Sunak suffers defeat on Rwanda bill as peers vote by 102 majority to insist it must be compliant with international law
The opposition won the vote by a huge margin. Amendment 2, intended to ensure the Rwanda bill is fully compliant with international law (see 4.40pm), was passed by 274 votes to 172 – a majority of 102.
This is the government’s first defeat on the bill.
Key events
In the Lords peers have now started debating the next set of amendments to the Rwanda bill, which all deal with ensuring that Rwanda implements the reforms to its immigration system promised in the treaty with the UK signed after the supreme court ruling.
Lord Hope of Craighead, a former deputy president of the supreme court and the convenor of the crossbench peers, has moved the lead amendment in this group. His lead one, amendment 4, changes the bill so that Rwanda is only treated as a safe country “when, and so long as, the arrangements provided for in the Rwanda Treaty have been fully implemented and are being adhered to in practice”.
In his speech, Hope said he would push this to a vote if he was not satisfied by the assurances he got from the minister.
Lord Hodgson, a Conservative, spoke next. He said Hope’s amendment would render the bill, if not unworkable, at least inoperable.
Sunak suffers defeat on Rwanda bill as peers vote by 102 majority to insist it must be compliant with international law
The opposition won the vote by a huge margin. Amendment 2, intended to ensure the Rwanda bill is fully compliant with international law (see 4.40pm), was passed by 274 votes to 172 – a majority of 102.
This is the government’s first defeat on the bill.
Peers vote on amendment to ensure Rwanda bill fully compliant with rule of law
Shami Chakrabarti, who tabled some of the amendments being debated in this stage of the report stage debate, closes the debate on “rule of law” amendments with a short speech accusing Michael Howard (see 4.11pm) and Lord Stewart (see 4.31pm) of “gaslighting” peers with their comments about the House of Lords.
(The two Tory peers made contradictory arguments, with Howard saying the bill was rectifying a mistake made by the Lords, and Stewart insisting the bill was just implementing the court’s wishes.)
Chakrabarti withdraws her amendment saying that instead she would like to see peers vote on the simpler one tabled by the Labour party, in the name of Lord Coaker. This is amendment 2 and it adds a line to the bill saying that it will take effect “while maintaining full compliance with domestic and international law”.
Peers are voting on this now.
In a note describing the purpose of the amendment, Coaker says “it seeks to ensure that the eventual Act is fully compliant with the rule of law”.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton, the advocate general for Scotland, is speaking for the government in the Lords debate. He says he does not accept that the government is ignoring the supreme court ruling on the Rwanda policy with this legislation. Instead, because of the treaty with Rwanda that goes alongside the bill, putting the Rwandan government under an obligation to implement the reforms required by the supreme court, the government is acting on the supreme court’s concerns, he says.
Here are some more comments from peers speaking in the Lords debates on “rule of law” amendments to the Rwanda bill.
Lady D’Souza, a crossbencher and former Lords speaker, said the bill was a “legal fiction” because it was “writing into law a demonstrably false statement that Rwanda is a safe country to receive asylum seekers and thereby forcing all courts to treat Rwanda as a safe country, despite clear findings of fact”.
Labour’s Shami Chakrabarti told peers that the opposition wanted the bill changed to ensure compliance with international law.
Ken Clarke, the Tory former chancellor, said he was opposed to the bill, and hoped it would be challenged in the courts. He said:
I can’t recall a precedent in my time where a government of any complexion has produced a bill which asserts facts, a matter of facts, facts to be fact, and then goes on to say that this should be regarded legally as a fact interminably until and unless the bill is changed, and then goes on to say that no court should even consider any question of the facts being otherwise.
It’s no good blaming the Human Rights Act, I do not think it probable that the British courts were going to come to any other conclusion.
And if the Labour party allow this bill to go through, I very much hope there will be a legal challenge, and the supreme court will consider it obviously objectively again.” would ensure compliance with the rule of law.
Michael Howard, the former Conservative party leader and former home secretary, told peers in the Rwanda bill debate that the supreme court was not entitled to rule that Rwanda was not safe as a country, because that was a decision for government. He said all the government was doing with its bill was restoring its right to take this decision for itself. He explained:
In resolving to decide this issue for itself, the supreme court was trespassing on the province of the executive and, if there is any breach of the principle of separation of powers in this matter, it is not the government that is guilty, it is the supreme court.
All the government is doing in this bill is to reassert its responsibility, as traditionally understood by the principle of the separation of powers, for executive decision-making. And there is a reason why it is the government, and not the courts, which has that responsibility. It is because it is the government, and not the courts, which is accountable. The courts is accountable to no one – they pride themselves on that.
But accountability is at the heart of democracy. That is why the government is fully entitled to bring forward this bill and why much of the criticism which is directed at it for doing so is, for the reasons I have given, fundamentally misconceived.
Putri Gayatri Pertiwi standing behind him. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
In the House of Lords peers have started their debate on the report stage of the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration). The list of amendments is here, and peers are currently debating amendment 1, a cross-party amendment intended to ensure the bill’s compliance with domestic and international law, and other “rule of law” amendments.
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is speaking now. He defends the case of underlining the importance of complying with international law, because he says international law is there to stop governments doing things that are wrong.
The Alba MP Neale Hanvey has said he was happy to sponsor George Galloway (see 2.43pm) when Galloway took his seat in the Commons. This is from Georgia Roberts from BBC Scotland.
Alba’s @JNHanvey says he was happy to introduce Galloway in Commons:
“Refusing to support any new member is not only a parliamentary discourtesy, it is an insult to the electorate and their democratic voice. Such schoolyard behaviour has no place in a functioning democracy.”
— Georgia Roberts (@GeorgiaZemoreyR) March 4, 2024
Alba’s @JNHanvey says he was happy to introduce Galloway in Commons:
“Refusing to support any new member is not only a parliamentary discourtesy, it is an insult to the electorate and their democratic voice. Such schoolyard behaviour has no place in a functioning democracy.”
Kendall says ‘hidden unemployment’ caused by people being ill takes real joblessness rate to 20% in some places
Liz Kendall’s speech this morning was described by Labour as her first major speech in her role since she became shadow work and pensions secretary last September. But anyone expecting new policy, or at least fresh thinking on welfare issues, will have been disappointed. In this respect it was a blank sheet.
But some of the rhetoric was interesting, and it did include a compelling critique of the government.
We are the only country in the G7 whose employment rate hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The reality is, increasing numbers of people are leaving the labour market and no longer even looking for work.
This parliament has seen the highest increase in economic inactivity for 40 years.
And the number of people out of work because of long term sickness is at an all-time high.
2.8 million people not in work because of poor health.
The over 50s: mostly women, struggling with bad hips, knees and joints; often caring for elderly parents at the same time.
Young people with mental health problems; many lacking basic qualifications.
With all these problems far worse in Northern towns and cities, which the Conservatives promised to ‘level up’ but have once again born the brunt of their economic failure.
In places like Blackburn, Sunderland, Middlesborough and Hull, including these ‘hidden unemployed’ takes the official unemployment rate from 5 to 20 per cent.
This is unacceptable.
For all the Tory claims about being tough on benefits, over the next five years there will be 600,000 more people on incapacity and disability benefits and these benefits will cost an extra £33bn.
That’s more than our day-to-day expenditure on defence.
The Office for Budget Responsibility says the sustained rise in health-related worklessness is holding back growth and living standards while putting ever greater pressure on the public finances.
Yet all we get from the Tories is more of the same.
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She said that 200,000 people aged 24 or younger are out of work due to ill health – double the number a decade ago – and she listed Labour policies that would help them. The plans include: specialist mental health support in every school, 1,000 new career advisers in schools, technical excellence colleges for skills training, a growth and skills levy replacing the much-criticised apprenticeship levy, employment advisers in Young Futures hubs and and overhaul of the access to work support scheme for young disabled people.
This is our commitment to young people.
We will invest in you and help you build a better future, with all the chances and choices this brings.
But in return for these new opportunities, you will have a responsibility to take up the work or training that’s on offer.
Under our changed Labour party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits.
Not just because the British people believe rights should go hand in hand with responsibilities.
But because being unemployed or lacking basic qualifications when you’re young can harm your job prospects and wages for the rest of your life.
This isn’t good enough for young people or for our country.
Unlike the Tories, Labour will not let a generation of young people go off track before they’ve even begun.
This was almost identical to the sort of language used by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when they launched their new deal for working people before the 1997 election. But under current rules there are conditions attached to benefits – healthy people cannot just choose “a life on benefits” without having to show they are looking for work etc – and Kendall did not propose any changes to the way sanctions work.
