Rishi Sunak’s troubled Rwanda deportation plan has been condemned by Conservative peers, historians and bishops in an indication that the House of Lords could demand changes that might delay its implementation.
Ken Clarke, the Conservative former chancellor and former lord chancellor, joined the archbishop of Canterbury and the historian Peter Hennessy on Monday evening in opposing the government’s plan to overturn a ruling by the UK’s highest court and send asylum seekers to the central African country.
They were among more than 60 members of the Lords listed to speak during the second reading debate of the government’s safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.
The draft legislation seeks to block the supreme court’s findings of fact that Rwanda was not a safe destination for asylum seekers because they would be at risk of refoulement.
Key votes on amendments to the legislation are not expected until next month, and any proposed changes are likely to be overturned by the Commons. But the Lords could frustrate the government’s hopes of sending flights to Kigali by the spring.
Lord Clarke, who has supported previous Rwanda laws, said Sunak’s bill was a “step too far”, adding: “I don’t think I can possibly support this bill unless it is substantially amended as it goes through this House, and we should urge the Commons to revise it.”
He said he agreed in principle with the idea of removing migrants to a safe third country, but parliament overruling the courts on Rwanda’s safety set a “very dangerous constitutional provision”.
“I hope it will be challenged properly in the courts, because we have an unwritten constitution and it gets more and more important that we do make sure that the powers in this country are controlled by some constitutional limits and are subject to the rule of law,” Clarke said.
The Tory peer Viscount Hailsham, who served in the Commons as Douglas Hogg, warned of a slippery slope with the Rwanda bill, arguing that it “can end in some very murky places”. He said: “I do not believe that this bill, if enacted, will serve as an effective deterrent.”
The Conservative peer David Frost said he supported the bill but had doubts that it was “robust enough” in its current form.
In a highly praised speech, the crossbench constitutional expert Lord Hennessy said the bill would diminish the UK’s standing in the world. “By rushing this emergency legislation through parliament with the intention of getting the deportation flights to Kigali under way by late spring, the government has already secured for itself a special place in British political history,” he said.
“The day may not be far off when the Rwanda bill, having cleared all of its parliamentary stages, will be forwarded from the Cabinet Office to Buckingham Palace to receive Royal Assent.
“In the few minutes it takes to pass down the Mall and across the tip of St James’s Park and its return journey to Whitehall, our country will change, for the government will have removed us from the list of rule-of-law nations.”
The archbishop of Canterbury warned that “a pick-and-choose approach to international law” undermined the UK’s global standing as he signalled that he might seek to block the policy at a later date.
Speaking during the debate, the Most Rev Justin Welby said: “We can, as a nation, do better than this bill. With this bill, the government is continuing to seek good objectives in the wrong way, leading the nation down a damaging path.
“We need a wider strategy for refugee policy which involves international cooperation and which equips us for the far greater migration flows, perhaps 10 times greater in the coming decades, as a result of conflict and climate change and poverty. Instead this bill offers only ad hoc, one-off approaches.
A Liberal Democrat-sponsored motion designed to block the bill was rejected in the Lords on Monday night, by 206 votes to 84, a majority of 122.
Sunak’s bill survived third reading in the Commons after the prime minister saw off a rebellion by the Tory right that sought to toughen the legislation.
In the end, just 11 Conservatives voted against the legislation, but it faces a bigger test in the Lords, where many members have expressed unease about the plan.
Sunak has urged peers against blocking “the will of the people” by opposing the bill as he faces an election year for which he has made “stopping the boats” a key pledge of his leadership.
Meanwhile, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned that the bill risks the UK breaching its obligations under international law. It argued that the draft legislation “undermines the universality of human rights” and in doing so “could expose people to harm and breaches of their right to life, their rights to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, and their right to effective remedy”.
The number of migrants who made unauthorised Channel crossings in 2024 passed 1,000 after more than 300 made the journey at the weekend.
