Archbishop says he will not block Rwanda Bill
Justin Welby accepts that Commons is the ‘senior house’ and ‘open borders’ are not the answer
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has signalled that the Church will not block Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill.
The Most Rev Justin Welby said he accepted that the Commons was the “senior house” and that he would not oppose the Bill if MPS rejected the Lords amendments next month. “In the end, on the Rwanda Bill, the Lords will say, OK, we’ve made our case, you don’t accept it and that’s the end of it,” he told LBC’S Full Disclosure podcast.
The Bill is in limbo after the House of Lords defeated the Government on seven amendments this month, forcing it back to the Commons on April 15 after the Easter recess. MPS are expected to reject this second round of amendments by the Lords and send the Bill back to the Upper House to be ratified.
Although the Bill was not a manifesto pledge, the convention is that the Lords does not block legislation backed by the democratically elected lower chamber.
The move has, however, pushed back potential Royal Assent for the legislation by three and a half weeks and could delay deportation flights to Rwanda from May to June.
His comments come as the European Court of Human Rights has toughened up the requirements for migrants seeking to block deportation flights to Rwanda. In a statement yesterday, the court set out a new codified version of Rule 39 orders, which were used by Strasbourg judges to block the first deportation flight to Rwanda in June 2022. The new version states that judges can only issue the injunctions where there would be an “imminent risk of irreparable harm” if a migrant was deported to Rwanda, mirroring the conditions of the Government’s proposed legislation.
The Archbishop acknowledged that he was still morally opposed to the Bill, if not legislatively. He was told during the debate by former Cabinet minister Lord Lilley to “check his white privilege” over his opposition to Rwanda. “I just warn him that he better check his white privilege and his colonial assumptions or he might find himself in trouble with some of his bishops,” said Lord Lilley. Speaking to LBC, the Archbishop countered that he would have the same concerns if migrants were being deported to Sweden.
“My arguments with Rwanda have got nothing to do with it being Rwanda. If it was Sweden, I’d have the same problem,” he said. He agreed the “immense evil” of people trafficking had to be tackled and that “open borders” were not the answer as neither Europe nor the US was big enough to be able to take the 100 million displaced people and refugees.
But he said: “We need a better system that shares out this burden in a way that is fair to the countries that get the most refugees. Seventy two per cent of refugees end up in the country next to the one they come from. Now it’s fine they stay there, if the country can manage it. How do we make sure that country has the resources to do that in a way that enables the people to go home, or to build new lives, rather than having to travel at great risk halfway around the world?”