Rwanda bill vote: minister says rules could be changed so ECHR injunctions could be ignored – UK politics live

Good morning. Rishi Sunak faces another difficult day over his Rwanda bill, but it seems much more likely than not that by the time he goes to bed he will have got the legislation through the House of Commons unamended.

Even CCHQ would find it hard to present that as a triumph. Sixty Conservative MPs opposed the government in one of the votes last night, in the biggest rebellion of Sunak’s premiership, three people resigned from party or government positions, the bill still has to get through the House of Lords, and, even if it does become law, you would have to be very generous to say No 10 has made a convincing case to show that it will work.

But getting the bill past third reading in these circumstances would be a lot, lot better than losing and No 10 seem confident they will win the final vote. According to the Commons website, the government has a working majority of 54 and so if 60 Tory MPs were to vote against, or even if all of them just abstained, the majority would vanish. But only around a dozen or so have said they will vote against and most of them are likely to vote with the government (including Lee Anderson, Brendan Clarke-Smith and Stevenson, the three people who resigned yesterday so they could vote in favour of rebel amendments, according to Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt).

Face with a choice between a Rwanda bill they believe is too weak, and no Rwanda bill at all, a possible no confidence vote in Sunak (which he would probably win), and an increased chance of an early election, Conservative MPs seem minded to reject the self-destruct option. This is not the way they have always behaved in recent years, and it is why Sunak may conclude that the outcome could be a lot worse. He is likely to feel more satisfied by the end of the day than the hardline, ERG rightwingers who brought down Theresa May’s Brexit deal and said explicitly they wanted to do the same to the Rwanda bill.

Today MPs will be discussing amendments including the one from Robert Jenrick intended to ensure that the government really does ignore European court of human rights’ injunctions saying deportation flights should not be allowed to take off. Sunak has said in principle he is willing to do this. But he has not given a cast-iron assurance that in all circumstances he would.

Why not? Probably because of the attorney general, Victoria Prentis, who has reportedly said that if a minister actually does ignore one of the injunctions (rather than just declaring they might), that would be in breach of international law. And breaking interntaional law is a breach of the ministerial code.

Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, was doing the morning interview round and he offered the Tory rebels an olive branch on this point. He said the government is considering changing the civil service code to say that government can ignore these injunctions, which would mean officials could not obstruct them by citing the international law argument. Asked to confirm that was the case, he told the Today programme:

We are looking at that. What happens at the moment is that civil servants advise, ministers decide, and then our excellent civil servants go on and effect and carry out those policies. But, yes, we are looking to see what can be done to strengthen and reassure.

I will post more on his interviews shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Noon: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

Noon: The Northern Ireland assembly is being recalled because Sinn Féin wants a debate on public sector pay ahead of a planned mass strike tomorrow. But it is expected that a full sitting will not be possible because the DUP, which has been boycotting power sharing for almost two years, will continue to block the election of a speaker.

After 12.45pm: MPs resume their debate on the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill. Up to six hours is set aside for the rest of the committee stage debate, and then – if no amendments are passed – up to another hour is set aside for the third reading debate. So the final vote could be mid-evening.

1pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, takes part in a discussion at Davos with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. Later, at 4.30pm, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a discussion on growth. Graeme Wearden is covering all the Davos event on his business live blog.

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.