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Peers in the House of Lords have inflicted three defeats on Rishi Sunak’s Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill by backing three amendments
The amendments included a clause that Parliament cannot declare Rwanda to be a safe country until the treaty with its promised safeguards, is fully implemented.
The vote is likely to start a back and forth process between the Commons and the Lords over the bill.
However, it is unlikely the Lords will be able to end the plan altogether as this back and forth can only happen three times before the Government has a chance to invoke the Parliament Act and override the Upper House.
Sunak’s bill was defeated in the House of Lords earlier todayParliamenttiv/ReutersThe first amendment supported by 274 peers to 172 demanded the “Act is fully compliant with the rule of law while maintaining full compliance with international and domestic law.”
The second amendment backed by 282 to 180, majority 102, demanded that Parliament cannot declare Rwanda to be a safe country until the treaty with its promised safeguards, is fully implemented.
Lastly, the third amendment voted by 277 votes to 167, majority 110, in favour of establishing a monitoring mechanism able to determine whether the safeguards in the UK-Rwanda Treaty have been, and continue to be, fully implemented.
A No 10 spokesperson told reporters: “The PM is clear that the Rwanda Bill as drafted is the right bill. That is the bill that will allow us to get flights off to Rwanda. It’s the toughest piece of illegal migration legislation ever introduced. And it closes down all but the narrowest possible grounds for appeals, giving us confidence that we can deliver flights off the ground.
“And we look forward to the Lords looking at the bill carefully, and working with the Government to ensure that we can protect innocent lives from perilous journeys across the channel.”
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Prime minister Rishi Sunak
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Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has said the proposed Rwanda legislation was “fundamentally incompatible” with the UK’s human rights obligations and would flout international law.
Separately, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has warned the Bill risks the UK breaching its obligations under international law.
But Downing Street has said the Government remains committed to sending flights to Rwanda “in the spring”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, pointed out international human rights law had grown out of the horrors committed by Nazi Germany, where in 1933 a government that “had been legally and properly elected, passed horrific laws that did terrible things.”
He added: “We are not in any situation remotely like that, let’s be clear. The Government is not doing something on the scale of what we saw at that stage.
“But 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.”
Meanwhile, Tory peer Lord Tugendhat, whose nephew is security minister Tom Tugendhat, accused the Government of behaving like the ruling party in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, in its move to legislate that Rwanda was safe.
He said: “If this Bill goes onto the statute book in its present form, Rwanda will be a safe country regardless of reality until the statute is repealed.”
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