Rishi Sunak says Tory party has ‘come together’ over Rwanda bill and he challenges Labour to back it in Lords
Rishi Sunak is holding his press conference.
He says the Conservative party has now “come together” over the Rwanda bill.
It has passed the Commons unamended, he says.
It is now time for the Lords to pass it, he says. He goes on:
There is now only one question. Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House? Or will they get on board and do the right thing? It’s as simple as that.
Key events
Q: If no flights leave, will you fight to get the UK’s money back from Rwanda?
Sunak says he is flighting to get the flights off the ground. Many lawyers have said the plan will work.
And that’s it. The press conference is over.
Q: What are the consequences for the Tory MPs who rebelled? Why have they not had the whip removed?
Sunak says his party is united in wanting to stop the boats. It is right to debate the issue, he says.
It is understandable why people are frustrated. He shares that frustration, he says.
He says, if they stick with the plan, the government can deliver a better future. Starmer can’t, because he has not got a plan.
Q: 32% of people whose asylum claims were refused disappeared. What has happened to them?
Sunak says the vast majority of people whose claims were refused were either removed, or submitted another claim. They should be removed and sent home, he says. He says 20,000 people were returned.
This does not happen by accident. It happens because the government has a plan, he says.
Sunak says he wants first flight to Rwanda to leave ‘as soon as practically possible’ – but he won’t give date
Q: When will the first flight to Rwanda leave? In the past you said by Easter?
Sunak says he wants it to happen “as soon as practically possible”.
But he does not give a date.
The question is now for the House of Lords, he says.
The operational work to allow flights to happen is already under way, he says.
Q: Your MPs are not convinced you actually will ignore rule 39 orders from Strasbourg. Can you lay down some red lines to clarify that you will?
Sunak repeats the line about how there are circumstances in which he would ignore these injunctions.
Sunak says taxes will go up under Labour because of its £28bn ‘green spending spree’
Q: Are you confident you can cut taxes in the budget?
Sunak says his priority is “to cut taxes when it’s responsible to do so”.
He says the government has already cut tax, and he wants to “keep cutting people’s taxes”.
He wants to live in a country where hard work is rewarded.
He repeats the point about Starmer’s “green spending spree”. Labour can’t say how it will be funded, “which just means your taxes are going up”.
Q: Your legal advice says ignoring a ECHR injunction will be illegal. So will you seek new legal advice?
Sunak says he will not let a foreign court (such as the European court of human rights) stop flights taking off. There are circumstances in which he would ignore a rule-39 order, he says.
But he says “there will always be individual circumstances where people rightly would expect us to examine the facts”.
Q: The Lords normally don’t stop legislation. They just delay it. If the bill passes by the spring, will you guarantee a plane will take off before the election?
Sunak says, within weeks of the supreme court ruling, he had a treaty with Rwanda. That shows the urgency with which he is operating.
The Commons has backed the legislation with a strong majority. The Lords should now pass it, he says.
He says his message to the Lords is: ‘Look at the majority last night, this is important for the country, and we are confident it is legally robust.’
Q: You say the party is united. But several letters of no confidence in you have been submitted. What is your message to colleagues who say you are the wrong person for the job?
Sunak says he will stick with the plan because it is working. If he sticks with the plan, he will build a better future. The progress is demonstrable. We have had five months where wages have risen faster than prices. Inflation is down. Taxes have been cut.
Keir Starmer is just sniping from the sidelines. And he cannot say how he will pay for a “green spending spree” which will just mean taxes going up.
Q: When you said you would stop the boats, people thought that meant reducing them to negligble numbers. That is not going to happen, is it?
Sunak says he is proud of the progress he has made. He always said it would be difficult.
Last year numbers went down by a third. Legal enforcement rates have gone up by 70%. He says 20,000 people have been returned.
But the only solution is to have a deterrent. That is working with Albania, where people are being returned and the numbers of people coming are down by 90%.
He says the alternative is going back to square one. Labour has offered no alternatives. And Keir Starmer says he would scrap the Rwanda plan even if it was working.
Q: Given your party is still criticising you, is it time for you to tell them to shut up?
Sunak says his party came together yesterday on the bill.
His plan is working, he says. Look at what is happening on inflation – it has been halved, down from 11% to 4%.
He says, as a result, he could deliver tax cuts.
The alternative is going back to square one, he says.
Rishi Sunak says Tory party has ‘come together’ over Rwanda bill and he challenges Labour to back it in Lords
Rishi Sunak is holding his press conference.
He says the Conservative party has now “come together” over the Rwanda bill.
It has passed the Commons unamended, he says.
It is now time for the Lords to pass it, he says. He goes on:
There is now only one question. Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House? Or will they get on board and do the right thing? It’s as simple as that.
Fujitsu has said it won’t bid for government contracts while Post Office Horizon inquiry still ongoing, MPs told
Fujitsu has written to the Cabinet Office to say it will not bid for government contracts while the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is ongoing, MPs were told this morning.
During Cabinet Office questions in the Commons, the Cabinet Office minister, Alex Burghart, said:
This morning [the] Cabinet Office received a letter from Fujitsu voluntarily undertaking not to bid for government contracts whilst the inquiry is ongoing, unless of course the government ask them to.
A feed of the inquiry is here:
According to Sky News, a Tory “rebel” source is saying that “several” MPs submitted letters last night to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, calling for a vote of no confidence in Rishi Sunak. For a vote to happen, 15% of Conservative MPs (53 of them, based on the current numbers) need to submit a letter. And the process is confidential, so only Brady knows how many letters are already in.
The assumption at Westminster is that Sunak’s enemies are still a long way off reaching the 53 threshold, but no one knows for sure.
A rebel source has told Sky’s @BethRigby that “several” letters of no confidence were submitted last night after Rishi Sunak saw off the threat of rebellion and passed his Rwanda bill through the House of Commons.
A rebel source has told Sky’s @BethRigby that “several” letters of no confidence were submitted last night after Rishi Sunak saw off the threat of rebellion and passed his Rwanda bill through the House of Commons.
Live updates ⬇https://t.co/SdJjRPXhsO
— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 18, 2024
The Rishi Sunak press conference is starting at 10.15am.
More than 150,000 expected to join public sector strike in Northern Ireland
Public sector workers have launched what is being billed as one of the biggest strikes in Northern Ireland’s history amid a dispute over pay and political deadlock, Rory Carroll reports.
Many lawyers in Lords will view Rwanda bill as ‘step too far’, says leading crossbench peer Lord Carlile
But Rishi Sunak got a taste of what might happen when the Rwanda bill arrives in the Lords when Lord Carlile, a former Lib Dem MP who sits as a crossbench peer and who is a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, was interviewed on the Today programme this morning.
He said that, in using the bill to in effect overrule the supreme court, the government was taking “a step towards totalitarianism”. And he said many of the lawyers sitting in the Lords would view the bill as “a step too far”.
He told the programme:
Many of us in the House of Lords believe that … good policymaking and the integrity of our legal system are under attack because of internal political quarrelling in the Conservative party …
What we are doing is trying to countermand meddling by politicians in the law.
It’s been government elevating itself to an unacceptable level above the law, above our much-admired supreme court, and above the reputation internationally of the United Kingdom law.
We’ve seen in various countries the damage that is done when governments use perceived and often ill-judged political imperatives to place themselves above the courts – this is a step towards totalitarianism and an attitude that the United Kingdom usually deprecates.
I think you’ll find that many of lawyers in the House of Lords will say this is a step too far, this is illegitimate interference by politics with the law, on an issue that can be solved in other ways.
In an interview with LBC, Chris Philp, the Home Office minister, claimed that Rishi Sunak was in a better position in the light of the Rwanda bill getting a third reading. Asked if Sunak was “stronger or weaker” after the passing of the bill but the departure of two Tory deputy chairs and a ministerial aide, Philp replied:
I think, to the extent it has any impact on that, probably stronger.
Rishi Sunak to hold press conference after Rwanda bill clears Commons
Good morning. Rishi Sunak is holding a press conference this morning. A note alerting political journalists was sent out by No 10 relatively late last night and, as will be the case every time we get a surprise announcement like this in 2024, one kneejerk lobby response was: ‘Is he going to call an election?’ The answer is no. The best evidence for this is probably the latest YouGov polling in the Times today, showing Labour 27 points ahead (but the steer from No 10 says the same).
Labour lead up to 27 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 20 (-2)
LAB 47 (+2)
LIB DEM 8 (-1)
REF UK 12 (+2)
GREEN 7 (-1)Fieldwork 16 – 17 January pic.twitter.com/ic63LgrCpG
— Lara Spirit (@lara_spirit) January 18, 2024
Instead, we are expecting Sunak to talk about the Rwanda bill, which cleared the Commons last night by a comfortable margin as the Tory “rebels” largely abandoned their protest and accepted the argument that a “weak” Rwanda bill (in their opinion) was better than no bill at all, the sinking of Sunak’s premiership and a probable early election.
There were big revolts on the rebel Tory amendments, but after two days of debates Sunak emerged looking stronger than the “five family” leaders who were threatening to take the bill down. These are from the Scotsman’s Alexander Brown on their apparent capitulation and on Lee Anderson, who resigned as Tory deputy chair on Tuesday, releasing a letter expressing his “100% support” for Sunak almost exactly at the same time as he was voting against the government, but who on Wednesday abstained on the third reading.
“My father made him an offer he could refuse. Lee Anderson held a gun to his own head, and the whips said either he quit or support the government, and he chose both” pic.twitter.com/NLNmECCX1Y
— Alexander Brown (@AlexofBrown) January 17, 2024
The Rwanda bill now goes to the House of Lords, and Sunak is expected to argue that peers should pass it quickly, without obstructing the will of the House of Commons. Chris Philp, a Home Office minister, was doing an interview round this morning, and he said he expected the bill to pass through the Lords swiftly. He told Times Radio:
It’s a pretty short bill, which means it should be able to get through the House of Lords fairly fast.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Rishi Sunak holds a press conference in Downing Street.
10am: Peter Sewell, a former manager from Fujitsu, working on the Post Office account, gives evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
10.30am: Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, takes questions on next week’s business.
After 11.30am: MPs debate the order banning the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Noon: Humza Yousaf takes first minister’s questions at Holyrood.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
