The first deportation flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda will not take off until July, Rishi Sunak has admitted in a significant delay to his flagship illegal migration policy.
The prime minister said the first flight to Kigali would start taking off “in 10 to 12 weeks”, contradicting his long-standing pledge that they would start this spring.
In a press conference on Monday, Sunak said there would be a “regular rhythm” of deportations from July onwards to deter asylum seekers.
He blamed Labour and the House of Lords for the delay, arguing they had used “every trick in the book” to hold up progress.
“If Labour peers had not spent weeks holding up the bill in the House of Lords to try to block these flights altogether, we would have begun this process weeks ago,” Sunak said.
A succession of legal challenges and parliamentary hurdles have prevented the Rwanda deportations policy, which would send asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on small boats to the east African country for processing, from being implemented.
Weeks of parliamentary back-and-forth over the government’s Rwanda bill, designed to overcome legal objections to the policy, are set to come to a head on Monday night.
The prime minister urged the Lords, who have pushed amendments that have delayed the passage of the bill, to respect the will of the Commons.
“Enough is enough. No more prevarication, no more delay. Parliament will sit there tonight and vote no matter how late it goes. No ifs, no buts,” he said.
“Starting from the moment that the bill passes, we will begin the process of removing those identified for the first flight. We have prepared for this moment,” Sunak added.
The prime minister said an airfield was on standby and that charter flights had been booked to take asylum seekers on the one-way trip to Rwanda.
He added that there was increased court capacity to deal with any legal cases “quickly and capacity” including 25 courtrooms and 150 judges who could provide 5,000 sitting days.
The government has also increased detention spaces for migrants to 2,200 and tasked 500 officials with escorting migrants to Rwanda.
Sunak insisted the plan would be a “gamechanger” and an “indispensable deterrent so that we finally break the business model of the criminal gangs and save lives”.
He declined to give details on numbers of people likely to leave on flights to Rwanda, but said there will be a “regular rhythm” of “multiple flights a month through the summer and beyond”.
“It’s not just about that one flight. It’s about putting a system in place and that’s what we’ve done that will ensure the successful delivery of multiple flights a month, through the summer and beyond until the boats have stopped,” he said.
He added that “this is one of the most complex operational endeavours the Home Office has carried out. But we are ready, plans are in place and these flights will go, come what may”.
The prime minister said the Rwandan government was still “completely committed” to the policy despite the delays to its implementation, and that in Kigali there was accommodation ready for asylum seekers and lawyers ready to provide legal assistance.
There have been reports that some of the homes in Kigali earmarked for migrants have been sold off.
“Rwanda cares about tackling this issue,” he said. “They’re as passionate as we are about ending this global illegal migration crisis.”
Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell suggested earlier that the objections of peers “border on racism” and claimed Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, was safer than London.
Referring to a Lords amendment to the Rwanda bill which proposes independent monitoring of the country’s safety, separate from its own judiciary, Mitchell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Some of the discussions which have gone on in the Lords about the judicial arrangements, legal arrangements within Rwanda, have been patronising and, in my view, border on racism, so we don’t think it’s necessary to have that amendment either and that the necessary structures are in place to ensure that the scheme works properly and fairly.”
Mitchell added that “if you look at the statistics, Kigali is arguably safer than London, so I have no doubt at all about the safety of Rwanda, and the efficacy of the scheme”. He praised Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, for leading a “remarkable regime”.
The Rwanda deportation plan was first announced by Boris Johnson in April 2022 but is yet to become operational two years later. The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released to the National Audit Office.
Before Sunak’s press conference on Monday, Downing Street had been insistent that flights to Rwanda would take off this spring. Conservative strategists want to ensure the policy becomes operational before the general election later this year.