Lords’ plan to delay Rwanda law led by Labour

PEERS led by a former Labour attorney general have drawn up a plan that threatens to delay Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda treaty.

For the first time, peers have used powers to lay a motion in the Lords that seeks to halt the ratification of the treaty until the Government can show that Rwanda is safe for asylum seekers.

They have set out a 10-point plan for new laws and judicial measures that ministers and Rwanda must put in place before the treaty can be endorsed.

Lord Goldsmith, Sir Tony Blair’s attorney general during the Iraq war, laid the motion, which is to be debated in the Lords on Monday, as the chairman of the international agreements committee, which has a critical role in the scrutiny and ratification of Britain’s new treaties.

Mr Sunak yesterday warned the House of Lords not to frustrate the “will of the people” over immigration, urging peers to “do the right thing” and back his legislation. The Bill was introduced to the Lords yesterday to cries of “shame” from peers after Mr Sunak saw off a rebellion by more than 60 Tory MPS seeking to toughen it. It is due to have its second reading in two weeks.

The legislation is aimed at getting deportation flights to Rwanda off the ground by spring, but yesterday Mr Sunak failed to guarantee that any would take off before the general election, which is expected to take place in the second half of the year.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, he said: “It’s now time for the Lords to pass this Bill. This is an urgent national priority. The treaty with Rwanda is signed, and the legislation which deems Rwanda a safe country has been passed unamended in our elected chamber. There is now only one question. Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try to frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House? Or will they get on board and do the right thing?”

The legally binding treaty underpins Mr Sunak’s Bill and aims to correct flaws in the deportation scheme that led the Supreme Court to declare the policy unlawful and Rwanda unsafe.

But Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general between 2001 and 2007, said his cross-party committee was asking peers to accept that measures designed to ensure Rwanda could be declared a safe country were “incomplete” and

‘Will the opposition in the Lords try to frustrate the will of the people... Or will they do the right thing?’

ALMOST three quarters of voters believe the Government’s Stop the Boats pledge has gone badly, according to a new poll.

Just 18 per cent of the public think the promise has gone well so far against 72 per cent who feel it has gone badly.

Conservative and Leave voters are more critical than those from other parties, with 73 per cent of Tory supporters feeling it has gone badly, and 76 per cent of those who voted to quit the EU.

To compound the poor results for Rishi Sunak, 34 per cent of the public say Labour would be best placed to stop the boats, compared with 26 per cent who backed the Conservatives.

The poll by Savanta of nearly 2,300 adults follows weeks of Conservative in-fighting over the Rwanda policy.

On Wednesday night, the Prime Minister secured victory when the flagship Bill passed with just 11 Tory MPS rebelling by voting against it. MPS voted by 320 to 276 to send it on to the Lords.

Mr Sunak has argued getting the deportation flights off to Rwanda will be a critical deterrent to migrants seeking to cross the Channel in small boats.

Under pressure from the Tory whips, the majority of rebel Tory MPS ended up accepting No10’s argument that it was better to vote through the Bill with misgivings rather than kill it off.

But before Mr Sunak can achieve the Bill’s ultimate goal of getting deportation flights off the ground by spring, he has to get it through the House of Lords, which will seek to water down its tough approach to migrants’ rights. And Right-wing MPS have warned that the Bill’s measures will still allow individual asylum seekers to mount multiple legal claims against deportation.

The Savanta poll also assessed the public’s verdict on Mr Sunak’s other pledges. Just 32 per cent said the pledge to halve inflation had gone well, while 60 per cent said it has gone badly.

On cutting NHS waiting lists, 16 per cent said it had gone well so far and almost eight in ten said it went badly.

Chris Hopkins, the political research director at Savanta, said: “These latest polling figures suggest that there’s a competence and credibility deficit hurting the Conservative Party, even before the latest Rwanda Bill vote and yesterday’s inflation rise.”