Sir John Hayes is a former Minister of State who served in six departments, and is MP for South Holland and the Deepings.
Edmund Burke opined “Justice is itself the greatest standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
Defending our nation’s borders by exercising our ability to remove people who have no legitimate right to be here is a matter of justice – for it is legally and socially just. Surely, there can be few more important matters for our sovereign Parliament to determine. The Supreme Court ruling that the policy of sending to Rwanda those here illegally breached the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) raises this fundamental question; if our elected Government cannot determine who enters and who leaves our country, where does that leave Britain’s sovereign nationhood?
Like my Conservative colleagues, I was elected on a manifesto in 2019 to fix our immigration system – to exercise “real control over who is coming in and out” of Britain. We now have an opportunity – our final chance – to honour the will of the people by solving the small boats crisis.
The scale of the problem should not be underestimated; since 2018, around 115,000 people have entered Britain illegally – 45,000 of them in 2022 alone. Figures for that year show that 74 per cent of those arriving are men under 40. Moreover, nearly nine in 10 overall are male, and all have travelled through safe countries, where they failed to claim asylum. Though, due to the good work of Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, progress has been made in clearing the backlog of asylum applications, the number of illegal migrants removed from the UK has halved in the past seven years.
Meanwhile, the cost of housing those awaiting asylum decisions, often by requisitioning hotels, has risen to £8 million a day. This is both unsustainable for, and unfair to, British taxpayers. The renowned sense of British fair play is being tested to its limits.
Those of us who recognise the outrage of our borders being breached with impunity speak for the people, indeed polling shows that a majority support the plan to remove illegal immigrants to Rwanda, with Conservative voters overwhelmingly supporting the policy. A YouGov poll in recent days reinforces the evidence that voters want those who arrive here illegally on small boats to be removed immediately.
Today MPs will vote on amendments to the Safety of Rwanda Bill designed to ensure that the legislation does what it purports to do; stripping any obstacles to sending to Rwanda people who have no legal right to be here. Despite the proposed provisions to disapply parts of the Human Rights Act, the Bill doesn’t go far enough in preventing the numerous legal challenges which have stymied the plans to date and will certainly do so again.
The dreadful Human Rights Act, devised and driven through Parliament by Tony Blair with scant thought for its constitutional implications, is at the core of the problem. By only partially excluding the HRA, the Rwanda Bill is incomplete, which means that a court could – and will – declare it incompatible with the ECHR. Unless we disapply sections 4 of the HRA (declarations of incompatibility) and 10 (remedial measures) judges would surely align themselves with the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Also before MPs today are a series of amendments to prevent Rule 39 ‘pyjama’ last minute indications issued by the European Court of Human Rights being used to block flights, are not, by default, binding. Without this tightening, as the Government’s own legal advice makes clear, flights will be grounded yet again. Without improvement the legislation will falter or fail; the deterrent will not materialise, the boats will not stop coming, and the British people will conclude that their Government were either not sufficiently determined to solve the problem or not sufficiently competent to do so.
This Bill, in fact this entire matter, is not only about illegal immigration, nor only about the finer details of asylum policy; for it epitomises a fundamental crisis of efficacy – the ability of the nation state to deliver for its people. If the elected government cannot remove people not legally entitled to be in the country because of devious lawyers and deluded interest groups, a more troubling profound question is posed: who governs Britain?
My constituents want their Government, in their sovereign Parliament, to determine how Britain is governed. Only by improving this Bill, and by delivering on the Prime Ministers’ pledge to stop the boats, can we assert with confidence that the people’s will has prevailed. That would restore the longed-for sense that Britons have truly taken back control.
Sir John Hayes is a former Minister of State who served in six departments, and is MP for South Holland and the Deepings.
Edmund Burke opined “Justice is itself the greatest standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
Defending our nation’s borders by exercising our ability to remove people who have no legitimate right to be here is a matter of justice – for it is legally and socially just. Surely, there can be few more important matters for our sovereign Parliament to determine. The Supreme Court ruling that the policy of sending to Rwanda those here illegally breached the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) raises this fundamental question; if our elected Government cannot determine who enters and who leaves our country, where does that leave Britain’s sovereign nationhood?
Like my Conservative colleagues, I was elected on a manifesto in 2019 to fix our immigration system – to exercise “real control over who is coming in and out” of Britain. We now have an opportunity – our final chance – to honour the will of the people by solving the small boats crisis.
The scale of the problem should not be underestimated; since 2018, around 115,000 people have entered Britain illegally – 45,000 of them in 2022 alone. Figures for that year show that 74 per cent of those arriving are men under 40. Moreover, nearly nine in 10 overall are male, and all have travelled through safe countries, where they failed to claim asylum. Though, due to the good work of Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, progress has been made in clearing the backlog of asylum applications, the number of illegal migrants removed from the UK has halved in the past seven years.
Meanwhile, the cost of housing those awaiting asylum decisions, often by requisitioning hotels, has risen to £8 million a day. This is both unsustainable for, and unfair to, British taxpayers. The renowned sense of British fair play is being tested to its limits.
Those of us who recognise the outrage of our borders being breached with impunity speak for the people, indeed polling shows that a majority support the plan to remove illegal immigrants to Rwanda, with Conservative voters overwhelmingly supporting the policy. A YouGov poll in recent days reinforces the evidence that voters want those who arrive here illegally on small boats to be removed immediately.
Today MPs will vote on amendments to the Safety of Rwanda Bill designed to ensure that the legislation does what it purports to do; stripping any obstacles to sending to Rwanda people who have no legal right to be here. Despite the proposed provisions to disapply parts of the Human Rights Act, the Bill doesn’t go far enough in preventing the numerous legal challenges which have stymied the plans to date and will certainly do so again.
The dreadful Human Rights Act, devised and driven through Parliament by Tony Blair with scant thought for its constitutional implications, is at the core of the problem. By only partially excluding the HRA, the Rwanda Bill is incomplete, which means that a court could – and will – declare it incompatible with the ECHR. Unless we disapply sections 4 of the HRA (declarations of incompatibility) and 10 (remedial measures) judges would surely align themselves with the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Also before MPs today are a series of amendments to prevent Rule 39 ‘pyjama’ last minute indications issued by the European Court of Human Rights being used to block flights, are not, by default, binding. Without this tightening, as the Government’s own legal advice makes clear, flights will be grounded yet again. Without improvement the legislation will falter or fail; the deterrent will not materialise, the boats will not stop coming, and the British people will conclude that their Government were either not sufficiently determined to solve the problem or not sufficiently competent to do so.
This Bill, in fact this entire matter, is not only about illegal immigration, nor only about the finer details of asylum policy; for it epitomises a fundamental crisis of efficacy – the ability of the nation state to deliver for its people. If the elected government cannot remove people not legally entitled to be in the country because of devious lawyers and deluded interest groups, a more troubling profound question is posed: who governs Britain?
My constituents want their Government, in their sovereign Parliament, to determine how Britain is governed. Only by improving this Bill, and by delivering on the Prime Ministers’ pledge to stop the boats, can we assert with confidence that the people’s will has prevailed. That would restore the longed-for sense that Britons have truly taken back control.