Lords hit ministers with FIVE defeats on Rwanda

PEERS inflicted their first defeats on the Government’s Rwanda Bill last night after the United Nations again declared the scheme a ‘violation of international law’.

The House of Lords backed a series of moves watering down the proposed legislation that aims to declare Rwanda a safe country so removal flights can finally take off.

It sets the stage for a fierce battle over the final stages of the Safety of Rwanda Bill later this month. Earlier this year Rishi Sunak warned the Lords against frustrating ‘the will of the people’ over the measures.

Ministers have designed the Bill to declare Rwanda a safe country and overcome objections from the

‘A violation of international law’

Supreme Court which declared the scheme unlawful last year.

The measures also seek to prevent British and European judges from being able to intervene to stop migrants’ removals, while a treaty between the two countries introduces safeguards.

A Labour amendment which said the new scheme should go ahead only ‘while maintaining full compliance with domestic and international law’ was backed by 274 peers to 172.

The Government then lost another vote – by 282 to 180 – on an amendment tabled by crossbencher Lord Hope, setting out that Parliament cannot declare Rwanda safe until the treaty is fully implemented.

A third vote, on establishing a monitoring mechanism for the treaty, went 277 to 167 votes against the Government. Two further votes were lost. The defeats, with margins of up to 110 votes, were the biggest in Mr Sunak’s premiership.

In the Lords yesterday Lord Howard, the former Tory leader, accused the Supreme Court ruling of ‘trespassing’ on ministers’ responsibilities. Only the Government, and not the courts, is accountable to voters, he added. Expressing his opposition to the Bill, the Archbishop of Canterbury evoked the horrors of Nazism and and argued that the Government was ‘challenging the right of international law to constrain our actions’.

Meanwhile, three UN experts said the Rwanda measures would ‘unduly limit judicial independence’. Despite the UN operating its own programme sending refugees to Rwanda, they said: ‘The provisions in the Rwanda Bill constitute an interference with the independence of the judiciary and a violation of international law.’

A record 62,336 people were granted asylum or protection in Britain last year. It also emerged last week that the Rwanda deal is set to cost £500million by 2026.

WITH noble Lords debating the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, the hyperbole is already beyond fever pitch.

The Archbishop of Canterbury led the linguistic arms race, likening the Government’s assertion that parliamentary sovereignty trumped international law to the Nazis – a grotesque comparison.

Unelected peers inflicted five defeats on the legislation, which was passed by the Commons in a bid to stop the small boats and wreck the traffickers’ business model.

Yet their hand-wringing Lordships were waffling just hours after a girl of seven drowned when a dinghy packed with migrants heading for the UK sank.

By trying to block the Bill, they are denying democracy and playing with people’s lives.