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Robert Jenrick tells MPs he does not accept government’s claim Rwanda would not accept tougher bill – UK politics live

SNP’s Alison Thewliss opens debate on Rwanda bill saying it’s ‘irredeemably awful’ and won’t work

In the Commons MPs are finally starting the Rwanda bill debate.

Alison Thewliss, the SNP spokesperson for home affairs, is opening the proceedings. That is because the SNP amendment saying the bill should declare Rwanda unsafe, instead of safe, is the first amendment selected for debate.

Thewliss starts by saying that the SNP has tabled amendments not because they would support an amended bill, but because this is the only mechanism for getting their points debated. She says the bill is “irredeemably awful”. The bill will not work.

Sir Michael Fabricant (Con) intervenes, and asks how many “illegal asylum seekers” Scotland is hosting, compared with England. Thewliss says Fabricant should realise that there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

(Under international refugee law, people can apply for asylum in any country that has signed the refugee convention and so there is nothing illegal about their applying for asylum. The government does not talk about illegal asylum seekers. But it does talk about illegal migration, because it has legislated to say that arriving in the UK without authorisation is an offence.)

Alison Thewliss speaking in the debate
Alison Thewliss speaking in the debate. Photograph: Parliament TV

Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, is now making Labour’s case.

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He starts by saying Labour is opposed to the bill in its entirety. He says the party wants to stop the boats and “fix our broken asylum system”. But he says Labour will “never support any proposal that is unaffordable, unworkable or unlawful”

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He says the government has already committed £400m to this policy. But the Rwandan authorities have only got the capacity to take 1% of the 30,000 people who have arrived since the Illegal Migration Act was passed, he says. And that means it won’t work as a deterrent.

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He also say the policy was ruled illegal by the supreme court. Referring to the way the new bill says Rwanda is a safe country, contrary to what the supreme court says, he goes on:

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We find ourselves confronted by a government that is seeking to legislate for an alternative reality, because while ministers appear to believe that they can pass a bill which determines that the sky is green, and the grass is blue, that does not make it so.

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Jenrick says the government has said it will only accept amendments that have respectable legal arguments in their favour.

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But he says the amendments he has tabled pass this test. He says he has an opinion from John Larkin KC, a former attorney general for Northern Ireland, saying all the amendments that have been tabled by him, and by Bill Cash, comply with international law.

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He goes on:

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Unless the goalposts have been shifted by the government, I see no reason why the prime minister and the minister couldn’t accept these amendments and enable us to strengthen this bill once and for all.

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says Sunak should accept rebel Tory amendments because they all comply with international law”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Tue 16 Jan 2024 09.42 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Tue 16 Jan 2024 04.46 EST”},{“id”:”65a6890a8f08d01c91c8e011″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Robert Jenrick, the Conservative former immigration minister, is speaking now. He has tabled the key rebel amendments backed by Tories who want the bill to be tougher.

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He says the bill as drafted will not work.

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Ministers in other countries want the policy to work, because they want something in place to deter illegal migration, he says.

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Chris Bryant (Lab) intervenes to say he agrees with Jenrick that the bill won’t work. But he says the danger of crossing the Channel ought to be the strongest deterrent possible, but that does not stop people coming. So why will the bill act as a deterrent?

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Jenrick says ignores the point, and just argues that currently there is no deterrent in place.

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Jenrick is now talking about his amendment that would stop individuals appealing against removal. (It is amendment 21 – one of 16 amendments that Jenrick has either tabled or signed.)

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He says the bill as drafted does tighten up the opportunity for legal challenges.

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But it still allows legal challenges, and if someone makes a successful challenge, NGOs will school other asylum seekers into what they need to say to win an appeal.

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He says the UK only has 2,000 spaces where it can hold people in immigration removal centres.

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But 1,200 people arrived one day in August, he says.

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That means the country does not have the capacity to hold all the people who arrive. They would have to be bailed to hotels, and then they would abscond. The scheme would be seen to have failed, he says.

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Tim Loughton (Con) says this amendment might make the bill unworkable, at least in the eyes of the Rwandan government. (Rwanda said it would not support the policy if it broke international law.) What would happen then?

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Jenrick says he does not accept this argument. He says Rwanda is not party to the European convention on human rights. And, if the policy were to be ruled illegal, that would be because of what was happening in Rwanda.

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And he says, if the UK government was really concerned about this, it would not be proposing a policy deemed unlawful by UNHCR.

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He says he is not blaming Rwanda. He says it was a mistake for the government to get Rwanda to issue the statement saying it would not back a tougher bill.

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In the Commons MPs are finally starting the Rwanda bill debate.

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Alison Thewliss, the SNP spokesperson for home affairs, is opening the proceedings. That is because the SNP amendment saying the bill should declare Rwanda unsafe, instead of safe, is the first amendment selected for debate.

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Thewliss starts by saying that the SNP has tabled amendments not because they would support an amended bill, but because this is the only mechanism for getting their points debated. She says the bill is “irredeemably awful”. The bill will not work.

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Sir Michael Fabricant (Con) intervenes, and asks how many “illegal asylum seekers” Scotland is hosting, compared with England. Thewliss says Fabricant should realise that there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

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(Under international refugee law, people can apply for asylum in any country that has signed the refugee convention and so there is nothing illegal about their applying for asylum. The government does not talk about illegal asylum seekers. But it does talk about illegal migration, because it has legislated to say that arriving in the UK without authorisation is an offence.)

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MPs will very soon start debating the Rwanda bill. The debate will run for up to six hours.

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Today they are debating amendments related to clause 2, which is about the safety of Rwanda, and clause 4, which allows individuals to appeal against decisions to deport them.

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The text of the bill is here, and the paper listing all amendments that have been tabled is here.

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One of the amendments being debated is an SNP one changing the bill so that, instead of saying Rwanda is a safe country, the bill says it is an unsafe country. The grouping of amendments implies there will definitely be a vote on this.

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Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has issued a Commons written statement about the government plan to allocate more judges to deal with appeals by asylum seekers who are facing removal from the UK. (See 9.46am and 11.22am.) The Illegal Migration Act, which has been passed into law but not fully implemented (because it depends on the government being able to deport people to Rwanda) creates an accelerated system for appeals. In an announcement about how this will work, Chalk says:

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The Ministry of Justice has been working to increase capacity in the justice system in preparation for the commencement of the Act. Additional hearing rooms have been prepared, making a total of 25 hearing rooms available within the existing Immigration and Asylum Chamber (IAC) estate in London. These rooms are set up with remote hearing technology, allowing for either in-person or remote hearings to maximise flexibility. Over 100 additional staff have been recruited to support the Upper Tribunal’s work and are currently undertaking training ready for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act.

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The Illegal Migration Act provides for First-tier Tribunal judges to be deployed to sit in the Upper Tribunal to hear Illegal Migration Act appeals. The judiciary have identified relevant judges, which could provide over 5,000 additional sitting days. The decision on whether to deploy additional judges temporarily to the Upper Tribunal, including when they sit and the courtrooms they use, is for the independent judiciary and will be taken by the relevant leadership judges at the time and in the interests of justice …

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We are confident that, with the additional court room and judicial capacity detailed above, in line with projected levels agreed with the Home Office the vast majority of Illegal Migration Act appeal work will be dealt with by the courts in an expedited manner.

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The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), which has repeatedly criticised the government’s Rwanda policy, has released a fresh analysis saying that, even with the new treaty signed with Rwanda, the government’s bill is incompatible with international law. In the report it says:

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UNHCR has reviewed the updated UK-Rwanda scheme in light of the principles and standards set out in its 2022 analysis and summarised in Part I above. It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated in the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible with international refugee law.

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At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the government did not accept this assessment. The PM’s spokesperson said:

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I haven’t seen specifically what [UNHCR] have said, but we have set out the summary of our legal advice and obviously we are legislating to enable us to do this. The UNHCR also have a partnership with Rwanda ensuring they can safely take in migrants, I think from Libya, including a number quite recently.

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The main opposition to Rishi Sunak in Tory circles comes from the so-called “five families” – a nickname used by at least some of the leader of the five groups wanting to toughen the bill: the New Conservatives, the European Research Group, the Common Sense group, the Conservative Growth Group and the Northern Research Group.

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But there are another “five families” whose views are important in Tory politics. They are the five main Conservative-leaning papers: the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Times. (The Times is not quite as pro-Tory as the others – historically, it is more pro-establishment than pro-Conservative – but it is not aligned with Labour.) Broadly, these papers have all been calling for tougher action to tackle the problem of small boats. But, on the Rwanda bill, four out of five of them in their editorials are backing Sunak rather than the Tory rebels now being supported by Boris Johnson. That is to a large extent because they are worried that a bitter split will be bad for the party’s prospects at the general election.

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In its editorial today the Daily Mail says Tory rebels “must park their differences and get behind their leader in these critical months before the election”.

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The Daily Express says in its editorial: “We strongly wish Mr Sunak to succeed … We concur with Tory chairman Richard Holden, who said it’s time to get the legislation ‘across the line’.”

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In an editorial yesterday the Sun said Conservative MPs “must come together this week and back the prime minister’s plan – however imperfect they consider it to be – to help stop future tragedies”.

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And in an editorial yesterday the Times said the bill was “a sensible balance, respecting the will of parliament and the rights of the individual” and that MPs should support it.

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The only paper backing the rebels, or at least partly backing them, is the Daily Telegraph. In its editorial today it says Sunak should accept some of their demands. It says:

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[Sunak] could plough on and assume the rebels cannot muster the votes needed to defeat him or try to meet them halfway. There is scope to accept that individual appeals against deportation orders should be allowed only in the most extreme circumstances. That might stop the legal process being abused to clog up the system so that no flights to Rwanda ever leave the ground.

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An amendment that would automatically block the European Court of Human Rights from granting last-minute injunctions to suspend flights, known as Rule 39 orders, should also be accepted.

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There is a wider point here. Successive Tory governments have promised both to stop the boats and curb legal migration and have yet to do either.

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The voters are telling pollsters that this failure is one reason why they are not planning to support the Tories, even if they are not especially enthused by Labour. Mr Sunak needs to find a way to show them he understands their concerns.

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Labour will need a record swing at the next general election to win a majority, the BBC is reporting. Peter Barnes, the BBC’s elections and political analyst, says:

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The next election will be fought on new constituency boundaries, redrawn to reflect population changes and to try to even out voter numbers in each area.

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An analysis of these changes for BBC News, ITV News, Sky News and the Press Association suggests Labour needs a national swing of 12.7% to win with just a small majority.

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That’s considerably higher than the 10.2% achieved by Tony Blair in 1997 and higher even than the 12% achieved by Clement Attlee in 1945.

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The swing from the Conservatives to Labour would need to be uniform, to follow the same pattern everywhere, with other parties seeing no change in performance since 2019.

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The report has been welcomed by Labour figures worried about yesterday’s YouGov MRP poll suggesting the Labour is on course for a majority of 120 seats. This is from Alastair Campbell, the former No 10 spin doctor who is now a star podcaster.

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After all the ballyhoo created by the right wing ecosystem yesterday re Telegraph/Frost poll, might I suggest this analysis nearer the mark. Ps also on polls, Tories now talking of “private polls”. Ignore any stories re them too.

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After all the ballyhoo created by the right wing ecosystem yesterday re Telegraph/Frost poll, might I suggest this analysis nearer the mark. Ps also on polls, Tories now talking of “private polls”. Ignore any stories re them too. https://t.co/ARNmnAAlfy

— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) January 16, 2024

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“Record swing” does sound like a near-impossible hurdle. But it is worth pointing out that, when Tony Blair achieved his 10.2% swing in 1997, that was a swing from the results in 1992, when Labour came quite close to winning. Keir Starmer’s swing will be benchmarked against the 2019 result, when Labour recorded its worst result since 1935.

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It is also the case that voters are more willing to switch parties when they vote at elections than in the past. This chart, from a recent report from UK in a Changing Europe, illustrates this.

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needs record swing to win general election on new boundaries, analysis suggests”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Tue 16 Jan 2024 09.42 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Tue 16 Jan 2024 04.46 EST”},{“id”:”65a65a588f08e4f5a2630631″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has told Times Radio that he is “pretty sure” that Lee Anderson will still be a Conservative party deputy chair at the time of the next election.

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He made the comment when asked if he thought Anderson would be sacked for saying he will vote against the government on the Rwanda bill. As the Guardian reports, Anderson announced this in a post on X last night.

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The Rwanda Bill.

I have signed the Cash & Jenrick amendments.

I will vote for them.

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The Rwanda Bill.

I have signed the Cash & Jenrick amendments.

I will vote for them.

— Lee Anderson MP (@LeeAndersonMP_) January 15, 2024

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Brendan Clarke-Smith, another Tory deputy chair, is also planning to rebel.

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When I was elected in 2019 I promised my constituents we would take back control. I want this legislation to be as strong as possible and therefore I will be supporting the Jenrick/Cash amendments. These are arguments I have consistently made and will continue to make

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When I was elected in 2019 I promised my constituents we would take back control. I want this legislation to be as strong as possible and therefore I will be supporting the Jenrick/Cash amendments. These are arguments I have consistently made and will continue to make. #Rwanda

— Brendan Clarke-Smith MP (@Bren4Bassetlaw) January 15, 2024

“,”url”:”https://twitter.com/Bren4Bassetlaw/status/1746969771248120208″,”id”:”1746969771248120208″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”0033eb5a-dd15-4d13-93f6-318f7eb6b297″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Asked what action might be taken against Anderson, Gove replied:

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Well, I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves because I think that, and Lee is a friend and I’m a big admirer of his, the concerns that Lee has about the bill are the concerns that the country has about migration more broadly.

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And I think the bill does address them. I think the bill does make sure – it’s one of the toughest pieces of migration legislation to come before the House of Commons if not the toughest – and it makes sure that ministers can quickly and clearly send people to Rwanda because it deals with all of the concerns that the supreme court had.

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Conservative party deputy chairs and vice-chairs (vice-chairs are more junior) are not members of the government, but they are considered part of the “payroll vote” and expected to vote with the government. In the past people have been sacked from these posts for rebelling, as Stephen Hammond was after a Brexit vote in 2017.

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Boris Johnson, the former PM, has backed the rebel Tory MPs pushing amendments designed to make the Rwanda bill tougher. In his first post on X this year (he does not often use it), he says:

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Governments around the world are now trying to imitate the UK Rwanda policy for tackling illegal people trafficking. This bill must be as legally robust as possible – and the right course is to adopt the amendments

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Governments around the world are now trying to imitate the UK Rwanda policy for tackling illegal people trafficking. This bill must be as legally robust as possible – and the right course is to adopt the amendments. https://t.co/lOpdbpzWl5

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) January 16, 2024

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The Rwanda policy, which involves banning people arriving on small boats from claiming asylum in the UK and deporting them to Rwanda, supposedly as a deterrent to stop future migrants paying people smugglers for a place on a small boat, was conceived and announced when he was PM. At the time Sunak had doubts as to whether it would work, according to a recent leak to the BBC.

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Johnson was commenting on a tweet posted by Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, linking to an article Clarke has written for ConservativeHome on this topic. In the article Clarke says:

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At the moment, the government’s own assessment is that the bill as drafted has only a 50/50 chance of success. For me, that’s simply not good enough.

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There are no guarantees in politics, as in life, but I owe it to the people who send me to Westminster, who have put their trust in me to act as I know they wish to be represented, to be able to look them in the eye and say that I sincerely believe our new law will work.

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If our amendments are rejected, and I can’t do that, then I can’t vote for it.

\n

I don’t know yet how this week will unfold. All outcomes are possible and I hope sincerely that the government will accept improvements to the legislation.

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But if things go wrong, there are a number of us who have shown before, just as we did on Theresa May’s soft Brexit legislation, that we won’t hesitate to act on principle to actually get things done.

\n

We were right then and we were right now. The public is absolutely exhausted of politicians who are only prepared to offer half measures, and to see our country limp along in a stupor of inaction and failure.

\n

Enough. We either amend this bill so that it will work, or we face utter disaster when it becomes clear over the months ahead that it does not deliver. Many of us will not stand idly by and let that happen.

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Good morning. MPs will this afternoon start two days of debate on Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill, and the proceedings, and votes, are going to be an interesting trial of strength between Sunak and the rightwing faction in his party that does not rate him and wants him out. At one point there was talk in hardline Tory circles about the rebellion triggering a leadership contest, with Kemi Badenoch lined up to be installed as the Tories’ sixth PM since 2010. No one is expecting that now. But over the next two days we will find out quite how many Conservatives are willing to vote against the government on Rwanda, and quite how vitriolic they are willing to be about Sunak’s strategy. We’ll also find out whether Sunak feels he is strong enough to sack the two Tory deputy chairs who say they will vote against the government, or whether their revolt will be tolerated.

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The debates will also set the stage for a significant “I told you so” moment in Tory politics later this year. The rebels say, without significant amendment, the bill will fail to “stop the boats”. Sunak claims it can and will work. Mainstream legal opinion is probably with the rebels at this point. No one knows for sure, but by the time of the election it will be easier to say whether or not the bill has worked.

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This morning the Times is reporting that, in a further effort to get his MPs to support the bill, Sunak is planning to “fast-track migrant appeals against deportation to Rwanda by drafting in 150 judges and freeing up courtrooms”.

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The proposal has not impressed Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservatives, a rightwing Tory group calling for drastic cuts to immigration and withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. She told the Today programme:

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All that this drafting in of more judges shows is that the government is expecting a large number of legal claims. And don’t forget that they can then go to appeal. And then the idea of the deterrent doesn’t work because people know that they can stay in this country for a large period of time – their claims may be heard, they may be kept in this country for a long period of time.

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The point of a deterrent is that everybody who arrives here is swiftly detained and deported. We’re not saying that people should not be able to make legal claims. What we’re saying is that those claims need to be made in Rwanda, people will still have, under our amendments, those full rights of appeal in Rwanda. But the point is they need to be deported to Rwanda in order to have this deterrent.

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Cates also said she would vote against the bill at third reading (on Wednesday evening) if the proposed rightwing amendments were not passed or accepted. She said she did not know how many colleagues would do the same, but that 66 Conservatives had signed at least one of the rebel amendments.

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I will be focusing mostly on this story all day. There are also important Post Office Horizon scandal hearings taking place, but we will cover those on a separate live blog.

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Here is the agenda for the day.

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Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

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10am: Rajbinder Sangha, a former member of Fujitsu’s fraud team, gives evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.

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10am: Lord Arbuthnot, the Tory peer and former MP, and Neil Hudgell, a lawyer, who both backed victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, give evidence to the Commons business committee about the scandal. The committee is taking evidence from many key figures this morning including Alan Bates and Jo Hamilton (victims and campaigners) at 10.30am; Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, and Paul Patterson, director of Fujitsu Services, at 11am, and Kevin Hollinrake and Carl Creswell, business resilience director at the Department for Business and Trade, at 11.30am.

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10am: The UK Covid inquiry starts hearings in Edinburgh, with opening statements from counsel.

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10am: Eluned Morgan, the Welsh government’s health minister, and Judith Paget, chief executive of NHS Wales, hold a press conference on the impact of the junior doctors’ strike in Wales.

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11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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After 12.30pm: MPs start a six-hour debate on amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

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After 3pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Lords on Israel and Gaza, UN sustainable development goals, the rules-based order and the Rohingya refugee crisis.

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If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

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Tory Rwanda rebel says PM’s plan for extra judges shows bill will not stop appeals”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Tue 16 Jan 2024 09.42 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Tue 16 Jan 2024 04.46 EST”}],”filterKeyEvents”:false,”id”:”key-events-carousel-mobile”}” config=”{“renderingTarget”:”Web”,”darkModeAvailable”:false}”>

Key events

Sir Bill Cash (Con) is speaking now. He has signed all the main Tory rebel amendments, but he has also tabled his own – amendment 10 – and it’s a “notwithstanding clause” that would allow the government to go ahead with deportations to Rwanda regardless of what the European convention on human rights, and other international law, says.

He says he sent Rishi Sunak a briefing giving multiple cases of examples where countries had ignored international law without sanctions being applied.

This has happened in almost every jurisdiction, he says, including the EU, the US, France and Germany.

He says the UK has a dualist approach to international law. International law does not have a fixed status in domestic law, he says. He says the soveriegnty of parliament prevails.

In Germany it is different, he says, because international law is an integral part of domestic law there.

Bill Cash speaking in the debate
Bill Cash speaking in the debate Photograph: Parliament TV

In the Commons Robert Jenrick has just intervened again on Stephen Kinnock, and asked him to clarify whether Labour thinks Rwanda is or is not a safe country,

Kinnock says Labour accepts the judgment of the supreme court, which said Rwanda was not safe.

Stephen Kinnock
Stephen Kinnock Photograph: Parliament TV

Pippa Crerar says that, even though Boris Johnson is backing the Tory rebels on the Rwanda bill, that does not mean they have got the clout to get Rishi Sunak to change his mind.

This could end up being another Windsor framework vote – when Boris Johnson led the charge against Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland border plans in March 2023 and just 22 Tory MPs rebelled. Both wings of party, and govt sources, currently saying they don’t think right has numbers.

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 16, 2024

\n\n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1747252748377067760″,”id”:”1747252748377067760″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”c4e4ac31-ff98-4c6d-9104-15859d6324f2″}}” config=”{“renderingTarget”:”Web”,”darkModeAvailable”:false}”>

This could end up being another Windsor framework vote – when Boris Johnson led the charge against Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland border plans in March 2023 and just 22 Tory MPs rebelled. Both wings of party, and govt sources, currently saying they don’t think right has numbers.

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 16, 2024

This could end up being another Windsor framework vote – when Boris Johnson led the charge against Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland border plans in March 2023 and just 22 Tory MPs rebelled. Both wings of party, and govt sources, currently saying they don’t think right has numbers.

There are more than 22 Tory MPs who have signed at least one of the rebel amendments. Miriam Cates puts the total number at 66. (See 9.46am.) But Labour is opposed to the Tory amendments – as Stephen Kinnock told the Commons just a moment ago – and so there is no risk to No 10 of those amendments being passed.

Robert Jenrick intervenes, and asks Kinnock if he can confirm a Times story published over Christmas saying Labour would consider offshore asylum processing. He says sending people abroad for asylum processing only to bring them back if asylum were granted would be even more expensive.

Kinnock says people applying for asylum under the Ukraine scheme have their claims processed offshore.

Labour condemns Rwanda policy as unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful

Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, is now making Labour’s case.

He starts by saying Labour is opposed to the bill in its entirety. He says the party wants to stop the boats and “fix our broken asylum system”. But he says Labour will “never support any proposal that is unaffordable, unworkable or unlawful”

He says the government has already committed £400m to this policy. But the Rwandan authorities have only got the capacity to take 1% of the 30,000 people who have arrived since the Illegal Migration Act was passed, he says. And that means it won’t work as a deterrent.

He also say the policy was ruled illegal by the supreme court. Referring to the way the new bill says Rwanda is a safe country, contrary to what the supreme court says, he goes on:

We find ourselves confronted by a government that is seeking to legislate for an alternative reality, because while ministers appear to believe that they can pass a bill which determines that the sky is green, and the grass is blue, that does not make it so.

Jenrick says Sunak should accept rebel Tory amendments because they all comply with international law

Jenrick says the government has said it will only accept amendments that have respectable legal arguments in their favour.

But he says the amendments he has tabled pass this test. He says he has an opinion from John Larkin KC, a former attorney general for Northern Ireland, saying all the amendments that have been tabled by him, and by Bill Cash, comply with international law.

He goes on:

Unless the goalposts have been shifted by the government, I see no reason why the prime minister and the minister couldn’t accept these amendments and enable us to strengthen this bill once and for all.

Robert Jenrick speaking in the debate
Robert Jenrick speaking in the debate Photograph: Parliament TV

Jenrick says the government cites Albania, and the large number of Albanian people who have been returned, as evidence the bill will work.

But he says almost all of the Albanians who have returned have been foreign offenders. The issue is different, he says.

Robert Jenrick tells MPs he does not accept government’s claim Rwanda would not accept tougher bill

Robert Jenrick, the Conservative former immigration minister, is speaking now. He has tabled the key rebel amendments backed by Tories who want the bill to be tougher.

He says the bill as drafted will not work.

Ministers in other countries want the policy to work, because they want something in place to deter illegal migration, he says.

Chris Bryant (Lab) intervenes to say he agrees with Jenrick that the bill won’t work. But he says the danger of crossing the Channel ought to be the strongest deterrent possible, but that does not stop people coming. So why will the bill act as a deterrent?

Jenrick says ignores the point, and just argues that currently there is no deterrent in place.

Jenrick is now talking about his amendment that would stop individuals appealing against removal. (It is amendment 21 – one of 16 amendments that Jenrick has either tabled or signed.)

He says the bill as drafted does tighten up the opportunity for legal challenges.

But it still allows legal challenges, and if someone makes a successful challenge, NGOs will school other asylum seekers into what they need to say to win an appeal.

He says the UK only has 2,000 spaces where it can hold people in immigration removal centres.

But 1,200 people arrived one day in August, he says.

That means the country does not have the capacity to hold all the people who arrive. They would have to be bailed to hotels, and then they would abscond. The scheme would be seen to have failed, he says.

Tim Loughton (Con) says this amendment might make the bill unworkable, at least in the eyes of the Rwandan government. (Rwanda said it would not support the policy if it broke international law.) What would happen then?

Jenrick says he does not accept this argument. He says Rwanda is not party to the European convention on human rights. And, if the policy were to be ruled illegal, that would be because of what was happening in Rwanda.

And he says, if the UK government was really concerned about this, it would not be proposing a policy deemed unlawful by UNHCR.

He says he is not blaming Rwanda. He says it was a mistake for the government to get Rwanda to issue the statement saying it would not back a tougher bill.

In her speech Alison Thewliss (SNP) says she is particularly opposed to the amendments tabled by Robert Jenrick and fellow Tory MPs. They imply asylum seekers “do not matter”, she says.

And she is also critical of Labour. She has Labour has not made it clear whether it is opposed to the Rwanda policy on principle, or just on cost grounds, and she challenges Labour to clarify.

SNP’s Alison Thewliss opens debate on Rwanda bill saying it’s ‘irredeemably awful’ and won’t work

In the Commons MPs are finally starting the Rwanda bill debate.

Alison Thewliss, the SNP spokesperson for home affairs, is opening the proceedings. That is because the SNP amendment saying the bill should declare Rwanda unsafe, instead of safe, is the first amendment selected for debate.

Thewliss starts by saying that the SNP has tabled amendments not because they would support an amended bill, but because this is the only mechanism for getting their points debated. She says the bill is “irredeemably awful”. The bill will not work.

Sir Michael Fabricant (Con) intervenes, and asks how many “illegal asylum seekers” Scotland is hosting, compared with England. Thewliss says Fabricant should realise that there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

(Under international refugee law, people can apply for asylum in any country that has signed the refugee convention and so there is nothing illegal about their applying for asylum. The government does not talk about illegal asylum seekers. But it does talk about illegal migration, because it has legislated to say that arriving in the UK without authorisation is an offence.)

Alison Thewliss speaking in the debate
Alison Thewliss speaking in the debate. Photograph: Parliament TV

Prof Colin Rawlings and Prof Michael Thrasher, the psephologists mainly responsible for the research suggesting that Labour needs a swing of 12.7% to win a majority at the election (see 11.04am), have published a detailed explainer of their analysis. They say that calculation does not take into account changes in vote share affecting the smaller parties and that, in practice, a smaller swing might suffice. They explain:

A concentration on the direct swing between Labour and the Conservatives makes the implicit assumption that there will be no change in the share of votes cast for the Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties. In practice this is unlikely to be true, especially in the case of the Scottish National party (SNP). For example, a 10% swing from the SNP to Labour in Scotland would yield that party 15 gains under the new boundaries and ease its path towards Downing Street.

The start of the Rwanda bill debate is being held up for about 15 minutes because MPs are voting on an Alba 10-minute rule bill motion saying the Scottish parliament should have the power to legislate for an independence referendum.

Sir John Hayes, chair of the Common Sense group of Tory MPs, has told Times Radio that it would be “very difficult” for him to vote for the Rwanda bill at third reading if the rebel amendments have not been backed. He said:

If the bill is unamended and not fit for purpose … it would be very difficult to vote for that wouldn’t it? I can’t see how you could.

I can’t see how having supported the amendments … I don’t think having done all that, you can then say the bill, which we regard as imperfect, should be supported. So that would be a difficult decision.

Hayes has put his name to 16 amendments to the bill.

Of course, refusing to vote for the bill at third reading is not the same as vowing to vote against it.

MPs debate on Rwanda bill

MPs will very soon start debating the Rwanda bill. The debate will run for up to six hours.

Today they are debating amendments related to clause 2, which is about the safety of Rwanda, and clause 4, which allows individuals to appeal against decisions to deport them.

The text of the bill is here, and the paper listing all amendments that have been tabled is here.

One of the amendments being debated is an SNP one changing the bill so that, instead of saying Rwanda is a safe country, the bill says it is an unsafe country. The grouping of amendments implies there will definitely be a vote on this.

In the Commons Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, has announced that on Thursday MPs will vote on the regulations making Hizb ut-Tahrir a proscribed organisation.

Lucy Powell, the shadow leader of the Commons, asked Mordaunt to confrim that the third reading of the Rwanda bill would definitely take place tomorrow. She said there have been some reports saying it could be postponed.

In response, Mordaunt just said the third reading vote would be dependent on the progress the bill made through the Commons.

Alex Chalk says allocating more courts and judges for asylum appeal will allow ‘vast majority’ of cases to be processed quickly

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has issued a Commons written statement about the government plan to allocate more judges to deal with appeals by asylum seekers who are facing removal from the UK. (See 9.46am and 11.22am.) The Illegal Migration Act, which has been passed into law but not fully implemented (because it depends on the government being able to deport people to Rwanda) creates an accelerated system for appeals. In an announcement about how this will work, Chalk says:

The Ministry of Justice has been working to increase capacity in the justice system in preparation for the commencement of the Act. Additional hearing rooms have been prepared, making a total of 25 hearing rooms available within the existing Immigration and Asylum Chamber (IAC) estate in London. These rooms are set up with remote hearing technology, allowing for either in-person or remote hearings to maximise flexibility. Over 100 additional staff have been recruited to support the Upper Tribunal’s work and are currently undertaking training ready for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act.

The Illegal Migration Act provides for First-tier Tribunal judges to be deployed to sit in the Upper Tribunal to hear Illegal Migration Act appeals. The judiciary have identified relevant judges, which could provide over 5,000 additional sitting days. The decision on whether to deploy additional judges temporarily to the Upper Tribunal, including when they sit and the courtrooms they use, is for the independent judiciary and will be taken by the relevant leadership judges at the time and in the interests of justice …

We are confident that, with the additional court room and judicial capacity detailed above, in line with projected levels agreed with the Home Office the vast majority of Illegal Migration Act appeal work will be dealt with by the courts in an expedited manner.

No 10 rejects claim from UNHCR that its Rwanda policy remains incompatible with international refugee law

The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), which has repeatedly criticised the government’s Rwanda policy, has released a fresh analysis saying that, even with the new treaty signed with Rwanda, the government’s bill is incompatible with international law. In the report it says:

UNHCR has reviewed the updated UK-Rwanda scheme in light of the principles and standards set out in its 2022 analysis and summarised in Part I above. It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated in the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible with international refugee law.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the government did not accept this assessment. The PM’s spokesperson said:

I haven’t seen specifically what [UNHCR] have said, but we have set out the summary of our legal advice and obviously we are legislating to enable us to do this. The UNHCR also have a partnership with Rwanda ensuring they can safely take in migrants, I think from Libya, including a number quite recently.

According to Alex Wickham from Bloomberg, government whips think only around five to 10 Tory MPs would vote against the Rwanda bill at third reading.

The big question next 48 hours: are govt whips right that there are only 5-10 right-wing rebels willing to vote against the bill and challenge Sunak?

The big question next 48 hours: are govt whips right that there are only 5-10 right-wing rebels willing to vote against the bill and challenge Sunak? https://t.co/ClroiVaPp0

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) January 16, 2024

\n\n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1747210018548556190″,”id”:”1747210018548556190″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”ac3f6bb6-2a95-4d6c-b19c-7d694c56088c”}}” config=”{“renderingTarget”:”Web”,”darkModeAvailable”:false}”>

The big question next 48 hours: are govt whips right that there are only 5-10 right-wing rebels willing to vote against the bill and challenge Sunak? https://t.co/ClroiVaPp0

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) January 16, 2024