Sunak pushes to pass Rwanda Bill tonight

“No ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda,” declared a determined Rishi Sunak today ahead of another showdown with the Lords – now underway – which the PM is confident will culminate in the Rwanda Bill finally becoming law.

They could have a long night ahead of them. Conservative MP Tim Loughton told the BBC he had a “sleeping bag ready” as he prepared for the prolonged debate between the Lords and the Commons.

Sunak headed into the session insisting that flights carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda will set off in “10 to 12 weeks”. 

It’s now over two years since a Johnson-led government announced its plan to put asylum seekers who enter Britain via illegal routes on a one-way flight to Rwanda. The first plane was scheduled to leave in June 2022, but was cancelled following a legal challenge. These challenges have persisted. 

Most recent was the unanimous Supreme Court ruling back in November that the scheme was unlawful since Rwanda is not a “safe” country. The court provided documented evidence about human rights breaches in Rwanda’s asylum system to back up its position. 

But the PM was not about to give up – hence the creation of the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which MPs and Lords are debating at the time of writing.  

This revamped Bill aims to address the reasons why the scheme was deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court. Crucially, the government has since agreed a treaty with Rwanda which provides a binding assurance from Kigali that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda will not later be returned to their home country if doing so would endanger them. 

More contentiously, the new bill also seeks to set out in UK law that Rwanda is a safe country. In other words, the government has introduced legislation that gives Parliament the powers to rule by itself that Rwanda is conclusively safe – and to ban British judges from intervening to say otherwise. 

The Safety of Rwanda Bill was supposed to be “emergency legislation”. But, over four months since its creation, it is yet to pass, thanks to tough resistance from the House of Lords. 

Peers have repeatedly voted to amend the legislation, resulting in endless back-and-forths between the Lords and Commons. 

Tonight, MPs are considering the Lords’ final outstanding amendments.

The general consensus seems to be that, irrespective of whether MPs accept these amendments, the Bill is now likely to pass, even if it takes all night.

Peers have repeatedly voted to amend the Rwanda legislation, but MPs have consistently overturned their desired changes. Again, in the last hour, two of the Lords’ biggest remaining amendments have been voted down. These included their demand that anyone who worked with UK forces overseas – particularly Afghans who helped British troops – should be made exempt from being sent to Rwanda. The other was a request that ministers create an independent monitoring committee to regularly assess whether Rwanda is safe.

The controversial Rwanda Bill serves as a reminder that there is only so much peers can do to protest a piece of legislation they dislike.

Once upon a time, the House of Lords was more powerful than the House of Commons, and had the powers to block outright a bill passed by the latter. But the passing of the Parliament Act in 1911 saw its powers significantly reduced. Now, all it can do is delay and encourage MPs to reconsider. Peers cannot block legislation from going through, and even their amendments may well, ultimately, be ignored. 

The revamped Rwanda Bill has already passed back and forth between the Lords and the Commons several times. But ministers seem confident that this game of parliamentary ping-pong is coming to a close. 

That said, given the heavy resistance that this much-delayed policy has already endured, it’s unsurprising that Sunak is refusing to be too specific about flight dates. Instead, the PM insisted today that the Rwanda plan is about instating a “regular rhythm of flights…multiple a month through summer and beyond.”

And, he added, these flights will continue “until the boats have stopped”. In that case, there is certainly no end to the flights in sight. 

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life