Sunak to set out details of Rwanda plan as parliamentary showdown looms

Rishi Sunak is to set out how he intends to get the first flights carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda off the ground as he puts further pressure on the Lords to end resistance to the scheme.

The Prime Minister will use a press conference to outline a “robust” operational plan ahead of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’s final showdown in Parliament.

Senior minister Andrew Mitchell suggested the objections of peers “border on racism” and claimed Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, is safer than London.

Weeks of parliamentary back-and-forth are set to come to a head on Monday night.

The Government has vowed to keep Parliament sitting late into the night if necessary to pass the Bill, which it sees as vital to the Prime Minister’s pledge to “stop the boats”.

Peers have 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.

Downing Street is hostile to the idea of making concessions to secure the passage of the Bill, leading to a deadlock with the Lords.

The Bill is intended to overcome the objections of the Supreme Court by forcing judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and allowing ministers to ignore emergency injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights.

Mr Sunak said the Bill sends a “clear message” that illegal migrants will not be able to stay in the UK.

The Prime Minister, addressing the Government’s illegal migration operations committee meeting in Downing Street on Monday morning, said there must be “no more delay”.

Deputy foreign secretary Mr Mitchell claimed some of the objections to the Bill in the Lords were “patronising”.

Addressing a House of Lords amendment to the Rwanda Bill which proposes independent monitoring of the country’s safety, separate from its own judiciary, Mr Mitchell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Some of the discussions which have gone on in the Lords about the judicial arrangements, legal arrangements within Rwanda, have been patronising and, in my view, border on racism, so we don’t think it’s necessary to have that amendment either and that the necessary structures are in place to ensure that the scheme works properly and fairly.”

He added that “if you look at the statistics, Kigali is arguably safer than London, so I have no doubt at all about the safety of Rwanda, and the efficacy of the scheme”.

Mr Mitchell said Rwandan President Paul Kagame is leading a “remarkable regime”.

At the press conference on Monday morning, Mr Mitchell said the Prime Minister would set out how asylum seekers would be sent to Rwanda.

The Government has faced weeks of questions about how it will find a charter airline willing to take part in the scheme, with speculation that RAF flights might have to be used.

Ministers are also braced for legal challenges, although the Bill is intended to drastically limit the eligibility criteria for appeals against being sent to Rwanda.

Mr Mitchell told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “The Prime Minister will be holding a press conference to set out the operational plan, but I can assure you that the operational plans are robust, sensible and should work.”

But former home secretary Suella Braverman said the legislation is “fatally flawed” and has “too many loopholes”, arguing that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights is the only way to clear the legal hurdles.

Ms Braverman said the current Bill is vulnerable to “last-minute injunctions” by the European Court of Human Rights and susceptible to “illegal claims clogging up the courts”, telling the Today programme: “The simple fact is this is our third Act of Parliament that the Government has introduced in four years to stop the boats.

“None of them have worked – none of them have worked because they are all still susceptible to the international human rights law framework contained in the European Convention on Human Rights judged by, and adjudicated by, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – that’s the problem, and that’s why I’ve been calling for a few years now to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Last week saw peers amend the Bill yet again to include an exemption for Afghan nationals who assisted British troops and a provision meaning Rwanda could not be treated as safe unless it was deemed so by an independent monitoring body.

On Monday, MPs are expected to vote to overturn those changes before sending the Bill back to the House of Lords, where some peers may attempt to insist on their amendments again.

If so, the Bill would return to the Commons late on Monday for a further vote and then return once again to the Lords in a process known as “ping pong” which could last well past the Commons’ usual 10.30pm finish.

If peers pass exactly the same amendment twice, however, the Commons faces the choice of either accepting the change or losing the Bill under a rarely-used process known as “double insistence”.

Crossbench peer and former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Lord Anderson has raised this possibility and described the legislation as a “post-truth Bill” that asks Parliament to declare Rwanda is safe when, he argued, it is not.