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MPs rejected proposed changes on Monday to Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda asylum bill made by the House of Lords, as the UK prime minister sought to blame delays in sending migrants to the east African country on critics “trying to block us”.
The House of Commons is expected to vote down 10 amendments to the asylum bill that were approved by peers when they scrutinised the legislation this month.
The first amendment overturned by MPs on Monday evening, by 328 votes to 250, had sought to insert a clause requiring the legislation to be in “full compliance with domestic and international law”.
The government suffered a setback to its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda last year when the Supreme Court ruled the policy was unlawful because it found a real risk that people could be sent back to their country of origin and their safety jeopardised.
Sunak aimed to counter the ruling by upgrading an agreement about the plan between London and Kigali into a treaty. The Rwandan government committed to never sending any asylum seeker back to the country they had originally come from.
He also promised legislation that declared Rwanda to be a safe country and disapplied parts of human rights law that could leave removal decisions open to legal challenge.
A second amendment by the Lords to the asylum bill, also overturned by MPs on Monday, had sought to ensure parliament could not treat Rwanda as a safe country until all safeguards set out in the treaty were shown to have been fully implemented.
Sunak has made curbing the arrival in the UK of asylum seekers on small boats across the English Channel a test against which voters should judge him at the general election expected in the autumn.
He has argued that his plan to remove hundreds of people to Rwanda will have a significant deterrent effect.
With the Conservatives trailing Labour by about 20 percentage points in opinion polls, and with rumours of a challenge to his leadership, the prime minister regards the start of flights carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda in the next two months as crucial to his electoral fortunes.
The prime minister told ITV News the government was aiming “to get a flight off in the spring” but “everyone is trying to block us, including the Labour party”.
Senior Labour officials believe Sunak is potentially holding back from pushing the Rwanda legislation through the Commons before the Easter break so that he can then blame delays on resistance from the main opposition party.
A spokesperson for the Rwandan government said it was still working to implement many parts of the treaty signed in December.
Kigali is in the final stages of passing a new asylum law, but it is still recruiting a monitoring committee to assess decisions on claims, as well as hiring independent experts as advisers.
The Rwandan government has called on the UK to stagger sending migrants once Sunak’s asylum bill becomes law in order to ensure adequate processing capacity.
The Home Office has identified a cohort of about 150 people for the first tranche of removals and plans to contact them once the bill has reached the statute book, according to a person briefed on the plans.
If all 10 of the Lords’ amendments are voted down by MPs on Monday evening, the bill will return to the upper chamber on Wednesday, where it is likely to face renewed opposition and further potential amendments.
The legislation will then return to the Commons either later this week or after the Easter break before receiving royal assent.
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