Rishi Sunak dealt heavy blow as House of Lords rips up his desperate Rwanda Bill

04 March 2024 , 18:11

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Rishi Sunak is desperately trying to force his Safety of Rwanda Bill through (Image: PA)

Rishi Sunak has been dealt a series of heavy blows in his bid to get flights to Rwanda off the ground as the House of Lords tore into his latest Bill.

Senior Tories including former Home Secretary Ken Clarke were among the peers who savaged his desperate bid to overturn a Supreme Court ruling. Lords overwhelmingly called for ministers to be bound by domestic and international law - which would effectively torpedo the plan. They also demanded the legislation is delayed until Rwanda brings in all the measures it promised - which would end Mr Sunak's hopes of getting it operational in the spring.

The uncle of Home Office minister Tom Tugendhat quoted Margaret Thatcher as he lambasted the Safety of Rwanda Bill - saying the Iron Lady would hate it. The Bill seeks to declare the African nation is a safe place to send asylum seekers to - even though the Supreme Court found it's not.

Peers voted by 274 to 174 for the Bill to be changed to force the Government to maintain "full compliance" with UK and international law. The Government wants to stop courts being able to stop asylum seekers being sent to Rwanda.

Home Secretary James Cleverly and Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta sign a new treaty (PA Wire/PA Images)

They also voted for the scheme to be delayed until a Treaty agreed with the Rwandan Government is fully implemented. This could take months - meaning the Government's attempts to get flights in the air by spring would be doomed.

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And in a third defeat for the Government, peers demanded a monitoring process to ensure whether the Treaty terms were being met. And they also voted by 258 to 171 for courts to be allowed to make a fresh ruling if "credible evidence" comes to light suggesting Rwanda isn't safe.

Lord Christopher Tugendhat said Mrs Thatcher would have been appalled by the Government's efforts to overturn the Supreme Court ruling. He told the Lords: "I think we should take our cue from what Margaret Thatcher told the House of Commons on 17 July 1984 when a judge had held that a decision her Government had made was illegal.

"'I rightly can't overturn the decision to a court and I wouldn't wish to do so,' she said. Then she went on: 'At the end of the judicial process Governments of course accept the court's final ruling, that's what the rule of law is all about.'"

He accused ministers of acting like the ruling party in George Orwell's bleak novel 1984. He said: "This country is no dictatorship, it is a democracy. Nevertheless in this Bill it is seeking to achieve by Act of Parliament what in 1984 the ruling party and its apparatchiks sought to achieve by torture."

Another Thatcher-era Tory who lashed out at the Bill was former party chairman Lord Deben, who said: "My problem is very fundamentally this - I hope in all my years as a minister and as a Member of Parliament I never told a public lie.

"I'm being asked here to tell a lie because the Government is telling us that Rwanda isn't a safe place at the moment but it's going to be. They're asking us to say that Rwanda is safe now."

And former Tory Home Secretary Ken Clarke - who has previously criticised the Bill - reiterated his hope that the Bill is struck down by the Supreme Court if there's a legal challenge.

Meanwhile the Archbishop of Canterbury told the House of Lords: "The Government is challenging the right of international law to constrain our actions. And the point of international law is to stop Governments going ahead with things that are wrong."

Dave Burke