Key week in Sunak’s struggle to pass his Rwanda bill into law

MPS were today set to largely throw out amendments by the Lords to Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda Bill as he seeks to force it through Parliament by the end of the week.

The Commons was returning from the Easter recess and the first major item on the day’s Order Paper was the deeply controversial bill which a minister insisted aimed to ensure flights carrying asylum seekers from Britain to Kigali should be taking off “within weeks”.

The bill seeks to deter the “small boats” crossing the Channel carrying asylum seekers and economic migrants. But it is not yet clear that the Government has been able to find any airline to operate the deportation flights, or whether the legislation for the policy, which was previously branded unlawful by the Supreme Court, will face further delays by the courts.

Some peers were hoping that ministers would make minor concessions to some of the seven amendments, such as the one tabled by Baroness Butler-Sloss relating to victims of modern

• Britain has reportedly approached countries including Costa Rica, Armenia, Ivory Coast and Botswana in a bid to replicate the Rwanda scheme — set to cost at least £290 million — elsewhere. The Times today reported that the UK was in talks with the nations after Rishi Sunak gave the Home Office and Foreign Office a deadline of last autumn to secure two additional deals.

slavery and human trafficking. But the Government was expected to still reject the bulk of changes made by peers who want extra legal safeguards, including a provision to ensure “due regard” for domestic and international law.

The bill would then return to the Lords tomorrow where a small number of amendments, possibly three, with a narrower focus, could be put to votes.

Key to whether they pass will be how many Tory peers, who previously abstained, now fall in line and back the Government. The legislation could then go to a third round of “ping pong” on Wednesday, with MPs considering it again in the afternoon before sending it to the Lords in the evening.

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins suggested yesterday that the Home Office was “ready to go” in implementing the plan when the Bill gets on to the statute books.

The legislation seeks to revive the Government’s plan to send some asylum seekers on a one-way flight to Kigali, which has faced a series of setbacks since it was announced two years ago by then prime minister Boris Johnson.