Peers face call to ‘calm down’ and end Rwanda bill face-off
Peers were urged to “calm down” and allow the government’s Rwanda deportation legislation to progress, as MPS voted last night to overturn amendments made by the Lords.
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will not receive royal assent until both the House of Commons and House of Lords agree its final wording, a process known as parliamentary ping-pong.
MPS returned from the Easter recess yesterday to discuss six further changes made by peers, with the government tabling motions to disagree with them – while also moving its own proposal in a bid to ease concerns over how the bill operates in relation to modern slavery victims.
The bll seeks to compel judges to regard the east African country as safe in a bid to clear the way to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats on a one-way flight to Rwanda.
The amendments overturned included an attempt by peers to ensure the bill has “due regard” for domestic and international law and that Rwanda is only regarded as safe for as long as the provisions of the UK’S treaty with that country are in place.
Peers are expected to consider the bill again todayand could make further changes which would prolong the parliamentary wrangling.
Speaking in the Commons, Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash said: “The real question now is, let’s get this bill done, let’s get the House of Lords to calm down a bit, let us also at the same time wait for what is inevitably going to be another claim and then see what the judgment of the Supreme Court is on the wording – providing it is clear and unambiguous – of this bill.
“That is all I need to say, I may come back again however if there is another insistence by the Lords on these ridiculous amendments.”
For Labour, shadow Home Office minister Stephen Kinnock said the Rwanda scheme is “doomed to fail”.
He said: “The boats have kept coming, the backlog has kept growing, and the people smugglers are still laughing all the way to the bank. Two years of headline-chasing gimmicks, two years of pursuing a policy that is fundamentally unworkable, unaffordable and unlawful. Two years of flogging this dead horse.
“I am an inveterate optimist, so I truly believe that one day the benches opposite will come to understand that hard graft and common sense are always more effective than the sugar rush of a tabloid front page.”
Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson said: “Here we are, back again, debating the same issues and amendments we have already rejected. We’re not quite at the point yet of completing each others’ sentences, but we are almost there.”
Sunday was the busiest day yet for Channel crossings so far this year after more than 500 migrants arrived in the UK in a single day.
The latest crossings took the provisional total for the year so far to 6,265 – 28 per cent higher than this time last year (4,899) and 7 per cent up on the 5,828 recorded at this point in 2022.