Part of Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill - Committee (3rd Day) (Continued) – in the House of Lords at 10:00 pm on 19 February 2024.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
Shadow Spokesperson (Justice), Shadow Spokesperson (Home Affairs)
10:00,
19 February 2024
My Lords, Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lord Coaker would ensure that a Minister of the Crown making a decision on an interim injunction consults the Attorney-General. This would ensure that, before making a decision on compliance with any interim measures issued by the ECHR for the purpose of blocking a person’s removal to Rwanda, the relevant Minister consults the Attorney-General, creating an additional safeguard. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, introduced his speech by saying he was not going to be arrogant or impudent, so I will adopt the same approach in my speech, which will be brief. I am not going to go into the legal arguments—many eminent lawyers have done that—but I am going to go into the politics and address what seems to me to be the question that has been left hanging in the air.
Yesterday morning, I watched the television and Mr Michael Tomlinson, the Illegal Migration Minister, was on our screens and he was absolutely explicit: he said that the flights will take off as soon as the Bill becomes an Act and the treaty comes into force. He said they will be going pretty much immediately. There was no question of the niceties of Rule 39 and all the other things we have been talking about; the subject simply did not come up. That is the politics of it: when the Bill becomes an Act, the treaty comes into force and those flights will be taking off.
My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer went into how the decision on Rule 39 might be made. The question he, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, asked, was, would it be subject to judicial review? To me, that is the question hanging in the air, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer, because as far as I can see it will be for the Attorney-General to make that decision, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, and she will be doing that as a law officer. Today’s Daily Telegraph said—I do not know how it knows this—that when Mr Tomlinson was Solicitor-General, he had written legal advice saying that it would be illegal to go against Rule 39. I know it is private advice; nevertheless, that was in today’s Daily Telegraph.
So, there are two issues. First, the Illegal Migration Minister was explicit about the flights taking off on the conclusion of proceedings on the Bill. Secondly, what is the status of judicial review of any Rule 39 decision?
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