Rishi Sunak has said his “plan is working” to realise a re-election pledge on stopping small boat crossings of the Channel, as a former Tory home secretary said key pillars of flagship legislation on migration had been “abandoned”.
The prime minister was reacting en route to the Nato summit in Luthuania after ministers were forced on Monday night to offer rebel Conservative MPs concessions on the illegal migration bill amid growing concern it would fail to pass through the Commons.
After figures at the weekend showed more than 1,300 people had crossed the Channel in small boats over three days, with the Home Office on Friday recording highest daily figure so far this year, Sunak also said he had previously “said very deliberately that crossings would increase over the summer”.
“I wasn’t hiding that fact. I fully expected crossings to rise over the Summer. I said that at the time, very clearly. But I do think the plan is working,” he told journalists in Vilnius.
Sunak added that the government was making progress on all other aspects of its plan to realise his pledge to “stop the boats”, by reducing a backlog in asylum applications by almost a fifth.
“We’re making progress on accommodation as well, finding migrant barges as alternatives to house people, also large sites … on all those different measures, we’re making progress.
“I always said it would be a difficult problem to fix. I always said it would take time. The bill is an important part of that and as you know it is making its progress through parliament,” he said.
However, pressure continued to come from the government backbenches as the former home secretary Priti Patel tweeted: “We were told that the illegal migration bill would ‘stop the boats’. Key pillars of that bill have now been abandoned.”
She also said her former department was now spending £500,000 a day on 5,000 empty hotel beds as a buffer for higher than expected numbers of people crossing the Channel.
Officials told the Commons public accounts committee the Home Office maintains the buffer in an attempt to avoid a repeat of problems at the Manston processing centre in Kent.
Patel’s comments came as Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, was challenged before a key vote in parliament this evening after the government changed its illegal migration bill to limit detention periods for children and pregnant women. MPs will vote later on 20 changes backed by the Lords.
Ministers have been forced to offer rebel Conservative MPs concessions on the bill amid growing concern that it would fail to pass through the Commons.
The government has dropped nearly all of the retrospective applications of the bill’s measures – a move that means Suella Braverman will no longer be obliged to deport thousands of asylum seekers who arrive in the UK this summer to a third country such as Rwanda.
Ministers will also limit plans to detain children and pregnant women who arrive in the UK on small boats. They have not offered any specific compromises to protect victims of modern slavery, as previously demanded by MPs including Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith.
On another central plank of the government’s plans, Stride predicted it would get the “right result” at the supreme court after a majority of appeal judges ruled this month that plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their applications processed were unlawful.
Asked if there was a plan B, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think that’s going to happen. At the court of appeal, the lead judge was in favour of the government’s decision.
“But we have had the opportunity now to address some of the issues that may have been of concern to other judges. It will now go to the supreme court and I suspect it will go through with the right result from the government’s point of view.”
