No 10 denies going slow on Rwanda flights after spring target is ditched

Another Tory source backed the Government for taking time over the Safety of

Rwanda Bill because “it’s more important to get a watertight bill through parliament than rush to meet an arbitrary deadline”.

Rishi Sunak has had to ditch plans to get the first Rwanda deportation flight in the air this spring.

No 10 said the small boats policy was hit by fresh delays after peers refused to back down on demands to alter the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which has yet to be passed into law.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The timetable that we had previously set out factored in plenty of time for parliamentary debate, but obviously the bill has continued to be delayed.

“We will set out the timeline as soon as the bill passes through the House of Lords. The Lords did hold the bill up again – we are working at pace to get the bill passed and get flights off.”

But i understands that some senior Tories believe that No 10 is deliberately going slow on the legislation, which was pushed back by weeks before Easter with little explanation, because it knows the Rwanda policy will not work in stopping the boats.

Asked whether No 10 was deliberately holding up the laws, the spokesman said: “No… we were disappointed not to have this passed and as we said our intention now is to get this done on Monday.

“We want to see the bill up and

Rishi Sunak’s flagship asylum policy remains mired in political wrangling

running as swiftly as possible and once the law is passed, we’ll be able to trigger the final planning phases and stop the boats.

“And once we have the bill passed we’ll be setting out our next steps and timeline.”

One senior Tory MP suggested that Mr Sunak should not have revealed his goal of getting flights operating under the beleaguered Rwanda scheme, because it is “always a mistake to over promise”.

The bill remains in deadlock after peers on Wednesday dealt another blow to the Prime Minister’s flagship asylum plan, snubbing ministerial calls to back down and again insisting on revisions.

The proposed law aims to send some asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Kigali in order to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The bill and a treaty with Rwanda are intended to prevent further legal challenges to the stalled asylum scheme after the Supreme Court ruled the plan unlawful last year.

As well as compelling judges to regard the east African country as safe, it would give ministers the power to ignore emergency injunctions.

Despite MPs overturning previous changes by the upper chamber, peers renewed their demand that Rwanda cannot be treated as a safe country until an independent monitoring body has verified that protections contained in the treaty are implemented.