Rishi Sunak says he is ‘determined’ to get Rwanda bill through parliament ‘as quickly as possible’ – UK politics live | Politics

Downing Street has added to Rishi Sunak’s earlier statement that he was “determined” to get the Rwanda bill through parliament “as quickly as possible” by saying it was “confident” Rwanda would implement improved measures into its asylum system in time for a new treaty with the UK being ratified by parliament.

The House of Lords International Agreements Committee said “significant legal and practical steps” must be taken before Rwanda can be deemed safe and the treaty approved by Westminster.

Asked whether ministers would be following through on the committee’s recommendations, the prime minister’s spokesperson said:

So I think more broadly on the process, we will let it follow its course as it is looked at in the Lords. We will consider issues that are raised – motions and amendments – in the usual way.

In terms of the improvements and the assurances that we have with the government of Rwanda, we are confident that there will be implementation of all of those measures in line with the timelines for the treaty.

So those assurances that we provided, which responded to issues raised by the supreme court, will be in place when we get flights off the ground.

The spokesperson declined to get into specualtion about how the government might react to changes to the bill introduced during its passage, saying: “I’m not going to get ahead of parliamentary processes and processes in the Lord’s – that starts to get into hypotheticals.”

Earlier today the prime minister said:

In order to fully solve this problem we need to have a deterrent, so that when people come here illegally they won’t be able to stay and will be removed.

That is why the Rwanda scheme is so important, and that’s why I’m determined to get it through parliament and get it up and running as quickly as possible so we can properly solve this problem.

In November, five judges at the supreme court unanimously upheld an appeal court ruling that found there was a real risk of deported refugees having their claims in the east African country wrongly assessed or being returned to their country of origin to face persecution.

Here is political correspondent Kiran Stacey’s report on the Home Office hiring an air hangar to practise deportations:

The Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.

Officials confirmed on Friday the department had increased its capacity to train officials to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist. Details of the expansion of the programme were first reported by the Times. The specialist training, which the government has carried out for years, will also be given to staff who deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

Since 2015, the government has had training facilities to ensure escorts can respond professionally to the challenges of removing people with no right to be in the UK. This includes practical sessions so escorts have the skills they need to deal with different scenarios. As we ramp up removal activity we will continue to ensure new escorts have the training facilities necessary.

A government source said the department had recently hired the hangar and fuselage so that staff could practise accompanying people on to planes and learn what to do if they resisted either by fighting back or refusing to move.

It comes as the government steadily increases the number of people it deports after a sharp drop during Covid and as a result of the new returns deal with Albania. In the year to March 2023, Britain forcibly returned 4,193 people, nearly a third more than in the previous 12 months.

Read more here: Home Office hires hangar for staff to practise Rwanda deportations

During his media appearance this morning, prime minister Rishi Sunak added to speculation on pre-election tax cuts by saying there was “more to come” if voters stuck with the Conservatives.

Speaking to broadcasters during his visit to Hampshire, Sunak said a 2p cut to the main rate of national insurance that came into force this month had been a “tax cut for 27 million people in work”

He continued:

And we said that we do want to cut taxes for future events when we can responsibly do so. Our priorities are very clear. It is controlling spending and welfare so that we can cut people’s taxes. The plan is working, because we are already doing it – stick with it and there is more to come.

Inflation unexpectedly jumped on Wednesday, and this morning figures revealed retailers in Great Britain suffered a dire Christmas, with shops recording the biggest fall in monthly sales since closing during the pandemic.

Yesterday, speaking in Davos, where he was attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, chancellor Jeremy Hunt said:

In terms of the direction of travel we look around the world and we note that the economies growing faster than us in North America and Asia tend to have lower taxes, and I believe fundamentally that low-tax economies are more dynamic, more competitive and generate more money for public services like the NHS. That’s the direction of travel we would like to go in but it is too early to say what we are going to do.”

My colleague, Phillip Inman, writing an analysis piece for the Guardian today, said that the surprise fall in December sales damages the chancellor’s claims that the UK economy is on right track, and suggests it was probably in recession during the second half of 2023.

Read more of Phillip Inman’s analysis here: Retail slump raises spectre of recession as Hunt looks more Truss-like by the day

PA Media has just published a quick snap that Tata Steel has confirmed its plans to close blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.

You can follow that live with my colleague Graeme Wearden here:

Rishi Sunak has spoken to broadcasters while on a visit to Hampshire, and said he is “determined” to get the Rwanda bill through parliament “as quickly as possible”.

He told the media: “I think it’s really important that we stop the boats, it’s one of the priorities I set out to the country last year.

“I am pleased our plan is working and that we’re making progress. The numbers last year were down by over a third; that hasn’t happened before, so that shows that we can make a difference here.

“In order to fully solve this problem we need to have a deterrent, so that when people come here illegally they won’t be able to stay and will be removed.

“That is why the Rwanda scheme is so important, and that’s why I’m determined to get it through parliament and get it up and running as quickly as possible so we can properly solve this problem.

“We have got a plan, this plan is working, if we stick with it we can deliver the change people want to see.”

Sunak has repeatedly claimed that the government’s plan to deal with asylum seekers and people it says have entered the UK illegally is working, although yesterday he was rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over his boast to have cleared the backlog of asylum claims.

The prime minister had posted on social media to say “the backlog of asylum decisions” had been cleared, but the watchdog states that official figures show that there are nearly 100,000 cases where an initial decision has yet to be made.

The European court of human rights (ECHR) has issued a press release stating that Ireland has lodged an inter-state application against the UK over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

In its release, it says:

The Irish government argue that certain provisions of the act are not compatible with the European convention (on human rights). The Irish government allege, in particular, that sections 19, 39, 40 and 41 of the act guarantee immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences, provided that certain conditions are met, contrary to (articles of the convention).

Ireland claims the act infringes on articles 2 (right to life), 3 (right against torture), 6 (right to a fair trial), 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination).

In December, Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach of Ireland, said about the prospect of legal action: “It is something that we’re genuinely doing with a sense of regret, and would prefer not to be in this position, but we did make a commitment to survivors in Northern Ireland and to the families of victims that we would stand by them.”

Rory Carroll reported for the Guardian at that point:

The Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill was introduced by Boris Johnson’s administration in 2021 and became law in September. The government said it would draw a line under a conflict that killed more than 3,600 people from 1969 to 1998 and left thousands of cases unresolved. The legislation offers immunity to security force veterans and former paramilitaries who cooperate with a new commission for reconciliation and information recovery.

Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberavon, home of the Port Talbot steelworks, has urged Tata Steel to “look again” at a union-proposed alternative plan to closing the blast furnaces in south Wales, and questioned the prospect of the UK lacking the capacity to manufacture steel in what he described as “the dangerous and turbulent world in which we live”.

There was no government minister put up today to the media to answer questions about it, but Kinnock was on the media round this morning, and told Sky News:

Unions have come together and put a plan on the table which would actually be much more of a bridge rather than a cliff edge to the changes that we know have to take place within our steel industry.

But instead of that, we have got a plan which has been cobbled together between Tata Steel and the UK government which is going to use £500m of taxpayers’ money to make 3,000 men and women redundant.

And it is also going to remove the British capability to make its own steel from scratch.

We will become the only country in the G20 that is no longer able to do that, so that is not the right way to go. Tata Steel should really look again at the multi-union proposal.

Do we really want to be a country, given the dangerous and turbulent world in which we live, that isn’t able to produce its own steel?

There isn’t a single household in my Aberavon constituency that isn’t connected to the steelworks in some way, and the impact would be utterly devastating.

Vaughan Gething, the Welsh government’s economy minister, said that Tata Steel’s expected decision meant it was an “incredibly worrying day, not just for the steel workforce, but for Wales, and I think across Britain”.

On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gething said:

What this would mean, if this plan goes ahead, is that the UK would be the only G7 country that can’t make primary steel.

If you don’t wait for the technology to change, you will transfer your ability to do that to other parts of the world and be reliant on imports for a number of years. That is an issue not just for Wales – a strategic sovereign issue for the UK.”

My colleague Graeme Wearden is across all this in our business live blog, where he notes:

The prospect of thousands of job cuts at Port Talbot is particularly galling as the UK government agreed to pump up to £500m into the steelworks last year. That money was to help fund plans to produce “greener” steel, through the new electric arc furnace.

You can follow that here: Tata Steel’s Port Talbot blast furnaces expected to close, in ‘utterly devastating’ decision – business live

Speaking to the BBC, the former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has said there “are dogs in the street that know” deportation flights are “probably never going to happen”.

She told the broadcaster:

Let’s have a debate about immigration, absolutely. Every sovereign nation should be in charge of who comes in; not everybody has a right to go to every country in the world – I completely get all of that.

But where is the balance in this, rather than some of the language that is being used, some of the knots that people are getting into?

And this thing about putting people on planes to Rwanda. I mean, there are dogs in the street that know that, one, it is probably never going to happen. And two, if it does, it is going to be a number so small that it makes very little difference to the bottom line.

Davidson is in the House of Lords, where both the treaty with Rwanda and the safety of Rwanda bill will need to make progress in the next couple of weeks before Rishi Sunak can make another attempt at getting his deportation policy off the ground.

Aside from the question of how Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation legislation can actually get on to the statue books and survive subsequent legal challenges, there are also practical considerations. There are reports this morning in the Times that the Home Office hired an aircraft hangar and a fuselage to practise the actual delivery of potential deportees to the planes themselves.

Matt Dathan writes, in what the paper labels as an exclusive:

Migrants will be escorted from a detention facility on an airbase one by one by security guards. As part of preparations for the first flights, the guards have undergone special training programmes to deal with “disruptive” people.

Staff will mimic different scenarios that the Home Office expects them to encounter when they move migrants on to aircraft bound for Kigali.

Scenarios that are being practised include migrants resorting to violence to prevent being put on a plane or Extinction Rebellion-style protests where individuals “play dead” by lying on the floor and refusing to move. They are also preparing for the prospect of dirty protests and demonstrations by campaigners outside the airbase in an attempt to halt flights.

It is estimated that five officers will be needed for each migrant being removed.

There is liable to be criticism that this represents further Home Office spending on the Rwanda plan, with the actual legal departure of flights still a distant prospect.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling live coverage of UK politics for Friday. Rishi Sunak will be out and about in south-east England today, where the prime minister can expect further questioning on how his Rwanda plan can get through the Lords.

The former Scottish Tory leader and peer Ruth Davidson has said flights are “probably never going to happen” amid reports the Home Office has hired a hangar and aircraft fuselage to rehearse forcing people on to flights in the teeth of expected protests.

There will be further fallout from the news that Tata Steel is expected to close its blast furnaces in south Wales. The local MP and shadow minister Stephen Kinnock has said this morning they “should really look again” at the plan.

And William Paul Patterson, the director of Fujitsu Services will be giving evidence in the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry today. You will be able to watch that here.

Here are the other headlines:

• The Home Office spent a six-figure sum on mental health support for frontline Border Force officers after mental health-related absences for staff across the agency increased by 45%, an FoI request has revealed.

• The Home Office has also made a significant U-turn on the rights of EU citizens who were in the UK before Brexit. It is going to reverse a rule it made in August that barred those who mistakenly applied for permanent residency cards after the referendum to make a late application for EU settled status if they were unaware of the specially created immigration scheme.

• A bad signal on the economy for Sunak’s government, as retailers in Great Britain suffered a dire Christmas. Cash-strapped consumers cut back on shopping in December, fuelling the biggest fall in monthly sales since shops closed during the pandemic.

• A UN torture expert has repeated her call for prisoners jailed under the indefinite sentencing regime in England and Wales to be granted release dates.

• Sadiq Khan has announced a fare freeze for some tickets on London’s public transport network.

As it is a Friday, it is a quiet day in Westminster. There will be debate on private members’ bills in the Commons, and the Lords are not sitting. The Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd are also not sitting.

The day after the public service strike in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, is saying he will introduce “pragmatic, appropriate and limited” legislation to address the deadlock in Stormont. More on developments there in a bit.

It is Martin Belam with you today. I will try to dip into the comments if I get the chance, but if you want to draw my attention to anything – especially if you spot an error or typo – it is best to email me at [email protected].