The number of people travelling by small boat to seek asylum in the UK hit a new daily high for 2024 at the weekend, figures show, as Rishi Sunak braces for a fresh round of parliamentary wrangling over the Rwanda deportation bill.
Unions and charities are preparing to mount legal challenges if the bill, which is meant to “stop the boats”, passes into law this week.
Official Home Office data shows 534 people were detected making the Channel crossing by small boat on Sunday, after 214 travelled on Saturday. It means about 6,000 people have made the journey so far this year, with more than 75,000 arrivals recorded two years on from the Rwanda deal being signed.
The deal will cost UK taxpayers about £1.8m for each asylum seeker, according to Whitehall’s official auditor, although no one has so far been deported.
The safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill will be back in the Commons on Monday as the government seeks to overturn changes made in the Lords. It is expected to be sent back to the Lords on Tuesday and could then be returned to the Commons again.
Ministers will seek to strip out changes made by peers who want extra legal safeguards, including a provision to ensure “due regard” for domestic and international law.
Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, suggested on Sunday the Home Office would be “ready to go” in implementing the plan once the bill entered the statute books.
The legislation seeks to revive the government’s plan to send some asylum seekers on one-way flights to Kigali. The scheme has faced a series of setbacks since it was announced two years ago by the then prime minister, Boris Johnson. It declares the east African country safe after the policy was grounded by the supreme court ruling it unlawful.
Government insiders remain confident the bill will pass by the end of this week after another round of parliamentary ping pong between the Commons and Lords.
Labour has indicated it will not block the bill, with local elections looming and the government hoping for a confrontation over the scheme. However, a group of Labour and crossbench peers are expected to send the bill back to the Commons again.
The Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme her amendment “restores the jurisdiction of domestic courts who are defenestrated by this bill” and detailed other amendments including exemptions for victims of modern slavery and human trafficking and for people who “put themselves in harm’s way overseas serving the British crown”.
The charity Care4Calais, which helped block flights to Rwanda last year, said it had recruited volunteers to identify people who were due to be removed to the east-central African country. It intends to offer legal support to asylum seekers to try to keep them in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Times reported on Monday that Britain had also approached countries including Costa Rica, Armenia, Ivory Coast and Botswana in an effort to replicate the scheme. Sources said the claims were accurate but referred to talks that took place last year.
Sunak gave the Home Office and Foreign Office a deadline of last autumn to secure two additional deals, according to the paper.
A government spokesperson said Britain was “continuing to work with a range of international partners to tackle global illegal migration challenges”. They said: “Our focus right now is passing the safety of Rwanda bill, which builds on the Illegal Migration Act, and putting plans in place to get flights off the ground as soon as possible.”
