Ministers appear poised to give way to Conservative MPs by removing more safeguards from the illegal migration bill, as the European rights watchdog warned that the proposals even as they stand risk being incompatible with international law.
After days of discussions between ministers and Tory backbenchers, up to 60 of whom are said to want to toughen up a bill that already pledges to deport asylum seekers who arrive in the UK unofficially, one of the leading rebels said the government had promised action.
“We have asked the government to engage with us constructively on these amendments, and give us firm assurances today on the floor of the house to improve the bill in the light of our amendments,” the veteran backbencher Bill Cash said at the opening of the bill’s committee stage in the Commons, where amendments are considered.
“And on the basis they do give such assurances, which I understand they will, I will not press my amendment to a vote.”
MPs on the right of the party, led by Cash and Danny Kruger, have proposed a series of amendments intended to reduce the legal avenues for asylum seekers and refugees who face being deported to Rwanda and elsewhere.
One amendment would block judges from granting injunctions to stop deportations, while others would seek to limit the scope of relevant parts of the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
“We do not want or need lawyers and judges to invent new blocks on removal with judicial activism,” Cash told the Commons.
Speaking later, Kruger told MPs that if he received the expected guarantees from ministers, he would also not seek a vote on his amendment.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, sought to assuage the rebels by promising close engagement with them and stressing the final bill would be robust and “survive the kind of egregious and vexatious legal challenges that we have seen in the past”.
He also tried to avoid a confrontation with another group of Tory backbenchers – led by the former minister Tim Loughton – for more safe and legal routes to be set up for asylum seekers.
Jenrick promised to meet Loughton and other colleagues ahead of the next stage of the bill’s passage and said the government would, if necessary, table its own amendments “to ensure there are new routes in addition to the existing schemes, and accelerating the point at which they become operational”. No Tory-backed amendment was put to a vote, but two opposition amendments were easily defeated.
While the scope and scale of any government concessions remains to be seen, further tightening of a law that has already been widely condemned by human rights groups and refugee agencies would risk putting the government in conflict with the Council of Europe, which oversees the ECHR.
In an unusually strongly worded intervention on Monday, the council’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, urged MPs and peers to reject the bill, saying it was “incompatible with the United Kingdom’s international obligations”.
Writing to the speakers of the Commons and Lords, Mijatović said the proposals “create clear and direct tension with well-established and fundamental human rights standards”.
By preventing people who arrive irregularly in the UK from having their asylum claims assessed, it would strip away one of the essential building blocks of the protection system, she said.
Mijatović said the lack of protection for people who had potentially been trafficked into the UK was “disturbing”, and she was “especially concerned about the bill’s impact on the detention of children”.
Earlier on Monday, Chris Philp, the policing minister, said the home secretary, Suella Braverman, was “in listening mode” and he did not expect the amendments to be voted on.
These are the latest in a series of episodes in which Tory backbenchers have pushed Rishi Sunak’s government into giving way by threatening rebellions, most notably in December when he dropped a plan for compulsory housebuilding targets.
The current situation is slightly different in that Braverman at least is known to be sympathetic to the idea of further toughening a law that would bar anyone arriving in the UK unofficially from ever settling, even if they were trafficked.
After a report that Braverman had been covertly supporting the rebels, Sunak was asked on Monday if his home secretary was acting as a “sock puppet”, a question he largely dodged.
“The home secretary has done a superb job,” the PM said, noting that the law should not contravene the ECHR.
“It’s important that it’s effective, which it will be, and it’s also important that we abide by our international obligations. This is a country and a government that does follow the law.”
