented a Bill to Parliament asking it to make a judgment that Rwanda is safe now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

“And yet on the home secretary’s own evidence it cannot be so because the measures are not in place and have not been shown to be effective,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson Lord Fox added: “There is more than enough reason to delay the ratification of the treaty until the conditions for its lawful operation are actually in place.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Although the vote is not binding on the government, it could feature in future legal challenges against the policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first vote of its kind, the House of Lords has called for the new UK-Rwanda treaty to be delayed until Kigali improves its asylum procedures. Peers backed a non-binding motion urging the government not to ratify the treaty by 214 votes to 171. The treaty,\u00a0signed in December, is central to Rishi Sunak’s scheme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"BBC","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,34],"tags":[2015,140,2014,1128],"class_list":["post-10636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-society","tag-house-of-lords","tag-rwanda","tag-rwanda-treaty","tag-uks-rwanda-asylum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}