House of Lords votes to delay Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda treaty – UK politics live

House of Lords kicks Rwanda offshore immigration treaty into long grass

The House of Lords has voted 214-171 to delay prime minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship UK-Rwanda immigration treaty, with the major setback likely to enrage right-wing Conservatives and put Sunak’s administration on the back foot again.

Tonight’s votes centred on delay motions from Labour peer Lord Goldsmith, chairman of the chamber’s International Agreements Committee, which presented a report identifying ten sets of issues where “significant additional legal and practical steps are needed in order to implement the protections the treaty is designed to provide,” Goldsmith said.

Goldsmith added: “We are not saying the treaty should never be ratified but we are saying that Parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinise the treaty and its implementing measures in full before it makes a judgement about Rwanda is safe.”

The UK’s upper lawmaking chamber joins a list of other institutions in the British constitution who have thrown doubt on the viability and safety of No 10’s immigration plan – the Court of Appeal in April last year, then the Supreme Court in November.

Sunak has framed these setbacks in a quasi-presidential way, as an assault on its ability to pass laws and on the “will of the people” – despite Rwanda offshoring not being included in the 2019 Conservative manifesto – whereas opponents say the separation of powers is performing its constitutional role in sinking an unlawful policy.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak warned the House of Lords to respect the ‘will of the people’ on the UK-Rwanda treaty, which led him facing scrutiny from Lords for ‘lecturing’ them on their constitutional role – as peers voted to kick his policy into the long grass. — Prime minister Rishi Sunak warned the House of Lords to respect the ‘will of the people’ on the UK-Rwanda treaty last week, which led him facing scrutiny from Lords for ‘lecturing’ them on their constitutional role – as peers voted to kick his policy into the long grass. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

In this way, the treaty debate has also became a proxy for disagreement over the makeup of Britain’s unwritten constitution.

In a statement ahead of the vote, Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker said the chamber was doing its “proper constitutional role” to analyse the treaty further, attacking Sunak’s “lecturing.” In response, Home office minister Baron Andrew Sharpe said, “This begs the question, is Labour using the House of Lords to try to frustrate our plan to stop the boats?”

The Rwanda plan, initially launched by Boris Johnson as prime minister in April 2022, was struck down by the Supreme Court in November, declared unlawful over concerns the safety of people seeking asylum could not be guaranteed in Rwanda – particularly the risk of being returned to their country of origin.

Driven by critics on the right, Downing Street has tried to find a route around the ruling by ratifying a legally-binding treaty with Rwanda in parliament. The prime minister was able to dodge a rebellion from the Tory right earlier this month after last-minute crunch talks with 45 rebel MPs, sending the bill to the Lords with a majority of 44.

The policy has been also attacked by opposition parties, campaigners and human rights lawyers, for its impact on the lives of people seeking asylum, its expensiveness, and its risk for the UK to breach international obligations across a slew of human rights treaties. The government says it will help “stop the boats” across the English channel.

Home secretary James Cleverly arrives at Kigali International Airport in Rwanda, on 5 December 2023, as the government tries to get around the Supreme Court ruling that its offshore Rwanda immigration plan is “unlawful”. Photograph: Ben Birchall/AP

Before peers debated the bill, Sunak ratcheted up the pressure. “Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected house?” he said in a press conference. “Or will they get on board and do the right thing? It’s as simple as that.”

Since Sunak became prime minister on 25 October 2022, following Liz Truss’s resignation, the Lords has defeated the government 125 times, according to a count from the Constitution Unit at University College London. Since the 2019 election, the government has been defeated on 374 votes – though significant setbacks such as tonight’s are rarer. (Tonight’s vote will not be included in that count as it is a motion to delay, not kick out, the bill.)

Sunak’s difficulty passing the cornerstone policy led Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, to tell MPs last week: “He’s in office but not in power. No one agrees with him on his policy. And the real weakness is that he doesn’t even agree with it himself.”

Here’s a summary the day’s major developments in UK politics.

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The House of Lords voted 214-171 to delay prime minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship UK-Rwanda immigration treaty over safety concerns, with the major setback likely to enrage right-wing Conservatives and put Sunak’s administration on the back foot again.

Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker attacked Sunak for ‘lecturing’ the Lords, saying peers are doing their ‘proper constitutional role’ to analyse the Rwanda treaty.

Liberal Democrat Lord Tim Razzell said the policy’s irony was that the deterrence intended by offshoring to ‘hell hole’ Rwanda is now stopping the scheme being viable.

But home officer minister, Conservative Baron Andrew Sharpe, replied this interpretation was ‘offensive,’ as he unsuccessfully urged Lords to back to bill to ‘stop the boats as soon as possible.’

After the vote, right-wing figures attacked the move. Nigel Farage weighed in, provocatively saying “We must sack all current members of the House of Lords.” It was unclear what constitutional mechanism he was referring to when claiming the lawmakers must be “sacked.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has described the government’s free childcare plan as being in “tatters,” after reports that staffing and IT problems were hampering the rollout.

Sunak spoke to US president Joe Biden, discussing the military and humanitarian situations in Gaza, the Red Sea and Ukraine after US-UK airstrikes in recent weeks.

The train drivers’ union Aslef will stand down its five days of additional strikes at LNER, after the state-owned operator withdrew plans to impose minimum service levels during next week’s industrial action.

Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has asked to speak to Labour leader Keir Starmer about Westminster-Holyrood relations if Labour is to form a government.

Meanwhile, Starmer is keen to show he’s not up for ducking a fight from the Conservatives, in response to critics that he has run away from key battles so far, as his electoral strategy continues to evolve.

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That’s all from me, Jem Bartholomew in London, and from the UK politics blog for today. Thanks for following the Guardian’s live coverage. See you next time.

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After the UK’s upper lawmaking chamber voted 214-171 to delay the passing of a UK-Rwanda treaty to provide offshore immigration detention – to provide further time for scrutinising safety concerns – right-wing politicians were quick to attack the House of Lords.

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The hard-right, anti-immigration Nigel Farage, an ever-present worry over the right-shoulder of Conservative leaders, said provocatively on X/Twitter: “We must sack all current members of the House of Lords. It is beyond parody.” It was unclear what constitutional mechanism he was referring to when claiming the lawmakers must be “sacked.”

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Meanwhile, the UK Independence Party, which former-leader Farage left in 2018, said on X/Twitter: “ABOLISH THE HOUSE OF LORDS!”

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The comments are a taste of what prime minister Rishi Sunak can expect from backbenchers and other right-wing campaigners, who are urging him to begin sending asylum seekers to Rwanda – and seem prepared to topple him as leader if he can’t.

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In this way, the treaty debate has also became a proxy for disagreement over the makeup of Britain’s unwritten constitution.

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“Voting is now open, clear the bar,” says the Lord Deputy Speaker, Baroness Garden.

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And with that, peers go to cast their vote on whether to kick the prime minister’s landmark immigration policy into the long grass for further scrutiny…

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EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1705952690000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”14.44 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1705951811000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”14.30 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”14.30″,”title”:”Lords begin voting on UK-Rwanda treaty”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Mon 22 Jan 2024 15.50 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Mon 22 Jan 2024 04.12 EST”},{“id”:”65aebbba8f081fd80444f59e”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Defnding the government’s plan in the House of Lords a moment ago was Baron Andrew Sharpe, of Epsom, a Conservative and the home office parliamentary under-secretary of state.

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He said there are “very significant protections” that are legally binding to ensure Rwanda is safe and the motions to delay the treaty, being voted on this evening, are “unnecessary and misguided”.

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“It is vital we stop the boats as soon as possible,” he went on.

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Sharpe said the idea that Rwanda was chosen because it was a “hell hole” intended to be a “deterrent” is an “offensive” way to frame the proposal, referencing earlier comments by Lord Tim Razzell, Liberal Democrat.

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“It was never about Rwanda, or any other partner country, being a ‘hell hole,’ as described by Lord Razzell, which I find quite offensive,” Sharpe said.

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“By sending the clear message that if you try to come here illegally and have no right to stay here, you will be returned home or removed to a safe third country, can we break the business model of the trafficking and smuggling gangs.”

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Moreover, Sharpe ended his speech with a dig at Labour: “This begs the question, is Labour using the House of Lords to try to frustrate our plan to stop the boats?”

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In a moment of comedy, Sharpe sparked laughs in the upper chamber when, introducing his speech, the government minister said: “I recognise my time here is limited…”

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As the House of Lords debate on the Rwanda treaty continues, Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker attacks prime minister Rishi Sunak for his approach to the upper chamber.

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The debate is, of course, about the specifics of the treaty and what it means for the UK’s place in the world, and responsibilities under international agreements.

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But bubbling under the surface, it has also led to clashes over the dynamics of Britain’s unwritten constitution and the balance of powers across the machinery of government.

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“What we’ve seen today is not a House of Lords seeking to block, to act in an anti-democratic way, to actually do anything other than to do its job – which is to say to the government: where we believe that you should think again, where we believe that you might actually reflect on what you are doing,” Coaker said.

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“That, as a revising chamber, as an advisory chamber, is absolutely what we should be doing. And nobody, least of all the prime minister, should hold press conferences, lecturing us about what our role is, when all we seek to do is to improve it, and to act in our proper constitutional role.”

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Coaker referenced Sunak’s presser earlier this week urging the Lords to enact the “will of the people,” interpreted by some critics as a means of leaning on the upper lawmaking chamber.

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The House of Lords is currently debating the UK-Rwanda treaty, and the House of Commons is currently debating the second reading of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. Here are today’s headlines …

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Rishi Sunak’s UK-Rwanda treaty faces its first hurdle in the House of Lords, as they debate a motion that suggests it should be delayed after a committee report. In just over an hour’s debate so far, all but a couple of people have spoken in favour of postponing ratification.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has described the government’s free childcare plan as being in “tatters” after reports that staffing and IT problems were hampering the rollout. Sunak admitted there were “some practical issues”, but Downing Street said the government remained “confident” of delivering the policy. Children, families and wellbeing minister David Johnston said in parliament that no parents would miss out.

Ofsted school inspections in England resume this week after a two-week pause to allow inspectors to undergo mental health awareness training.

More than 40 Conservative MPs – including seven former cabinet ministers, some with responsibility for local authority funding – have threatened Sunak with a fresh rebellion after writing to demand more funding for councils in England to avoid deep cuts to services.

Eleven Conservative MPs – including former ministers Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick – are reported to have been called in by government’s chief whip Simon Hart to explain themselves over last week’s rebellion against the Rwanda bill.

David Frost, the influential Conservative peer who has been criticised for claiming that rising global temperatures could be beneficial to the UK, is being appointed to a key parliamentary committee on the climate crisis.

The train drivers’ union Aslef will stand down its five days of additional strikes at LNER after the state-owned operator withdrew plans to impose minimum service levels during next week’s industrial action. It would have been the first test of enforcing “minimum service levels”.

Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has written to Keir Starmer, inviting him to his official Edinburgh residence Bute House, to discuss how relations between the Scottish and UK governments might be improved in the event of Labour winning the next general election.

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said his party has not yet reached an agreement with the government over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

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That is it from me, Martin Belam, for today. I will be handing over to Jem Bartholomew.

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The House of Lords has begun its debate on the UK-Rwanda treaty. You can watch it on this blog. You may need to refresh the page for the play button to appear.

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Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, based in Glasgow

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Scotland’s chief medical officer, Sir Gregor Smith, has been giving evidence at the UK Covid inquiry, which is taking evidence again this week in Edinburgh.

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the bracing attitude to deletion of informal messages that was revealed last week, much of the questioning was on WhatsApps.

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Smith was asked about an exchange where a colleague messaged “Hope this isn’t FoI-able” to which Smith replied “delete at the end of every day”.

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Smith clarified that the Scottish government advice at the time was not to keep WhatsApp messages for security reasons, but that he ensured all messages relevant to decision-making were captured by email and thus placed on the corporate record.

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Over the weekend, the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon rebutted the inquiry’s suggestion that all her WhatsApps had been lost. She said they were not retained on her phone but she had obtained copies for the inquiry.

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Nonetheless, the relaxed attitude to record-keeping – and those who may wish to view records in the future – has been apparent, with the clinical director Jason Leitch recorded as joking about his nightly “pre-bed routine” of WhatsApp deletion.

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This comes as Scotland’s information commissioner said today the revelations suggested FoI rules were being “subverted” and threatened to launch an investigation, and as Covid bereaved families prepare to lodge police complaints about the apparently wholesale deletion by Sturgeon and others.

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Sturgeon will give evidence herself next week.

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Richard Partington is the Guardian’s economics correspondent

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More than 40 Conservative MPs – including seven former cabinet ministers – have threatened Rishi Sunak with a fresh Commons rebellion after writing to demand more funding for councils in England to avoid deep cuts to services.

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Warning that urgent action was required to ensure they would back the government in a crunch vote next month, the MPs from all wings of the party said extra financial support was needed to prevent more councils going bust amid a £4bn funding shortfall.

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Growing numbers of councils across England warn they face effective bankruptcy amid soaring costs and rising pressure on services, compounded by years of austerity-driven cuts and local missteps. Among the biggest casualties so far are Birmingham and Nottingham, as well as Woking in Surrey and Thurrock in Essex.

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Senior figures who have signed the letter include the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and the former cabinet ministers Priti Patel, Thérèse Coffey, Damian Green and Brandon Lewis.

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As a local government secretary under Boris Johnson, Jenrick had been responsible for council funding before he was replaced by Michael Gove in 2021. Four former local government ministers were also signatories, including Jake Berry, the former Tory party chair.

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Ministers are now consulting on a financial settlement for local government funding, which will determine how much support councils in England will receive for 2024-25, with a vote due in parliament in early February.

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Read more of Richard Partington’s report here: More than 40 Tory MPs threaten rebellion over English council funding

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A little bit more from Rishi Sunak’s broadcast appearance this morning. As well as criticising Keir Starmer’s speech this morning [See 11.09am], Sunak responded to the news that was the main splash in the Times today, that the government policy on offering free childcare was running into problems. Sunak admitted there were “some practical issues” with the plan.

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The prime minister insisted the project would go ahead as planned in England despite reports of problems with the allocation of funding, staff shortages and IT issues. He told the media:

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We are excited about our plans to expand childcare in a way that has never been done in our country before. This spring, everyone with two-year-old kids will be able to get 15 hours, that will be expanded to all those with nine-month-olds later this year and then obviously next year 30 hours for all of those, completing the biggest expansion of childcare in our country’s history.

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Now, many families have been able to sign up and it’s all working fine, but there are some practical issues that certain families are facing. I just want to reassure all of those people that those issues are being resolved as we speak, all of those families will get the childcare that they are eligible for.

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Oliver Wright and Aubrey Allegretti had reported overnight that the policy was being undermined by what the Times described as a “funding fiasco”:

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Senior Whitehall sources said lights were “flashing red all over the board” over the £4bn plan as nurseries warned that they will not be able to start the scheme in time. They have not been told how much they will be paid for each of the places on offer despite the fact it is due to be up and running in less than three months.

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Many nursery chains have told existing parents that they cannot guarantee that their children will be entitled to the new free hours while others have said that it will be “impossible” to extend the offer to nine-month-olds in September.

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At the same time IT complexities with HMRC systems mean that up to 25,000 families will need to re-confirm their status with the taxman in March or face delays in accessing the new payments.

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In addition, the department for education is also facing a £120m budget shortfall after miscalculating the cost of the scheme in its first year.

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Sally Weale is the Guardian’s education correspondent

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School inspections in England resume this week after a two-week pause to allow inspectors to undergo mental health awareness training, after an inquest into the suicide of Reading primary head teacher Ruth Perry ruled that the schools inspectorate Ofsted had contributed to her death.

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Perry’s school, Caversham primary, was downgraded from outstanding to inadequate over safeguarding issues during an Ofsted inspection, that the inquest heard had triggered a fatal deterioration in Perry’s mental health.

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The mental health awareness training was ordered by the new chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, who said he would do everything in his power to prevent any future tragedies after taking over in January.

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From today, schools across England could receive a call from the inspectorate, ahead of a visit. Under new Ofsted arrangements, however, once the inspection is under way, the lead inspector or the school can request that an inspection be paused for up to five days in exceptional circumstances.

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Headteachers remain concerned however. Executive principal Vic Goddard, of Educating Essex fame, posted on social media: “Knowing that the @ofsted call could come tomorrow for up to 4 of our schools certainly changes how I feel and not for the better. I’m an experienced and generally robust leader. It’s not right is it?”

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Keir Starmer has just started speaking at the Civil Society summit. You can watch that live here.

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Some of the content has already been trailed, including that he is planning to defend the National Trust and the RNLI, accusing the Conservatives of attacking them to stoke a “desperate” culture war.

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My colleague Kiran Stacey previewed this overnight, writing:

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“The Tories seem set on sabotaging civil society to save their own skins,” Starmer will say. “They got themselves so tangled up in culture wars of their own making, that instead of working with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – an organisation the late queen was patron of for 70 years – to find real solutions to stop the small boats, their rhetoric has helped demonise them.”

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“Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work. In its desperation to cling on to power, at all costs, the Tory party is trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.”

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In 2019, the RNLI was criticised by Conservative backbenchers for spending money on anti-drowning charities abroad. It then came under fire in 2021 from Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, who accused the institute of acting as a “taxi service for illegal immigration” because of its work helping distressed asylum seekers in the Channel.

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The National Trust, Britain’s largest charity, has been torn apart by an internal battle over its stance towards rewilding Britain’s countryside and how to depict the links between the properties it oversees and the UK’s colonial legacy.

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In 2022 a group headed by a Conservative donor and including two “anti-woke” historians launched an attempt to gain control of the charity, while the Tory MP Andrew Murrison set up a parliamentary group to “scrutinise” its work.

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The Post Office Horizon IT scandal has placed into sharper focus the number of bodies that can bring prosecutions, and the TV Licensing authority is one of them. Possibly not for much longer, if the words of the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, this morning carry any weight.

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She said it was not appropriate for the BBC to have “criminal tools in its armoury” to prosecute people for not paying their TV licence fee.

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Asked about a series of cases brought against people by TV licensing, PA Media reports Frazer told Times Radio: “I don’t think it’s appropriate for the BBC to have criminal tools in its armoury in relation to prosecutions.”

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She said she would look at the prosecutions in an upcoming review.

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During the morning media round the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, said she believed the BBC had “on occasion” been biased.

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She told Sky News that “evidence” suggested there was a “perception amongst audiences” that there was some bias at the BBC.

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Frazer said: “There are only perceptions and perceptions are important. What’s important about the BBC is that it’s funded by the public, so the perception of audiences of the public are important.”

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She added: “I think that on occasions it has been biased,” citing its reporting of a hospital attack in Gaza.

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The first test of Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda immigration policy in the House of Lords will come on Monday afternoon with a debate on a motion seeking to delay it.

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Monday’s debate will centre on a report by the Lords international agreements committee recommending parliament should not ratify the Rwanda treaty until ministers can show the country is safe.

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The government agreed the legally binding treaty with Kigali in December, saying it addressed concerns raised by the supreme court about the possibility of asylum seekers deported to Rwanda then being transferred to a country where they could be at risk.

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But the committee said promised safeguards in the agreement are “incomplete” and must be implemented before it can be endorsed.

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The treaty underpins the government’s safety of rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill which compels judges to regard Rwanda as safe.

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The motion in front of the Lords today is:

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This House resolves, in accordance with section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, that His Majesty’s Government should not ratify the UK-Rwanda Agreement on an Asylum Partnership until the protections it provides have been fully implemented, since parliament is being asked to make a judgement, based on the agreement, about whether Rwanda is safe.

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The bill is likely to receive its second reading in the Commons by the end of January, with a third reading possible around the middle of March.

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Good morning. Rishi Sunak’s immigration policy faces its next hurdle today as the House of Lords debates a motion seeking to delay the proposed new UK-Rwanda treaty. Sunak, who was appointed prime minister by Conservative MPs, and is yet to face an election as party leader, has made much of the fact that the Lords are unelected and are opposing a policy which he claims has broad public support. Voters appear to think differently, with a YouGov survey earlier this month suggesting a narrow majority is in favour of scrapping the plan altogether.

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Here are the headlines

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The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, has said she believes the BBC has “on occasion” been biased in the wake of a government report which recommends more oversight from Ofcom – including oversight of digital offerings such as the BBC News website.

Every vote counts – the Conservatives have hired a coordinator to get expat supporters to vote in the general election.

The UK’s fruit and flower growers face an “existential threat” from new post-Brexit border checks, the country’s biggest farming body has said.

Aberdeen suffered the worst growth in the UK over the last decade, with a study finding that the average UK person has lost out on £10,200 since 2010.

There is a “good chance” the UK may have fallen into technical recession.

On the NHS, figures show one in 20 patients in England wait at least four weeks to see a GP.

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In Westminster the Commons is sitting this afternoon, with oral questions on levelling up and then a debate on the second reading of the offshore petroleum licensing bill. The Lords, as mentioned, will be debating the proposed UK-Rwanda treaty. In Wales the Senedd has committee meetings. The Scottish parliament is not sitting.

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It is Martin Belam with you today. I will try to dip into the comments if I get the chance, but if you want to draw my attention to anything – especially if you spot an error or typo – it is best to email me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

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Key events

Monday Summary

Here’s a summary the day’s major developments in UK politics.

The House of Lords voted 214-171 to delay prime minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship UK-Rwanda immigration treaty over safety concerns, with the major setback likely to enrage right-wing Conservatives and put Sunak’s administration on the back foot again.
Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker attacked Sunak for ‘lecturing’ the Lords, saying peers are doing their ‘proper constitutional role’ to analyse the Rwanda treaty.
Liberal Democrat Lord Tim Razzell said the policy’s irony was that the deterrence intended by offshoring to ‘hell hole’ Rwanda is now stopping the scheme being viable.
But home officer minister, Conservative Baron Andrew Sharpe, replied this interpretation was ‘offensive,’ as he unsuccessfully urged Lords to back to bill to ‘stop the boats as soon as possible.’
After the vote, right-wing figures attacked the move. Nigel Farage weighed in, provocatively saying “We must sack all current members of the House of Lords.” It was unclear what constitutional mechanism he was referring to when claiming the lawmakers must be “sacked.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has described the government’s free childcare plan as being in “tatters,” after reports that staffing and IT problems were hampering the rollout.
Sunak spoke to US president Joe Biden, discussing the military and humanitarian situations in Gaza, the Red Sea and Ukraine after US-UK airstrikes in recent weeks.
The train drivers’ union Aslef will stand down its five days of additional strikes at LNER, after the state-owned operator withdrew plans to impose minimum service levels during next week’s industrial action.
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has asked to speak to Labour leader Keir Starmer about Westminster-Holyrood relations if Labour is to form a government.
Meanwhile, Starmer is keen to show he’s not up for ducking a fight from the Conservatives, in response to critics that he has run away from key battles so far, as his electoral strategy continues to evolve.

That’s all from me, Jem Bartholomew in London, and from the UK politics blog for today. Thanks for following the Guardian’s live coverage. See you next time.

Right-wingers attack Lords after delay to Rwanda scheme over safety concerns

Meanwhile, the UK Independence Party, which former-leader Farage left in 2018, said on X/Twitter: “ABOLISH THE HOUSE OF LORDS!”

More reaction to the government’s major setback on the Rwanda offshore immigration policy to come. But first, my colleagues Pippa Crerar and Patrick Butler have this great piece on Labour leader Keir Starmer’s evolving strategy – and willingness to fight. Read the full piece below.

In the coffee break after Keir Starmer’s speech on civil society on Monday, the mood among charity leaders was positive. Perhaps most of all they liked his defence of the National Trust and RNLI, beloved national charities that have, over the years, been demonised and demeaned by the right.

“It’s come to something when the Tories are at war with the National Trust,” the Labour leader had told them. “That’s what happens when politics of self-preservation prevail over commitment to service.”

His speech was also symbolic of a broader strategy from Starmer, who has been looking for opportunities to flip the narrative and show that he is not just ducking fights with the Tories to deny them electoral dividing lines, as some of his critics suggest.

This same strategy was on display earlier this month when he told reporters he was “up for the fight” of defending the “nanny state” as he announced plans to improve child health under a Labour government, including supervised toothbrushing in schools.

House of Lords kicks Rwanda offshore immigration treaty into long grass

In this way, the treaty debate has also became a proxy for disagreement over the makeup of Britain’s unwritten constitution.

Lords begin voting on UK-Rwanda treaty

“Voting is now open, clear the bar,” says the Lord Deputy Speaker, Baroness Garden.

And with that, peers go to cast their vote on whether to kick the prime minister’s landmark immigration policy into the long grass for further scrutiny…

The House of Lords this evening. Photograph: UK Parliament

Lord Peter Goldsmith, Labour, weighs in again and picks up the constitutional jostling – between the government and the Lords, itself a continuation of fighting between the government and the courts – in saying the chamber has a right to vote for further scrutiny of the treaty.

Some peers “seem to be suggesting there was something improper in asking this house to do what I’m asking you to do tonight,” he says.

“The power – not to delay the treaty, not to block the treaty, because we can’t do that, that’s very clear – what we can do is pass a resolution, if we so agree, a resolution that it should not be ratified at the moment. That’s all I’ve asked.”

“It’s not right to say that that’s improper. “

‘Offensive’ to say immigration plan based on Rwanda ‘hell hole’ deterrent – Home office minister

Defnding the government’s plan in the House of Lords a moment ago was Baron Andrew Sharpe, of Epsom, a Conservative and the home office parliamentary under-secretary of state.

“It is vital we stop the boats as soon as possible,” he went on.

“It was never about Rwanda, or any other partner country, being a ‘hell hole,’ as described by Lord Razzell, which I find quite offensive,” Sharpe said.

Moreover, Sharpe ended his speech with a dig at Labour: “This begs the question, is Labour using the House of Lords to try to frustrate our plan to stop the boats?”

In a moment of comedy, Sharpe sparked laughs in the upper chamber when, introducing his speech, the government minister said: “I recognise my time here is limited…”

Lords doing ‘proper constitutional role’ to analyse Rwanda treaty, says Labour frontbencher as he attacks Sunak ‘lecturing’

As the House of Lords debate on the Rwanda treaty continues, Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker attacks prime minister Rishi Sunak for his approach to the upper chamber.

The debate is, of course, about the specifics of the treaty and what it means for the UK’s place in the world, and responsibilities under international agreements.

But bubbling under the surface, it has also led to clashes over the dynamics of Britain’s unwritten constitution and the balance of powers across the machinery of government.

Coaker referenced Sunak’s presser earlier this week urging the Lords to enact the “will of the people,” interpreted by some critics as a means of leaning on the upper lawmaking chamber.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak spoke with US president Joe Biden on Monday, discussing geopolitical, military and humanitarian issues in the Red Sea, Gaza and Ukraine.

“They talked about what’s going on in the Red Sea and the need for a continued international multilateral approach to disrupting and degrading Houthi capabilities,” White House spokesman John Kirby told Reuters.

They also discussed bringing down civilian casualties and increasing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, as well as Ukraine war funding.

It came after the UK and US have taken part in joint airstrikes in recent weeks from warplanes, ships and submarines, hitting Houthi targets in Yemen in retaliation for attacks on shipping traffic.

The statements in the upper chamber in this evening’s debate on the UK-Rwanda treaty have so far swayed towards concern and alarm at the government’s plan, suggesting the House of Lords might choose to delay the bill in the soon-to-come vote.

But there have been voices who said they are in favour of passing the treaty as it stands.

Conservative Lord Richard Balfe, in his statement, attracted headlines for questioning whether anywhere in Africa is “particularly safe” and said he could not think of “any country in Africa that I would wish to go and live in. But maybe it is safe. We don’t know.”

He added: “We need to realise that the whole international migration system… has got out of hand.

“If we’re going to cure it, we’ve got to do it as a European entity”, he said, adding “we’ve got to start off by rebuilding the countries of the Middle East that we smashed to pieces”. But he said he wanted to “support the Government in its attempts – which probably won’t work – to deal with this problem”.

Meanwhile, away from the House of Lords, Money Saving Expert and personal finances guru Martin Lewis has written urging the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to fix rules around child benefit which “unfairly” penalise some families with a single income or one dominant earner.

Lewis pointed out “the unfairness in the way child benefit gains start being withdrawn depending solely on one parent/guardian’s income hitting £50,000 (and wiped at £60,000).”

“The high-income child benefit charge unfairly penalises single-income families,” Lewis said, first reported by PA Media.

Lord Alex Carlile, a crossbencher, puts his argument simply in the Lords: “At the moment, we have not proved to the requisite standard – and I would suggest it’s beyond reasonable doubt – that Rwanda is a safe country for a law founded on this treaty.”

Lord David Alton, of Liverpool, a crossbencher, invokes Winston Churchill in defending the international human rights framework he warns passing the current treaty would threaten.

“It was Winston Churchill who promoted so much that we now take for granted including the European Convention on Human Rights. He rightly believed that such international architecture, based on the rule of law, democracy, human rights, security and economic recovery, represented our best hope for the future.

He also says, “The government rightly insists that the criminal mafia like gangs, who make their fortunes by preying on the desperation and misery of the vulnerable, must be hunted down and jailed.”

But, he goes on, “the question today is simply whether we can honestly say that Rwanda is a safe country”; and it’s also about “the separation of powers between judiciary and parliament”, as Sunak tries to get around the Supreme Court’s unlawful ruling.

He raises concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record, political oppression and treatment of LGBT people.

Lord Tim Razzell, Liberal Democrat, provokes chuckles in the upper chamber as he argues the government’s immigration policy is based on an irony:

“If we go back to the beginning, the whole reason for the proposals to send people to Rwanda was because it was going to be such a hell hole that nobody will would want to get on a boat if they thought they were going to go to Rwanda.

“But of course, the dilemma that the government now faces, is because of the Supreme Court [striking it down in November for being potentially unsafe], they have to demonstrate what a wonderful, safe place Rwanda is. And I do wonder whether that might just be a moment for them to reflect on the purpose of their policy.”

He added that the policy is “a classic case of two and two adding up to make five.”

We’re an hour away from the scheduled vote on the treaty. Rishi Sunak will be hoping more peers take their feet to argue in favour of the treaty as the minutes tick down.

Speaking a moment ago in the Lords was Labour’s Baroness Ruth Lister, who is emphasising, among other things, the potential impact on vulnerable children if the treaty is rushed into existence.

For children arriving int he UK whose ages are in dispute, she says, “there is a very real possibility that they will be removed to Rwanda, and if subsequently found to be under 18, sent back to the UK in a cruel human pass-the-parcel, which is likely to be very distressing for children who almost certainly have gone through considerable trauma.”

This, Lister points out, would be in breach of the UK’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. She says it would be irresponsible to call for the ratification of the treaty now.

Summary of the day so far …

Rishi Sunak’s UK-Rwanda treaty faces its first hurdle in the House of Lords, as they debate a motion that suggests it should be delayed after a committee report. In just over an hour’s debate so far, all but a couple of people have spoken in favour of postponing ratification.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has described the government’s free childcare plan as being in “tatters” after reports that staffing and IT problems were hampering the rollout. Sunak admitted there were “some practical issues”, but Downing Street said the government remained “confident” of delivering the policy. Children, families and wellbeing minister David Johnston said in parliament that no parents would miss out.
Ofsted school inspections in England resume this week after a two-week pause to allow inspectors to undergo mental health awareness training.
More than 40 Conservative MPs – including seven former cabinet ministers, some with responsibility for local authority funding – have threatened Sunak with a fresh rebellion after writing to demand more funding for councils in England to avoid deep cuts to services.
Eleven Conservative MPs – including former ministers Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick – are reported to have been called in by government’s chief whip Simon Hart to explain themselves over last week’s rebellion against the Rwanda bill.
David Frost, the influential Conservative peer who has been criticised for claiming that rising global temperatures could be beneficial to the UK, is being appointed to a key parliamentary committee on the climate crisis.
The train drivers’ union Aslef will stand down its five days of additional strikes at LNER after the state-owned operator withdrew plans to impose minimum service levels during next week’s industrial action. It would have been the first test of enforcing “minimum service levels”.
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has written to Keir Starmer, inviting him to his official Edinburgh residence Bute House, to discuss how relations between the Scottish and UK governments might be improved in the event of Labour winning the next general election.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said his party has not yet reached an agreement with the government over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for today. I will be handing over to Jem Bartholomew.

Ben Quinn

David Frost, the influential Conservative peer who has been criticised for claiming that rising global temperatures could be beneficial to the UK, is being appointed to a key parliamentary committee on the climate crisis.

The appointment showed that “wacky, fringe views on climate” were no longer confined to the Tory party’s extremes, Labour said.

Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, will be appointed at the end of the month to the House of Lords select committee on environment and climate change.

The former diplomat, who became a peer in 2020, is also a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which opposes a number of net zero environmental policies and which is funded by wealthy Tory donors. He describes the foundation as an “educational charity in this area”.

Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, said Frost’s appointment showed that Sunak was trying to keep those seeking to oust him onside.

Read more of Ben Quinn’s report here: Peer who praised rising temperatures appointed to climate crisis committee

Here is part of what Lord Goldsmith said in the House of Lords about the UK-Rwanda treaty as the debate there opened:

In total our report identifies at least 10 sets of issues where on the basis of the government’s evidence significant additional legal and practical steps are needed in order to implement the protections the treaty is designed to provide. The difficulty is that the government has already presented a bill to parliament asking it to make a judgment that Rwanda is safe now.

And yet on the home secretary’s own evidence it cannot be so. because the measures are not in place and have not been shown to be effective. The treaty is held up by the government as the justification for the measures in the bill and yet the treaty cannot at present provide a basis for parliament to judge that Rwanda is safe while so many aspects of the treaty remain unimplemented and untested.

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Monday Summary

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House of Lords kicks Rwanda offshore immigration treaty into long grass

Lords begin voting on UK-Rwanda treaty

‘Offensive’ to say immigration plan based on Rwanda ‘hell hole’ deterrent – Home office minister

Lords doing ‘proper constitutional role’ to analyse Rwanda treaty, says Labour frontbencher as he attacks Sunak ‘lecturing’

Summary of the day so far …

FFH Editors

FFH Editors

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