Lords plot to sink PM’s migrant plan
Peers could still give the Bill a ‘bumpy ride’ despite last night’s vote
RISHI Sunak’s Rwanda headache is set to continue for months as peers and migrant groups threaten a series of new stumbling blocks.
One peer claimed the House of Lords would be justified in taking an ‘unconventional’ approach and delaying the passage of the legislation in a bid to scupper its chances.
As the Safety of Rwanda Bill was voted through at its third reading last night, by 320 votes to 276, charities said it is certain to face fresh legal challenges.
That opens the prospect of going ‘back to square one’ after a tortuous series of previous court hearings that took 17 months to conclude.
Lord Carlile, a crossbench peer, leading barrister and former terror watchdog, warned the Bill may not become law until autumn as peers give it a ‘ bumpy ride’ through the Upper House.
The KC added: ‘ There is a prospect the House of Lords could legitimately and, using proper procedures, delay this matterr until it becomes impracticable to bring it into effect before a general election.
‘It conceivably could be delayed until the autumn because Parliament doesn’t sit throughout the summer and there will be challenges which the Government is
‘Plainly in breach of international law’
going to have to take time to address anyway. The House of Lords does not go out of its way to defy the Government, unless the Government does something which plainly makes no sense.’
Lord Carlile said the Bill would be ‘intellectually destroyed’ during committee stage in the Lords and he warned that usual conventions may not apply in the Upper House’s handling of it.
He stated most Bills presented to the Lords are ‘undeniably lawful’ whereas the Rwanda legislation is ‘plainly in breach of international law and runs the risk of the UK destroying its reputation as one of the fountainheads of the rule of law.
‘Therefore, I believe the House of Lords will regard itself as being justified in taking a more unconventional position on this Bill.’
Conservative peer Lord Bourne told BBC Radio there would be a majority in the Lords against the Rwanda legislation.
He added: ‘I’m concerned about the international law aspect of it.
‘I don’t understand why we have painted ourselves into a corner on this when there are other things that we should be doing on migration rather than putting all our eggs in one basket on Rwanda.’
Another senior Tory peer also
claimed the Bill would face ‘a very difficult ride’ in the Lords.
But he said ultimately the Bill would clear the Upper House ‘if it was clear that the votes were there in the Commons’.
They said the Government ‘has the numbers’ to get the Bill through the Lords, as crossbench peers would likely support it after a couple of rounds of parliamentary ‘ping-pong’.
A new intervention by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) earlier this week would provide a ‘template’ for fresh legal action by the Government’s opponents, one source suggested. They added that it was likely to ‘go back to square one’ and emulate the first round of legal action against the Rwanda scheme, which took from summer 2022 until November last year to unravel.
A charity insider said: ‘There will definitely be legal challenges – no question about it.’
In a further complication for the Prime Minister, a House of Lords committee yesterday said the new treaty with Rwanda should not yet be ratified by Parliament.
The Lords international agreements committee published a report on the treaty, a key component of the Government’s plan to get removals flights off the ground. It concluded the safeguards the treaty set out were ‘incomplete’.
Legal action against the Rwanda measures could be launched by UK-based pro-migrant organisations. A parliamentary committee was told yesterday judges in Britain and Strasbourg are likely to get involved again.
Zoe Bantleman, from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, told the joint committee on human rights that the UK courts should take new evidence and decide whether ‘Rwanda is in fact safe now or it is purely a legal fiction as it says in the Bill’.
She insisted there would also be a number of routes to challenge the measures in the European Court of Human Rights.
Tyrone Steele, from the charity Justice, said it was ‘more likely’ that legal claims will be lodged directly with Strasbourg – bypassing the UK courts.