- Written by Jennifer McKiernan
- political reporter
Opposition parties criticized Home Secretary Chris Philip for appearing to confuse two African countries on the BBC’s Question Time.
An audience member from the Democratic Republic of Congo asked about the government’s new law regarding the forced return of some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Allies later suggested he was asking a rhetorical question.
The Rwandan government’s bill, passed into law on Thursday, says asylum seekers who enter the UK “illegally” from a safe country after January 1, 2022, could be sent to Rwanda on a one-way flight.
he asked: “If my family were coming across the border from Goma (a city on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda) today, would they be sent back to Rwanda, a country that is probably at war?”
“Does that make sense?”
Philip replied: “No, I think it precludes people from Rwanda being sent to Rwanda.”
After a member of the audience retorted that his parents were “not from Rwanda,” the minister said: “So Rwanda is a different country than Congo, right?
“Are you in a different country?”
The comment elicited a brief laugh from some in the debate show’s audience as Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting’s gaze darted around the room.
Philip continued, “There’s a clause in the law that says someone will suffer if they’re sent somewhere, and I think the wording is ‘serious and irreparable harm,’ but they can’t be sent anywhere. No,” he said.
“So there is a safety mechanism built into the law.”
Stephen Kinnock, Labour’s shadow immigration minister, said the government was sending £576m to countries “you can’t even find on a map”. Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney said this showed this was “not a serious government”.
A friend of Mr Philip’s suggested that the minister had asked a rhetorical question rather than a real one in an attempt to clarify what was being asked.
The Home Office said a case-by-case risk assessment will be carried out when determining whether people are suitable for migration.
In 2022, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said the government did not want to host people from neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania.
You can watch the latest episode of Question Time, recorded in Tottenham, North London, here.
