Rishi Sunak on Tuesday insisted that plans were in place to start flying migrants to Rwanda once controversial legislation passes through Parliament.
The Prime Minister was grilled by the Commons Liaison Committee about whether RAF or commercial planes would be used for the deportations, after reports indicated the Government is having trouble finding an airline to operate the charter flights.
“The Home Office are making all the appropriate arrangements, there's a range of options that they're considering,” Mr Sunak said.
“You wouldn't expect me to get into commercial conversations, but all the preparatory work to operationalize the Bill has been in place for a while,” he said.
Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson, who chairs the Commons Home Affairs Committee, stressed that more than 33,000 people have applied for asylum in Britain since the PM’s “stop the boats” legislation became an Act in July.
Now, the Government is pushing through an additional Bill that declares Rwanda a safe destination, after the Supreme Court ruled the scheme to be unlawful. The legislation is currently going back and forth between the Commons and Lords.
Ministers insist the first flights will take off for Rwanda “in the spring” once the Bill receives Royal Assent, but acknowledge that the numbers going would be small despite spending at least £290 million on the five-year agreement with the East African state.
Mr Sunak stressed: “There’s a limit to how many people we can take in this country, where we can house them and appropriately fund them.”
A second round of Lords amendments to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will be considered on April 15.
If the parliamentary “ping pong” persists and the Lords make any further changes to the Bill after April 15, time has been set aside on April 17 for the Commons to consider them.
Only after the Lords give in can the Bill proceed to Royal Assent and then the first flights potentially take off, barring any further court challenges.
Nevertheless, the PM has insisted his plan to “stop the boats” is already working despite figures showing Channel crossings so far this year are already higher than in the first three months of 2023.
