Suella: Tens of thousands may be sent to Rwanda
TENS of thousands of migrants could be resettled in Rwanda, Suella Braverman insisted last night as she mounted a bold defence of her new asylum measures.
The Home Secretary unexpectedly set out the scheme’s capacity for the first time since it was launched by former prime minister Boris Johnson 11 months ago.
It came as the Government faced potential backbench rebellions in the first Commons vote on the Illegal Migration Bill, and former prime minister Theresa May said she had ‘concerns’ about the measures.
Mrs Braverman told the Commons: ‘Our partnership with Rwanda is uncapped. Rwanda has the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people if necessary.’
Mr Johnson first mentioned the figure in April last year but since then the Home Office has declined to go into detail about how many migrants could be sent to Rwanda.
Under the deal the Home Office will hand irregular migrants – such as those who arrive by small boat across the Channel – a one-way ticket to the east African nation to claim asylum there instead of in the UK. The scheme will play a crucial role in a modernised asylum system set out under the Bill, which aims to disqualify migrants who arrive illegally from claiming asylum.
The Bill, published last week, will allow irregular arrivals to be detained and removed from Britain, and permanently barred from entering again. Mrs Braverman told MPs: ‘The British public knows border security is national security, that illegal migration makes us all less safe. They know the financial and social costs of uncontrolled and illegal migration are unsustainable.’
She highlighted her parents’ own history as migrants to the UK, and said she had been subjected to the ‘most grotesque slurs for saying simple truths about the impact of unlimited and illegal migration’.
She also said it was ‘simply fatuous’ to claim the Bill will breach international refugee treaties.
During the debate, Mrs May warned that ‘whenever you close a route, the migrants and people smugglers find another way’, and that ‘anybody who thinks this Bill will deal with illegal migration once and for all is wrong’.
Former Conservative immigration minister Caroline Nokes and ex-Tory minister Chris Skidmore both said yesterday they would vote against the measures.
MPs were due to vote on the Bill’s second reading late last night.
‘Border security is national security’