Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will address the nation at a press conference today.
Rishi Sunak will make a mid-morning speech and then take questions at a press conference hours after MPs warned his bill was “fatally flawed”. The Tory leader will use his speech to urge the House of Lords to back the Rwanda Bill ahead of a major battle in the upper house.
Getting the bill through the Lords is expected to be an uphill struggle for the Prime Minister, and comes just after the Tories launched a rebellion over the plan. A faction of his party, which included former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, has called for the plan to be tightened.
She and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick were among 11 MPs who eventually voted against the bill. Meanwhile, 18 others, including former Prime Minister Theresa May and former deputy party chairman Lee Anderson, did not vote.
On Tuesday, Anderson abruptly relinquished his role as deputy chairman of the Tory party over the issue. Despite expected stiff opposition, Home Secretary Chris Philp believes the bill will pass through the Lords “fairly quickly”. Speaking to Times Radio, Mr. Philp added:
“It’s a pretty short Bill, which means it should be able to get through the House of Lords fairly fast.”
As the debate unfolds in parliament, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Wednesday he was frustrated by the long delays. He hinted that he might refund British taxpayers’ money if the flights never took off. Mr Kagame told reporters that “there is a limit to how long this can go on”. He noted:
“The money is going to be used on those people who will come. If they don’t come we can return the money.”
Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo later said the African country was “not obliged” to return any money. She said that if the UK requested a refund, “we will look into the matter”. She added that this only applied to some of the funds specifically earmarked to support migrants.
Labour has called on Mr. Sunak to return the money. The UK has so far given £240m to Rwanda, with another £50m payment due in April. The government declined to say how much more it had pledged, but confirmed that there would be annual payments in 2025 and 2026 – presumably £50 million a year.
