Rwanda Bill: How did my MP vote on Sunak’s asylum legislation?

Rishi Sunak’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda have been given the green light after Lords cave to MPs

Tuesday 23 April 2024 05:37 EDT

Sunak confirms Rwanda flights will take off in 10 to 12 weeks

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Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill will become law after a night of parliamentary ping-pong between the Commons and Lords.

MPs and Lords were at loggerheads on Monday night over an amendments made by peers to t he prime minister’s controversial Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Peers finally caved with Lord Anderson of Ipswich saying: “The time has now come to acknowledge the primacy of the elected house”.

Downing Street had warned it would not make concessions over the amendments, which saw peers demand that an independent monitoring committee must declare Rwanda safe before asylum-seekers can be sent there. Peers caved on a separate amendment that called for Afghans who served with British forces to be exempt from deportations.

It came after Mr Sunak claimed that flights to Rwanda had been booked and would take off by July, “no ifs, no buts”, despite his struggles in passing the necessary legislation into law and a host of remaining practical barriers in physically implementing the policies.

Mr Sunak told a surprise No 10 press conference on Monday that the first flight carrying asylum seekers would leave for Rwanda in 10-12 weeks, hours before the Bill appeared before parliamentarians once again.

Peers had repeatedly blocked the legislation with a series of amendments, stretching debate on the “emergency legislation” over more than four months and delaying flights taking asylum seekers to Rwanda.