Conservative opposition to plans to send asylum seekers for processing in Rwanda is likely to be led by a small but vehement group of peers and MPs who have already criticised outsourcing the issue overseas.
The House of Lords has now twice amended the nationality and borders bill to block the idea of non-UK processing for asylum claims. However, these government defeats were largely caused by Tory members staying away, giving opposition and crossbench peers a majority.
When the idea was rejected by peers for a second time earlier this month, only one Conservative actively voted for an amendment to block overseas outsourcing – the former party chair and consistent government critic Sayeeda Warsi.
Similarly, when the initial Lords defeat was overturned by the Commons last month, just three Conservative MPs voted against the government – Andrew Mitchell, David Davis and Simon Hoare.
Mitchell, the former international development secretary, said on Thursday that he had severe doubts about the Rwanda proposals.
“MPs from across the house have already expressed concerns about adopting a policy which Australia abandoned as a failure,” he said. “But this new approach seems to be globally unprecedented and MPs will understandably want to have questions answered about how this is going to work and how much it is going to cost.
“How will human rights be protected? How will asylum seekers be able to make claims via safe and legal routes? How long will this arrangement last? How many people will be subjected to this new policy?”
Warsi was more damning still, saying the policy was “inhumane and shames our proud history as advocates of human rights and the refugee convention”. The timing of the announcement was “cynical and political”, she added.
The nationality and borders bill will be considered by the Commons again, most likely next week. With parliament due to be prorogued soon afterwards before the Queen’s speech on 10 May, it faces a tight timetable, and it cannot be carried over to the next parliamentary session.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, and Andrew Griffith, the Tory MP who heads the No 10 policy unit, argued on Thursday that the Rwanda plan could go ahead even without the bill. “My understanding is that this policy can come in immediately,” Griffith told the BBC. “It doesn’t depend on the bill. It’s an agreement that the home secretary is signing today.”
While it would be at least a symbolic defeat for ministers if the bill fell, Timothy Kirkhope, a Tory peer who was immigration minister under John Major and who has helped lead opposition in the Lords to overseas processing, said peers were likely to give way.
“I think we have to make the assumption that this legislation will go through,” he said. “There will be a lot more remonstrations, but ultimately we have to concede to the elected house.”
Kirkhope said that as immigration minister he had examined the issue of offshore processing and rejected it. “It’s impractical, it’s extremely expensive, and it’s subject to legal challenge, including under international law, because I think it is absolutely against the principles of the refugee convention.”
His view was echoed by the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), a free-market thinktank that is generally viewed as Conservative-leaning.
Emily Fielder, of the ASI, said: “The inhumanity of this policy aside, it will neither deter asylum seekers from crossing the Channel, nor will it cost the government less. Rather than throwing out ineffective red-meat policies, which will cost the British taxpayer millions of pounds, the Home Office should work more constructively with European partners, and focus on evidence-based solutions to reducing dangerous asylum-seeker crossings.”
