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Rishi Sunak’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has finally passed through parliament after a crunch vote in the Commons.
MPs passed the Rwanda Bill in the early hours of Monday morning after hours of debate and months of political ‘ping pong’ over the highly controversial proposals.
The prime minister admitted that he has missed his initial deadline to get deportation flights in the air by spring, but in a surprise press conference yesterday he said an airfield is on standby and the first planes are booked to take off in the next 10 to 12 weeks.
The legislation has been passed between the House of Commons and the Lords multiple times, with the Conservatives losing some crucial votes and amendments throughout the lengthy process.
Peers repeatedly blocked the Bill with a series of amendments, stretching the debate on the ’emergency legislation’ over more than four months and delaying flights taking people to Rwanda.
The government had vowed to keep parliament sitting as late as necessary to try and pass the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
Rishi hopes the plans will stop small boats crossing the Channel (Picture: PA)
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Both MPs and Peers burned the midnight oil as they sent the legislation between the House of Commons and the House of Lords – and not even a brief power cut in the Lords stopped the debate from raging on.
The Lords had been engaged in an extended tussle over the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, sending it back to the Commons five times in a bid to secure changes.
But they ended the deadlock after MPs rejected a requirement that Rwanda could not be treated as safe until the secretary of state, having consulted an independent monitoring body, made a statement to parliament to that effect.
The government said the Lords amendment was ‘almost identical’ to the previous ones overturned by MPs.
Earlier in the Lords, the opposition did not press its demand for the bill to include an exemption from removal for Afghan nationals who assisted British troops after what critics hailed as a concession.
A Home Office minister said the government will not send those who are eligible under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) to Rwanda.
When will flights take off for Rwanda?
When will Rwanda flights take off?
The first plane carrying asylum seekers could depart in July, after Mr Sunak acknowledged it could still take 10 to 12 weeks to get flights off the ground.
This would be more than two years since the first flight ever attempted under the deal was grounded amid last-minute legal challenges.
The Prime Minister did not confirm an exact date during his Downing Street press conference on Monday.
Ministers and officials had previously repeatedly stressed their intention to get planes off the runway ‘in the spring’ and ‘as soon as possible’ – with Treasury minister Laura Trott even saying there were ‘many definitions of spring’.
Scheduling flights is likely to take some time due to the steps officials must follow including serving notice on migrants they intend to remove from the UK.
Could there be more delays?
Yes, there is a chance of this happening.
Campaigners opposing the plans, and individual migrants who are told they are to be sent to Rwanda could take the government to court.
Whether any legal challenges could be successful in the light of the new laws remains to be seen.
Flights will also depend on there being an aircraft available to transport migrants in the wake of difficulties finding an airline willing to charter flights.
But Mr Sunak said an airfield is ‘on stand-by’ and commercial charter planes have been booked ‘for specific slots’.
Meanwhile UN experts have raised concerns about the role of airlines and aviation authorities in facilitating the removals.
How much is this all costing?
The cost of the troubled scheme could soar to half a billion pounds, plus hundreds of thousands more for each person deported, an investigation by Whitehall’s spending watchdog found.
The government refused to say how much more money, on top of the £290 million already confirmed, the UK had agreed to pay Rwanda under the deal, but a National Audit Office report revealed millions more in spending including £11,000 for each migrant’s plane ticket.
Last week, the Home Office’s most senior civil servant, permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft, said officials were seeking a drop in migrant Channel crossings of about 10,000 people to consider the Rwanda scheme value for money.
Will Rwanda flights curb Channel crossings and see Sunak meet his pledge to ‘stop the boats’?
No-one knows.
There would need to be significant reduction in Channel crossings for the flights to be officially assessed as succeeding in having their desired deterrent effect.
But Mr Sunak has categorically promised to put an end to crossings altogether with his clear ‘stop the boats’ catchphrase, and has routinely pointed to the Rwanda plan to achieve this, describing it as an ‘indispensable deterrent’.
Home Secretary James Cleverly went a step further, setting himself a target of meeting the pledge by the end of this year – a deadline Downing Street later refused to repeat.
Sunday, April 14 saw the busiest day for Channel crossings so far this year after 534 migrants were recorded making the journey.
In 2024 to date, 6,265 people have arrived in the UK after making on the crossing – 28% higher than this time last year (4,899) and 7% higher than the 5,828 at this point in 2022.
It’s thought 75,629 migrants have made the journey since then home secretary Priti Patel signed what she called a ‘world-first’ agreement in Rwanda’s capital Kigali on April 14, 2022, with 43,328 taking place since Rishi Sunak became PM six months later.
Could this pave the way for other Rwanda-style deals?
Not yet but the Government is exploring other options.
Britain reportedly approached countries including Costa Rica, Armenia, Ivory Coast and Botswana a bid to replicate the Rwanda scheme after Mr Sunak gave the Home Office and Foreign Office a deadline of last autumn to secure two additional deals, according to The Times.
But only a ‘tiny number’ of countries would be suitable for a Rwanda-style deal.
Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves appeared to rule this out in a post on social media which suggested the UK had been told his country will not receive any migrants.
Rishi Sunak believes the legislation – branded ‘dangerous and ‘authoritarian’ by Human Rights Watch – is vital to his plan to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel.
Denisa Delić, director of advocacy at International Rescue Committee UK, said: ‘Irrespective of today’s passage of the Safety of Rwanda Bill, sending refugees to Rwanda is an ineffective, unnecessarily cruel and costly approach.
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‘Rather than outsourcing its responsibilities under international law, we urge the government to abandon this misguided plan and instead focus on delivering a more humane and orderly immigration system at home.
‘This includes scaling up safe routes, such as resettlement and family reunion, and upholding the right to seek asylum.
‘Sending refugees to Rwanda, or anywhere else, will never be an effective solution.’
This is a developing news story, more to follow soon… Check back shortly for further updates.
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