I thank the former Immigration Minister for his comments. I enjoyed opposing him and, on some occasions, working with him. Look at the Ukraine scheme. That is an example of offshore processing: people’s applications were processed in Poland before they came to our country. Look at the Hong Kong scheme. There are plenty of ways of doing upstream and offshore processing. To coin a phrase, what matters is what works. What is absolutely clear is that it is difficult to imagine any scheme that could be more expensive than the Rwanda policy. I will now make some progress.
I cite the view of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and countless other legal experts, who have stated that the Bill is contrary to the rule of law because it amounts to a legislative usurpation of the judicial function. It is an assault on our country’s constitutional conventions, which require the legislature to respect the essence of the judicial function. Moreover, there is a staggering hypocrisy at the heart of the Bill when we consider it in the context of the treaty that has been signed with Rwanda. The purpose of that treaty is to bind the Rwandan Government into respecting the rule of law, and in particular the principle of non-refoulement. How on earth can Ministers hold the Rwandan authorities to account on these matters if they themselves are so blatantly and egregiously failing to practise what they preach?