Afternoon summary
The Home Office has been ordered to give parliament the “full and frank” costings of the scheme to deport migrants to Rwanda, after admitting projected initial spending had doubled to almost £300m. Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary of the Home Office, has been asked to attend the public accounts committee on Monday to explain the situation, after the initial costs of the scheme rose from £140m to £290m. The committee issued its summons to Rycroft after No 10 stressed that it was Suella Braverman, who was sacked as home secretary last month, who signed off an extra £100m payment to Rwanda earlier this year, not Rishi Sunak. (See 12.08pm.)
Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has said a court ruling saying the UK government was entitled to veto the Scottish parliament’s gender recognition (reform) bill shows devolution is “fundamentally flawed”. (See 2.49pm.)
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Home Office says Rwanda payments still being made under 'ministerial direction' because of doubts about value for money
In the House of Lords earlier two Labour peers, Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, asked the Home Office minister Lord Sharpe if the new payments to Rwanda revealed last night were being made under letters of direction – the process whereby senior civil servants can register that they are not sure a particular policy is value for money, and ministers have to say in writing it must happen anyway. Sharpe said he did not know the answer, but would reply in writing.
In fact, the Home Office revealed the answer last night. In his letter Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary, said all payments to Rwanda, including the £100m one this year and the £50m one scheduled for next year, “are covered by the ministerial direction of 16th April 2022”.
Rycroft was referring to the ministerial direction originally issued to enable the scheme to go ahead in the first place. Priti Patel, the then home secretary, had to issue one after Rycroft said he was not convinced the policy was cost effective. In his letter at the time Rycroft said:
I recognise that, despite the high cost of this policy, there are potentially significant savings to be realised from deterring people entering the UK illegally. Value for money of the policy is dependent on it being effective as a deterrent. Evidence of a deterrent effect is highly uncertain and cannot be quantified with sufficient certainty to provide me with the necessary level of assurance over value for money.
I do not believe sufficient evidence can be obtained to demonstrate that the policy will have a deterrent effect significant enough to make the policy value for money. This does not mean that the MEDP [migration and economic development partnership] cannot have the appropriate deterrent effect; just that there is not sufficient evidence for me to conclude that it will.
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Humza Yousaf says court ruling allowing veto of gender recognition bill shows devolution 'fundamentally flawed'
Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has said today’s court judgment saying the UK government was entitled to veto Scotland’s gender recognition (reform) bill shows the devolution settlement is “fundamentally flawed”. He gave his reaction in two posts on X.
🧵 Today's judgment confirms beyond doubt that devolution is fundamentally flawed. The Court has confirmed that legislation passed by a majority in Holyrood can be struck down by Westminster.
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) December 8, 2023
The only way to guarantee we get true self-government is through independence.
Today’s judgment confirms beyond doubt that devolution is fundamentally flawed. The Court has confirmed that legislation passed by a majority in Holyrood can be struck down by Westminster. The only way to guarantee we get true self-government is through independence.
This is a dark day for devolution. Sovereignty should lie with the people of Scotland, not a Westminster Government we didn’t vote for with the ability to overrule our laws. We, of course, respect the Court’s judgment and will take time to consider its findings.
The full 65-page judgment is here.
Lord Davies (Lab) suggests the government does not want the asylum claim backlog cleared quickly – because so many would be approved.
Sharpe says that is an interesting theory – but the government is clearing the backlog, he says.
Hilary Armstrong (Lab) says that, although Sharpe is saying the deterrent effect of the Rwanda policy is already working, because small boat crossings are down by a third, the PM has said that is due to the deal with Albania.
Sharpe says the Albania deal is part of government policy on this.
Sharpe says none of the money provided to Rwanda so far has come from the aid budget.
Rwanda deal costs so far only amount to 30 days of spending on hotels for asylum seekers in UK, peers told
Sharpe says payments made to Rwanda so far represent about 30 days of the amount being spent putting up asylum seekers in hotels in the UK.
He says if the plan succeeds, as he thinks it will, it will be good value for the taxpayers.
UPDATE: Sharpe said:
The simple fact of the matter is the daily cost of hotels for migrants is now £8 million. The cost of the UK’s asylum system has roughly doubled in the last year and it now stands at nearly £4bn.
So the payments made so far to Rwanda represent about 30 days of hotel costs.
Criminal smuggling gangs are continuing to turn a profit using small boats. We have to bring an end to this and when this plan succeeds, as I think it will, I think British taxpayers will acknowledge it actually represents good value for money.
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Lady Hayter (Lab) asks if the deal allows for money to be clawed back.
Sharpe says he does not know.
Lord Collins, the shadow deputy leader of the Lords, says the new Rwanda treaty has changed the nature of the scheme. He says ministers should disclose costs.
Sharpe says the permanent secretary at the Home Office has disclosed extra payments in his letter to the two select committee chairs.
The total spend so far is £240m, he says.
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Minister answers urgent question in Lords on payments to Rwanda
In the House of Lords Lord Sharpe, a Home Office minister, is answering a private notice question (the Lords equivalent of an urgent question) on payments to Rwanda.
He says no extra money was provided to Rwanda to go with the new treaty. And he says the precise costs for the deportation scheme will depend on how many people go to Rwanda.
He says sums payments under the economic partnership will be disclosed in the Home Office’s annual accounts.
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Dowden says government is 'four-square' behind Israel as it tackles threat from Hamas
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has said the government is “four-square” behind Israel in its efforts to remove the threat of Hamas.
Speaking alongside the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mervis, at a vigil in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, Dowden said:
I stand before you, not just as the deputy prime minister, nor as the member for Hertsmere, but also as a proud friend of Israel and a supporter of our Jewish community.
I want to say to you that the government stands four-square behind the central missions of Israel, of the Israel Defense Forces, of the Israeli government, namely, number one, to secure the release of every one of these hostages, and we will stand four-square until that is delivered.
But not only that, we must ensure that this cannot happen again, and that means, however difficult it is, we have to remove the threat of Hamas to stop it being able to do this to Israel again, and we stand four-square behind Israel in that mission as well.
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Archbishop of Canterbury calls for abolition of two-child cap on benefit payments
In the House of Lords this morning peers have been debating Love Matters, a report on families and households by a commission set up by the archbishops of Canterbury and York. Opening the debate, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, warned that the new family visa rules announced this week would have a “negative impact” on married and family relationships.
He said:
The government is rightly concerned with bringing down the legal migration figures and I’m not, you’ll be relieved to know, going into the politics of that. But there is a cost to be paid in terms of the negative impact this will have on married and family relationships for those who live and work and contribute to our life together, particularly in social care …
The state is useful to the family, the family is indispensable to the state. A lack of strong families undermines our whole society. Government needs families to work. They must not set a series of hurdles for them to jump over.
He also called for the removal of the two-child cap on benefit payments. He said:
The End Child Poverty campaign estimates removing the two-child limit will lift a quarter of a million children out of poverty.
The moral case is beyond any question, yet the unfair penalty applied to additional children affects their educational outcomes, mental and physical health, their likelihood to require public support from public services later on.
It is not a good policy. Will the government and the opposition, should they become the government at some point, consider removing the two-child limit and addressing other systems and policy choices which keep family in poverty?
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In normal circumstances it would not be surprising to hear a Conservative MP expressing support for the party leader, but with backbenchers muttering about a leadership challenge, Rishi Sunak will be glad of all the support he can get and so the Jonathan Gullis interview on Sky News a few minutes ago will probably go down well.
Gullis is one of the rightwingers pushing most strongly for a tougher Rwanda deportation policy. But, when asked if he would continue to support Sunak, he replied:
The prime minister will retain my confidence and I believe he should lead us into the next general election and that is unequivocal.
He also declined an invitation to criticise the extra £100m given to Rwanda, saying that he was not aware of the details of the negotiation with Rwanda and that he thought the deportation scheme would eventually prove value for money.
Scottish court rules UK government veto of gender recognition bill lawful
Here is Libby Brooks’ story about the court of sessions judgment saying the UK government’s veto of Scotland’s gender recognition reform bill was lawful.
No 10 has restated Rishi Sunak’s claim that his new Rwanda bill will only allow a very small number of people to challenge deportation orders – despite a report claiming lawyers have warned ministers that that is not the case. (See 10.33am.)
Asked about the Times story, and echoing the line used by the legal migration minister Tom Pursglove this morning, a No 10 spokesperson said:
We expect that [the number of those] able to provide compelling evidence about specific individual risks will be vanishingly narrow and that’s why we believe that this is the best approach to get flights swiftly off the ground.
The spokesperson also refused to say whether Pursglove’s comments about amendments to the bill this morning (see 10.03am) meant the government was willing to accept changes to its approach. Asked if ministers would compromise on the legislation, the spokesperson said:
There will be the usual processes and debate next week. I wouldn’t pre-empt that process.
But we’ll be setting out why we believe our approach is the best and swiftest way to get flights off the ground.
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No 10 confirms it will publish 'pack of evidence' next week to support its case Rwanda is safe
Ministers will publish a “pack of evidence” about conditions in Rwanda on Tuesday to support its case that it is a safe country for asylum seekers, Downing Street said this morning.
At the lobby briefing, a No 10 spokesperson said there would be evidence that “underpins and explains the work that we’ve been doing with Rwanda” published to coincide with the second reading of the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.
The main provision of the bill says that ministers, immigration officials and courts “must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”.
Last night, during a press conference in Washington, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said he had seen the evidence and found it persuasive. He said:
A bill has been published and will be introduced to the House of Commons and a pack of evidence about the true nature of what happens in Rwanda is being put together. I’ve seen that myself and I think it’s very convincing and will overcome the arguments put in the supreme court.
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The Scottish government has lost its legal challenge at the court of session in Edinburgh against the UK government’s decision to use the Scotland Act to block the Scottish parliament’s gender recognition (reform) bill. This is from the BBC’s James Cook.
BREAKING The Court of Session in Edinburgh has ruled that the UK Government acted lawfully when it blocked controversial gender reforms in Scotland. https://t.co/T1s45QA2ZN
— James Cook (@BBCJamesCook) December 8, 2023
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No 10 says Suella Braverman, not Rishi Sunak, signed off on extra £100m payment to Rwanda
Downing Street has signalled that Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, was responsible for the decision to approve an extra £100m payment to Rwanda this year.
At the lobby briefing this morning, asked who “signed off” the money, a No 10 spokesperson told journalists:
The home secretary. It is an operational decision to release funding under the MoU [memorandum of understanding].
And asked if the payment was “signed off” by Rishi Sunak, the spokesperson replied:
No. It’s part of the existing MoU [memorandum of understanding]. So it’s an operation decision for the home secretary to sign off. That’s the usual process.
The MoU with Rwanda was agreed in April 2022, when Priti Patel was the home secretary and the Rwanda partnership was first announced. No 10 said today that the original MoU made it clear that payments would go to Rwanda in addition to the original £140m. Last night, in his letter to two select committee chairs, Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, said a further payment of £100m was made to Rwanda under the deal in April.
As the BBC’s Chris Mason revealed this morning, No 10 and the Suella Braverman camp have been engaged in a briefing war, in effect blaming each other for the payment. (See 9.21am.)
The No 10 spokesperson did not criticise Braverman over the payment, or even mention her by name. But Downing Street does not always answer government process questions with such clarity.
Sunak sacked Braverman last month, and since then she has launched a series of bitter attacks on his record over immigration. It is widely assumed she wants to replace him as party leader.
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The government currently has a working majority of 56 and as yet no Conservative MPs are publicly saying they intend to vote against the Rwanda bill on Tuesday next week, and so at the moment the risk of government defeat seems extremely small.
But Tory MPs on both wings of the party – the rightwingers who want the government to ignore the European convention on human rights on migration policy, and “moderates” who fear the government has already gone too far – have concerns about it, and some of them may be more inclined to abstain than to vote against.
Stephen Hammond, a member of the “moderate” One Nation Caucus, told Times Radio that he would not decide whether or not to support the bill until Monday. He said:
I’m encouraged by some of my friends’ legal advice, which is that by leaving in section four of the Human Rights Act, that does overturn some of the more worrying aspects. But I think what I want to do, and what a lot of my friends want to do, is have the chance to look at it really carefully over the weekend and then make a decision on Monday.
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Minister to respond to private notice question in Lords on payments to Rwanda
The Commons is not sitting today, but the Lords is, and Labour has been granted a private notice question (the Lords equivalent of a Commons urgent question) on the costs of the Rwanda deportation policy. It has been tabled by Lord Collins of Highbury, the shadow deputy leader of the Lords, and it will be taken at about 12.30pm.
A minister will respond.
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As Kiran Stacey and Pippa Crerar report, some Conservative MPs have criticised the party’s HQ for running a social media advert showing a picture of a BBC presenter making a rude gesture.
In his Today programme interview this morning, Tom Pursglove, the legal migration minister, defended the post. Asked about the controversy, he told the programme:
I’ve not spent an awful amount of time on Twitter in the last 24 hours as you’ll imagine, having just been appointed yesterday and trying to immerse myself in all of the detail. But the bottom line is it does highlight the fact that the Labour party doesn’t have a credible alternative?
The DUP has played down suggestions that it is close to an agreement that would see it lift its boycott of power sharing at Stormont. The Northern Ireland assembly has not been sitting, and there has been no power-sharing executive, as a result of the boycott, which started in 2022. The DUP is protesting against the post-Brexit trading rules set out in the Northern Ireland protocol, and amended by the Windsor framework.
As PA Media reports, speculation has been growing in recent weeks that the DUP could be closing in on an agreement with the UK government that could restore the assembly at Stormont. The Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said negotiations were in their “final, final phase”.
But Gavin Robinson, the DUP’s deputy leader, told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme this morning:
Jeffrey Donaldson [the DUP leader] said a number of weeks ago that we will not be calendar-led.
The issues that we are raising with the government have been long in fruition.
It is a matter for the government whether they are prepared to recognise the harm that they caused to Northern Ireland, recognise that the Windsor framework was significant progress in that endeavour, but there is still more work to be done.
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Pursglove says new Rwanda bill 'robust', playing down reports lawyers have warned it contains signficant loophole
At his press conference yesterday Rishi Sunak said that under the new Rwanda bill successful legal challenges against deportation will be “vanishingly rare” because the bill is so tightly drafted.
This morning the Times has splashed on a story saying some lawyers have told the government that that is not true. In their story Matt Dathan and Steven Swinford report:
The Times has been told that Downing Street was warned by two senior lawyers that the scheme risked failure because it would continue to allow migrants to lodge challenges against their individual removal to Rwanda. Legal advice from a senior government lawyer said “the scheme would be seriously impeded” if the bill did not include a so-called “ouster clause” that barred individual legal challenges.
Separate external legal counsel that was sought by the government warned that the failure to bar individual challenges “is inconsistent with the intellectual underpinning of the bill and also would provide an easy way for many applicants to avoid the effects of the bill”.
Friday’s TIMES: “Rwanda plan risks failing, top lawyers warned PM” #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/lnGwkW83Yh
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) December 7, 2023
Asked about this story, Tom Pursglove, the new legal migration minister, played down suggestions it contains a signficant loophole, saying the law was “robust”. He said:
The legislation closes off so many of the grounds that people have come forward with in raising claims about being sent to Rwanda previously. We believe that this is robust …
I believe that this will do the job. The prime minister has said that we will do whatever is necessary in order to make this work. This is an important step in doing that.
When Rishi Sunak said that the government would respond to the supreme court judgment on Rwanda with a bill saying the country was safe, he described it as emergency legislation. But that is a term normally applied when the government passes a bill within days. It has taken the Home Office almost a month to produce a bill and the government has not even committed to trying to get it through the Commons before Christmas.
Yesterday Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, told MPs the second reading would take place on Tuesday. But she did not say when the remaining stages of the bill would be debated, and she did not mention them when she listed what MPs would be doing on the days leading up to the start of the Christmas recess.
In interviews this morning, Tom Pursglove, the legal migration minister, was unable to say when the bill would clear parliament. Asked about this, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
You’ve got to have consideration in both houses of parliament and that does take some time.
The whips and the leader of the house will come forward in terms of setting out a timetable by which we will seek to do this.
I want to see this legislation delivered as quickly as possible.
The Times is reporting this morning that Sunak has decided to delay the key votes on the bill in the Commons (the report stage votes on amendments) until the new year “to give him more time to win support for his legislation”.
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Pursglove suggests government could accept changes to Rwanda bill
Tom Pursglove, the new minister for legal migration, was trying to play down suggestions that the Conservative party is tearing itself apart over the Rwanda policy in his interviews this morning. He told the Today programme that there was “a unity of purpose on the Conservative benches in parliament” over the need to address the issue.
But he did suggest that the government might accept amendments to the safety of Rwanda (immigration and asylum) bill, which is getting its second reading on Tuesday. Yesterday Rishi Sunak suggested that if he were to move “an inch” in the direction of making it tougher, Rwanda would withdraw support for the policy.
But when Pursglove was asked on Sky News if the government would accept amendments to the bill, he did not say no. He replied:
There will be parliamentary debates, there will be opportunities for people to bring amendments, the house will consider them in the normal way and as ministers we will engage constructively with parliamentarians around any concerns that they have, and handle that in the way that we would any other piece of legislation.
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The Liberal Democrats have described the Rwanda deportation policy as an “unforgivable waste of public money” in the light of the new revelations about how much it is costing. This is from Alistair Carmichael, the party’s home affairs spokesperson.
The fact that this government is content to squander millions on this totally unworkable white elephant of a policy tells you everything you need to know about their priorities.
Three home secretaries and millions of taxpayers’ pounds later, the Conservatives have nothing to show for their failing Rwanda policy. It’s an unforgivable waste of taxpayers’ money – and to think this could have paid for more than 5m GP appointments just puts salt in the wound.
It’s time for the Conservatives to accept reality and abandon this impractical, inhumane and extortionately expensive policy.
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Public accounts committee chair accuses Home Office of using 'cloak and dagger' tactics over Rwanda costs
The Home Office only disclosed the full costs of the Rwanda deal in response to pressure from Commons committees. Last week Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary, told the home affairs committee that the figures would not be published until next year.
This morning Meg Hillier, the chair of the public accounts committee, accused the government of “cloak and dagger” tactics. She told the Today programme:
We’re very concerned that at each step of the way, as a change is proposed [to the Rwanda policy], we have no detailed information about what’s happening … It’s unconscionable that MPs would be expected to vote on this without understanding fully what the costs are so far, what they are expected to deliver and what the costs are going forward.
Emily Dugan has more on what Hillier said here.
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Legal migration minister Tom Pursglove defends extra payment to Rwanda, taking total cost of plan to £290m
Good morning. Rishi Sunak is still struggling to persuade his party to back his new Rwanda deportation bill, and at his press conference yesterday he was trying to focus attention instead on Labour, criticising it for not backing legislation he claimed was in line with “the values of the British people”. When the policy was first announced last year, Labour did not immediately commit to scrapping the policy. But it did, over time, harden its opposition to the policy. It has said it will vote against the new bill on Tuesday, and last night the Home Office made an announcement that must strengthen Labour’s case considerably.
Until yesterday the price tag for the Rwanda policy was £140m – £120m of which was going on the economic development part of the Rwanda deal, and £20m to fund setting up the facilities that would allow the country to house asylum seekers from the UK. But last night, in a letter to the chairs of the home affairs committee and the public accounts committee, which have been asking for information about the full costs, Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, revealed that another £100m has been paid this year, and £50m more is due to be handed over next year. That will take the total cost of the scheme to £290m by 2025 – even though not a single asylum seeker has been flown to the country, and there is still considerable doubt as to whether any will.
Commenting on the revelation last night, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said:
This is just incredible. The Tories have wasted an astronomical £290m of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.
How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?
Britain simply can’t afford more of this costly chaos from the Conservatives.
Tom Pursglove, the new minister for legal migration at the Home Office, has been doing an interview round this morning and he defended the payments. He told Times Radio:
We’ve always been clear that this is an economic and migration partnership. We want to support economic development in Rwanda. And of course, there are quite understandably obligations on us to work with Rwanda to make sure that all of the right infrastructure to support the partnership is in place.
But a more telling indication of how this is seen in government came from the BBC’s Chris Mason revealing on the Today programme this morning that Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, seem to be blaming each other for the payments. He said that No 10 sources are saying Braverman signed off on the payments, although Sunak knew about them, and that sources close to Braverman are saying it was the PM who approved the payments.
In reality, they were both responsible. The Home Office paid the money, with No 10 approval. If they are trying to pretend otherwise, MPs won’t find that convincing.
I will post more from the Pursglove interviews, and more on the Rwanda crisis, shortly.
Otherwise, it may be a quiet day. There is a No 10 lobby briefing at 11.30am, and we are due to get the judgment from the court of session in Edinburgh on whether it was lawful for the UK government to use the Scotland Act to block the Scottish parliament’s gender recognition (reform) bill.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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