Closing summary
Rishi Sunak is engaged in a desperate lobbying push to persuade Conservative MPs to back his Rwanda bill as he hopes to avoid a defeat which could fatally undermine his authority. The prime minister will host an emergency breakfast in Downing Street with members of the rightwing New Conservative group of backbenchers on Tuesday in an effort to reassure wavering Tory MPs.
The New Conservatives group are demanding “major surgery” or “replacement” of the government’s Rwanda bill. In a statement read out on Sky News, the group said more than 40 Tory MPs met in Richmond House, Westminster, to discuss the legislation. They added: “Every member of that discussion said that the bill needs major surgery or replacement and they will be making that plain in the morning to the prime minister at breakfast and over the next 24 hours.”
Sky News is reporting that the group is split over how to vote on the bill tomorrow, with some wanting to abstain while others wish to vote against. Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former home secretary Suella Braverman were among those attending the meeting in backbencher Danny Kruger’s office, alongside senior MPs Simon Clarke and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
However, the One Nation Tory MPs will vote for prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda legislation on Tuesday, the group said. Damian Green, speaking to reporters after the One Nation group meeting, warned that the government must “stick to its guns” on the current iteration of the Rwanda legislation. “We support the bill unamended, but if anyone brings forward any amendments that breach our international obligations or breach the rule of law, we vote against those amendments at future stages. “We will vote with the government tomorrow, but we want the government to stick to its guns and stick to the text of this bill,” he said.
Damian Green, speaking to reporters after the One Nation group meeting, warned that the government must “stick to its guns” on the current iteration of the Rwanda legislation. “We support the bill unamended, but if anyone brings forward any amendments that breach our international obligations or breach the rule of law, we vote against those amendments at future stages. “We will vote with the government tomorrow, but we want the government to stick to its guns and stick to the text of this bill,” he said.
Ministers are using an “outdated and flawed” Home Office analysis to persuade Conservative MPs to vote for Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill, informed party sources have said. Modelling distributed to MPs claims that 99.5% of individual legal challenges submitted by asylum seekers will fail to block their deportation to Rwanda. The document, entitled High Level Process for the New Bill and first disclosed in the Times, is being circulated by whips before the first vote on the bill in the Commons, due on Tuesday.
Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, has told MPs that in theory Rwanda could walk away from its deportation deal with the UK with £240m – the money it has received already – without having to accept a single asylum seeker. Giving evidence to the public accounts committee, Rycroft said if the UK instigated the break clause in the deal, Rwanda would keep the money already paid. But if Rwanda activated the break clause, the money would be repaid “proportionately”.
Rishi Sunak has forcefully defended his record as chancellor during the Covid crisis, saying he did not need to consult scientists about the “eat out to help out” scheme, and that descriptions of the Treasury as being “pro-death” were deeply unfair. During five hours of often cautious evidence to the Covid inquiry, during which he repeatedly said he could not remember meetings, comments or other details, Sunak dismissed the idea he overrode scientific objections to his flagship hospitality scheme.
In testimony punctuated by apparent lapses in memory, Sunak said he was unable to recall details of the meetings that imposed the first lockdown in March 2020, or whether he or other ministers had opposed extending free school meals to poorer children during holidays, a decision reversed after a campaign by the footballer Marcus Rashford. He also denied hearing anyone dismissing parents whose children needed free meals as “freeloaders”, a comment Vallance recorded in his diary as being made by someone in government during this debate.
UK ministers have offered Northern Ireland a financial package that they say is worth £2.5bn on condition that the Stormont executive is revived. Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, made the offer at a roundtable meeting of party leaders on Monday against a backdrop of political deadlock, budget overruns and crumbling public services. The move will increase pressure on the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) to abandon a boycott of power-sharing that has paralysed the Stormont executive and assembly amid a mounting fiscal crisis.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Rishi Sunak desperately lobbying Tory MPs to avoid defeat on Rwanda bill
Rishi Sunak is engaged in a desperate lobbying push to persuade Conservative MPs to back his Rwanda bill as he hopes to avoid a defeat which could fatally undermine his authority.
The prime minister will host an emergency breakfast in Downing Street with members of the rightwing New Conservative group of backbenchers on Tuesday in an effort to reassure wavering Tory MPs. Danny Kruger, the co-chair of the New Conservatives, was one of a number of senior Tories to warn on Monday that they did not support the bill in its current form.
A Tory source said MPs would use the meeting to tell the prime minister that the bill needs “major surgery or replacement”.
The No 10 breakfast follows a series of meetings on Monday involving ministers and factions from the right and left of the party on a day of frenetic activity in Westminster reminiscent of Brexit fights from 2017-2019.
One person close to the talks described the government’s whipping operation as “belated, panicked and intense”.
Sunak himself spent Monday testifying to the Covid-19 inquiry, but Downing Street dispatched the home secretary, James Cleverly, and the illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson to hear MPs’ concerns.
Cleverly said after the meeting: “We’re determined to get [the bill] through. It’s important legislation.”
