The Commons has just voted on the latest ping of the Safety of Rwanda Bill pong, after peers sent back just one amendment, which would prevent Rwanda from being declared a safe country for asylum seekers without the Secretary of State making a statement to parliament having considered the verdict of an independent monitoring committee. MPs rejected that amendment 312-237. So back up it goes to the Lords.
Lord Browne withdrew his amendment to exempt from deportation those who had helped the British armed forces because the government conceded on this point (though the minister in the Lords insisted it wasn’t a concession because that’s how politics and pre-school works). It is also not a major concession because the government is already reviewing eligibility and only covers Afghans with links to certain units.
So we are now down to just one – still very major – point of difference. Peers backed this amendment 240 to 211, and so it is back. Illegal Immigration Minister Michael Tomlinson has dismissed the amendment as ‘nothing new’, deploying his usual refrain of ‘enough is enough’. But in a sign that the standoff is beginning to lose steam, the last Tory rebel standing, Robert Buckland, told the Commons that ‘there comes a time when the unelected house does have to cede to the authority of the elected house’.
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