Downing Street vowed to plough on with its plan to send Channel migrants to Rwanda today as it set the battle lines for a major confrontation with the House of Lords.
Peers faced fury after they voted to delay a key plank of the scheme, backing a motion to kick the treaty with the African nation into the long grass by 214 votes to 171.
Although ministers can get around the vote – which called for ratification to be postponed until ministers demonstrate the country is safe – it highlights the problems confronting Rishi Sunak over the policy.
There are fears the Upper House will take an axe to the other element of the package – the Safety of Rwanda Bill – when it is debated next week.
But a spokesman for the Prime Minister told reporters: ‘The process for ratification of the treaty will continue, I am not aware of this impeding on that.’
Labour former attorney general Lord Goldsmith today tabled a motion seeking to delay the treaty underpinning the Safety of Rwanda Bill
Peers voted for a motion trying to delay Rishi Sunak ‘s Rwanda deportation plan
Nigel Farage posted on the X social media site venting his frustration at the Rwanda vote
Mr Farage suggested all current members of the House of Lords should be axed
Ministers again warned that the Lords must not ‘frustrate the will of the people’ after the Rwanda legislation was passed by the Commons without any changes.
And Nigel Farage was blunter, posting on the X social media site: ‘We must sack all current members of the House of Lords. It is beyond parody.’
The treaty, signed by Home Secretary James Cleverly in Kigali last month, sets out a range of safeguards over the treatment of migrants sent to Rwanda.
Former Labour attorney general Lord Goldsmith, who chairs the Lords international agreements committee, tabled moves to postpone its ratification until a series of laws and other measures have been put in place.
Lord Goldsmith told peers: ‘We are not saying the treaty should never be ratified.
‘But we are saying that Parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinise the treaty and implementation of its measures in full before it makes a judgment about Rwanda is safe.’
Peter Goldsmith, an attorney general under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who laid the motion, said the vote marked the first time that lawmakers in the Lords had used parliamentary powers to vote to halt the ratification of a treaty.
Debating the motion ahead of the vote, Liberal Democrat frontbencher Lord Fox said: ‘There is more than enough reason to delay the ratification of the treaty until the conditions for its lawful operation are actually in place.’
The vote came after the Prime Minister gave a press conference in which urged peers to pass the Rwanda Bill swiftly, challenging them not to ‘frustrate the will of the people’.
Labour frontbencher Lord Coaker hit out at Mr Sunak for seeming to instruct the House of Lords, saying: ‘Nobody, not least the Prime Minister, should hold press conferences lecturing us about what our role is, when all we seek to do is to improve it and to act in our proper constitutional role.’
He said the Government has not provided evidence that elements of the treaty have been implemented in Rwanda.
‘The Government has not provided the evidence to support what it is saying needs to be done, either to the committee or to (the House of Lords).
‘So how can we determine whether Rwanda is safe when the very things upon which that is dependent have not been provided to us? And that’s what the committee is saying.’
The Upper House (pictured at the state opening in November) debated the motion last night
The Rwanda Bill was approved by the Commons last week despite major revolts from Tory MPs who demanded it was made tougher.
As it was introduced to the Lords on Thursday there were shouts of ‘shame’ from the red benches.
The Upper House is set to start scrutinising the law at the end of the month, but the process will not be complete until at least mid-March.
Under the Rwanda plan, which has yet to be carried out, asylum seekers who cross the English Channel and land on England’s southern coast in small, inflatable boats would be sent on planes to Rwanda.
Sunak has said he wants the first deportation flights to leave in the next few months – ahead of a general election expected in the second half of this year – so he can meet one of his five pledges to ‘stop the boats’.
In an effort to overcome resistance from the courts who have ruled the plan is unlawful, Britain signed a treaty last year with Rwanda, in which it agreed to address safety concerns, and the government is trying to pass legislation through parliament that would block legal challenges to deportations.