Sunak vows to ‘continue to confront difficult challenges’ as Parliament returns

Rishi Sunak has vowed to “continue to confront the difficult challenges” as Parliament returns for the first time this year.

A Downing Street source said the Prime Minister was determined to “not take the easy way out” in a year that is likely to see a general election.

MPs will return to Westminster following their Christmas break on Monday.

It comes after Mr Sunak said last week that it is his “working assumption” the UK will “have a general election in the second half of this year”.

The stance opens the door for the British leader to call a potential autumn general election.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told Sky News on Sunday he suspected the Prime Minister was “putting vanity before country” by wanting to mark two years in power — an anniversary that falls on October 25 — before sending the country to the polls.

Pushing for an election “as soon as possible”, the Opposition leader said the country was drifting and that it is “very hard to see how” Mr Sunak remaining in charge “improves the lives of anybody in the country”.

But Downing Street insisted that Mr Sunak’s approach is “starting to work”.

A No 10 source said: “2023 was not easy.

“We were dealing with the legacy of Covid, backlogs in our key public services. The consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine — the dangers of a war in the Middle East.

“But this Government has made progress. At the start of this year, we are pointing in the right direction.

“The choice is whether we stick with the plan that is starting to deliver the long term change our country needs or go back to square one with the Labour Party, where there is no plan, no progress, where taxes, debt and borrowing are increasing, and the country is going in the wrong direction.

“The PM is determined to continue to confront the difficult challenges: to govern in the national interest, not take the easy way out.

“Because that approach is starting to work and that is the approach that will bring about a brighter future for the country.”

The Conservative UK Government will be hoping that 2024 will provide the opportunity for Mr Sunak to deliver on more of the five pledges he made to the electorate 12 months ago.

The Prime Minister managed to meet his target of halving inflation by the end of 2023 but other commitments, including cutting NHS waiting lists and stopping the boats, have yet to be ticked off.

Emergency legislation designed to allow asylum seeker deportation flights to Rwanda to take off — a policy that is seen as key to Mr Sunak’s pledge to prevent Channel crossings — is due to the return to the Commons this month.

Mr Sunak hopes the Safety of Rwanda Bill will help overcome legal hurdles to his flagship immigration policy.

Speaking to BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Mr Sunak looked to reassure hardline Tories that the Bill is strong enough to prevent what are known as Rule 39 injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights from scuppering the removal of migrants to east Africa.

Such an injunction effectively grounded a flight sending asylum seekers from the UK to Kigali in 2022.

The Tory leader said, while there could not be a “blanket answer” to such interventions, he said the Rwanda draft law makes it “crystal clear” that it is “ministers who will have the power to decide about Rule 39s”.

“I have been very clear that I won’t let a foreign court block our ability to remove people safely to Rwanda once we have got the Bill through Parliament,” he added.

But critics on the right of his party have threatened to amend or even vote down the legislation if it is not tightened before it is next put before MPs.

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, once seen as a close ally of Mr Sunak, told The Sunday Times he is prepared to lay two amendments, one looking to prevent individual appeals against being sent to Rwanda and a second to enforce in law that ministers can ignore injunctions issued by Strasbourg judges.

Danny Kruger, a founder of the right-wing New Conservatives faction, told The Guardian the Tories face “obliteration” at the next election if they do not address mass migration and “economic short-termism”.

He said if ousted from Government, the party would “have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it”.

Ahead of Parliament’s return on Monday, Mr Sunak is expected to visit businesses and speak with voters in Lancashire as part of his so-called PM Connect series.

The Commons will later debate the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which has already led to the resignation of one senior Tory.

If passed by Parliament, the legislation will mandate that licences for oil and gas projects in the North Sea are awarded annually.

Chris Skidmore, the Government’s former net zero tsar, announced last week he was quitting Parliament over Mr Sunak’s environmental stance, saying the legislation would show the UK is “rowing ever further back from its climate commitments”.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir is scheduled to visit a flood-hit community in the Midlands that has been impacted by Storm Henk.

A Labour Party spokesman said: “This time last year the Prime Minister set himself five tests. He has failed four of them. That is not a plan. It is failure.

“There is no point in five more months of this Government let alone five more years. They are presiding over the biggest contraction in living standards for decades.

“All their claims of progress are confounded by people’s struggle to make ends meet, huge NHS waiting lists and creaking public services.

“It is time for a change and the only way for change to happen is if people vote for it. The chance for that to happen can’t come soon enough.”