Chair of the European Research Group Mark Francois says the Rwanda Bill “provides an incomplete solution” to stopping the boats. He says the government's third legislative attempt is not fit for purpose, and so it needs to draft another Bill that is. Report by Rowlandi. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 I'm not sure that final decisions will be taken even today,
00:04 because of the importance of the issue.
00:08 But one thing that most of the members of that meeting I chaired were clear about,
00:15 was coming back to the Bill overall provides a partial and incomplete solution.
00:23 The feeling very much in the meeting is that the government will be best advised
00:29 to pull the Bill and to come up with a revised version that works better than this one,
00:39 which has so many holes in it.
00:41 The Bill is easily amendable and really I think that the government needs to review it
00:46 and maybe consider a completely new piece of legislation,
00:50 because this leaves so many gaps in the legislation
00:54 and so many ways that people could actually evade the legislation
00:57 if they wanted to remain in this country.
00:59 OK, we all want to stop the boats.
01:03 There have been two legislative attempts at this already.
01:06 The Nationalities and Borders Act, that didn't quite work.
01:10 The Illegal Immigration Act, that didn't quite work.
01:14 So this is kind of three strikes and you're out, isn't it?
01:17 So what is really important is if we're going to put a Bill through Parliament
01:22 to have a piece of legislation which is fit for purpose.
01:27 as the bill is currently drafted, it isn't.