By Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government offered concessions on Monday to members of parliament’s upper house after they inflicted a series of defeats on highly contested legislation to make it easier to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Under an initial 140-million-pound ($180 million) deal struck last year, Britain planned to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive on its shores a distance of more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to the East African country.
There has already been a protracted legal fight over the plan, which has been criticised by some opposition politicians as inhumane and cruel.
The government’s concessions do not alter the overall intention of the legislation, which is to stop people who arrive in Britain without permission claiming asylum and to deport them either to their country of origin or a so-called safe country like Rwanda.
The House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper chamber in parliament, approved 20 amendments last week to water down the government’s legislation.
The bill will return to the House of Commons on Tuesday, where members of parliament will debate and have a chance to reject or accept the amendments before sending the legislation back to the upper house.
One government amendment will limit the detention of unaccompanied children to eight days rather than the previously proposed 28 days. Another will mean pregnant woman will only be detained for three days – although this was can be extended to seven days with the permission of a minister.
A further amendment would mean the home secretary’s obligation under the legislation to remove anyone who arrived by irregular routes would no longer apply retrospectively to when the legislation was first published in early March, but they would remain ineligible for settlement.
The first planned Rwanda deportation flight was blocked a year ago in a last-minute ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which imposed an injunction preventing any deportations until the conclusion of legal action in Britain.
The government is appealing a Court of Appeal ruling last month that the plan was unlawful.
Sunak has made “stop the boats” one of his five top priorities, and hopes a fall in arrivals might help his Conservative Party, trailing by about 20 points in opinion polls, pull off an unexpected win at the next national election.
Last year, a record 45,755 people came to Britain in small boats across the Channel, mainly from France. More than 12,000 have arrived this year, a rate similar to last year.
($1 = 0.7773 pounds)
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill)
