Sunak’s fight to get Rwanda bill through Lords just got a lot worse

Bishops in the House of Lords have promised to vote to water down the Prime Minister’s Rwanda bill when it returns to Parliament.

The Bishop of Durham has said the idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was “a poor policy” which “will not stop the boats”, ahead of the legislation being debated in the Lords next week.

The head of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has insisted that ignoring injunctions from its judges would be a breach of the UK’s legal obligations.

Rishi Sunak has argued that the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which declares Rwanda is a safe country for refugees and is designed to overcome previous legal challenges to the asylum policy, is the only way to reduce illegal immigration and end dangerous Channel crossings in often flimsy small boats.

However, Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham, said: “I remain deeply concerned at all the implications of the Rwanda Bill. It raises significant constitutional questions regarding the role of the executive and the judiciary, and there are significant concerns around our commitments to international treaties and agreements if the UK is to continue to play a key role in the international scene.”

The bishop, who has visited Rwanda 20 times, said it is “a country I love” but added: “There are questions about its capacity to deliver on the treaty at this time.”

He concluded by promising that bishops would work with other peers to amend the legislation. He said: “Fundamentally I remain convinced that this is a poor policy. We should not be handing over our responsibilities for asylum seekers to anyone else. I remain unconvinced that it will achieve the stated intention of deterring those seeking to reach the UK, and so will not stop the boats.

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“Bishops in the House of Lords will approach this bill in the same way as the last – guided by our Christian teaching and values and informed by the experience of many in the Church of being alongside asylum seekers and refugees.

“It is the role of the Lords to improve legislation and we take that responsibility seriously. Party politics doesn’t come into it.”

Earlier Siofra O’Leary, president of the Strasbourg-based ECHR which implements the European Convention on Human Rights, said: “There is a clear legal obligation under the convention for states to comply with Rule 39 measures.”

Rule 39 measures are injunctions preventing governments from carrying out decisions which the court believes may breach individuals’ human rights. They can be issued in a short timeframe ahead of a full consideration of the case in questions.

The Safety of Rwanda Bill gives British ministers the power to decide whether their officials should comply with an injunction from the ECHR, or simply ignore it.

A spokesman for Mr Sunak responded: “I think, firstly, we are confident our legislation is compliant with our international obligations. We’re clear the bill and the treaty address the Supreme Court’s concerns. There should be no need for Strasburg to intervene to block flights in the way they did in 2022.

“We’ve also drafted the bill to give ministers the power not to comply with those rulings if necessary And obviously every case is assessed on its individual facts, but the Prime Minister has been clear repeatedly that we will not let a foreign court block flights from taking off.”