Further delay to Rwanda bill’s passage as Lords vote through amendments – UK politics live | Politics

Peers vote to accept Motion D1 in further setback for Rishi Sunak

Peers have divided to vote on Motion D1 which adds an exemption to the removal to Rwanda for people who have supported the UK armed forces and their families.

The fresh amendment to the Rwanda bill means it will be sent back to the Commons for debate once again.

Peers vote to accept Motion B1.

Over to the House of Lords now on the Safety of Rwanda Bill.

Peers have divided to vote on Motion B1 which would reinstate the Lords amendment on a monitoring committee to decide when Rwanda is safe.

The Home Office has confirmed a new deal with Vietnam to strengthen collaboration on efforts to tackle illegal migration, including through deterrence communication campaigns and intelligence-sharing.

Officials said the agreement will “continue to facilitate the process for the return of those with no right to remain in the UK” and lead to the development of a joint action plan to tackle human trafficking.

Vietnamese nationals made up 5% of small boat arrivals in the UK in 2023, up from 1% in 2022 but the same proportion as in 2021, Home Office figures show.

From 2018 to the end of 2023, there were 3,356 Vietnamese small boat arrivals, putting Vietnam in the top 10 source countries.

The Conservative MP Sir Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary, voted with the opposition against the government on two of the Lords amendments to the Rwanda bill. These were the ones saying the monitoring committee should decide when Rwanda is safe, and Afghans who worked with British forces should be exempt from deportation to Rwanda.

He was the only Tory MP who rebelled by voting against the government this afternoon.

The full division lists are here.

This is from Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, on the Commons vote earlier taking out the Lords amendment exempting Afghans who helped British troops from deportation to Rwanda.

Tory MPs just voted to insist that Afghan interpreters who served British armed forces can be sent to Rwanda.

A scheme which costs £2m per asylum seeker. A £500m+ scheme for less than 1% of asylum seekers. Which now includes those who worked with our troops

Shameful & shambolic

In the House of Lords peers have been told they have until 5.55pm to submit amendments for the latest debate on the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

Politico says peers are going to force votes on the two amendments they most want to see added to the bill. They are the ones flagged up by David Anderson this morning: letting the independent monitoring committee make the final decision about if and when Rwanda is a safe country (an amendment originally tabled by Lord Hope of Craighhead, a former deputy president of the supreme court); and exempting Afghans who helped the British in Afghanistan from deportation to Rwanda (an amendment originally tabled by Des Browne, the former Labour defence secretary).

John Crace has been back this week, and today he sketched PMQs. Here it is.

James Daly, the Conservative party deputy chair, could be forgiven for not wanting to say what Angela Rayner is supposed to have done wrong in relation to the council home she brought, and sold, before she became MP. (See 2.29pm.) The exact “charge sheet” as set out by her critics keeps changing.

The story was triggered by the publication of a biography of Rayner by Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory donor and former deputy party chair who has now published biographies of several leading political figures. Political research is one of his hobbies and, as well as running his own private polling operation, he pays for researchers to help him write books.

The biography describes how Rayner used right to buy to purchase her council home in Stockport, and quotes neighbours claiming that for some of the time she was supposed to be living there she was actually living with her husband in a different road in the town. Ashcroft did not directly accuse Rayner in the book of breaking the law, but he suggested she had questions to answer about whether she had complied with conditions attached to right-to-buy purchases.

The story did not take off until the Mail on Sunday published a story in February suggesting that Rayner avoided paying capital gains tax (up to £3,500) that it said she should have paid when her home was sold. Rayner denies this. The story was based on information in the Ashcroft book, but it was the Mail, not Ashcroft, that raised the CGT issue.

For several weeks the story focused on the capital gains tax issue. But when the matter was referred to the police by Tories, the main allegation shifted to one that Rayner may have broken electoral law by putting her wrong address on the electoral register. (The police don’t normally investigate tax matters.) Media stories focused on this for a while, until it became widely understood that prosecutions relating to the electoral register have to be lodged within 12 months of the offence being committed.

That prompted a search for another rule that Rayner might have broken. One suggestion is that, if she moved out of her right-to-buy home early, she should have repaid some of the discount she received when she bought it.

But this afternoon the Telegraph is focusing on an alternative allegation; it is claiming that Greater Manchester police are investigating claims that Rayner wrongly claimed a single person’s council tax discount on the property.

Rayner has repeatedly said that Ashcroft was wrong to say that she was not living in the home she brought when she said she was. She has also said her circumstances were unusual at the time partly because she had a very premature baby who spent eight months in intensive care.

Matthew Parris is not the only former Tory MP who feels that attacks on Rayner have gone too far. (See 11.39am.) In a letter published in the Times yesterday, Nick Boles, who served as a minister under David Cameron, attacked the hounding of Rayner in language that echoes what Keir Starmer said at PMQs. Boles said:

Having served for nine years as an MP I know how low politicians can stoop when their backs are against the wall. But the Conservative attack on Angela Rayner is one of the most grotesque spectacles of hypocrisy I have witnessed. On one side is a billionaire Tory peer, Lord Ashcroft, and a multimillionaire Tory prime minister, Rishi Sunak, whose families have all avoided paying millions of pounds in UK tax as beneficiaries of non-dom status and who live lives of luxury. On the other is a woman who grew up in poverty caring for her illiterate mother, who is now mother to a child who is registered blind, and who through her own guts and character has risen to be deputy leader of the Labour party. Even Rayner’s accusers accept that the most she might have benefited from the error that they allege ­– and which she denies – is less than £3,000 in tax.

I suppose that her attackers cannot bear the idea that they are about to lose to a woman who pulled herself up by her bootstraps. And who is going wipe the floor with them.

Rwanda bill faces further delay under government plan to put off further debates until next week if it loses in Lords tonight

Rwanda bill showdown continues, as it returns to Lords with peers planning further attempt to insert safeguards

The government has won the second Rwanda bill vote in the Commons, by 306 votes to 240, exactly the same majority as in the previous division. MPs are now voting for a third time.

The government has won the first of today’s votes on the Rwanda bill by 306 votes to 240 – a majority of 66. It is expected to vote down all four of the amendments passed by the House of Lords yesterday (see 9.55am) quite easily. The second division is taking place now.

In the Commons the Rwanda debate is over, and MPs are now voting on the amendments to reject the four ones passed by the Lords.