Sunak says that "if you come here illegally, you can't claim asylum or stay in the UK".

The government will detain those who come here illegally "and remove them in weeks", he says.

This is how we protect our borders, Sunak says.

"It's tough but necessary and fair."

Image source, Reuters

Sunak begins by outlining why his government is introducing the bill.

He says the policy is "very simple", adding it is "this country and your government" who should decide who comes here and not criminal gangs, who know the UK's asylum system can be exploited.

He says this is the "reality we must deal with" and warns that the situation will get "worse and worse" if no action is taken.

Rishi Sunak is now standing at the lectern ready to make a statement as the press conference gets underway.

Chris Mason
Political editor

Reporters have just been let into the news conference room in Downing Street.

And there appears to be a new lectern — with an unmissable but increasingly familiar slogan.

As we wait for the prime minister to speak on the proposed legislation, our correspondent Dominic Casciani has produced the latest episode of the 5 Questions On podcast.

You can listen below.

We're expecting to hear from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at around 17:30 GMT.

He'll be speaking from Downing Street about the government’s new migration plans aimed at deterring people from crossing the Channel in small boats.

Stay with us as we bring you the latest developments, you can also watch live by clicking the play button at the top of this page.

Dominic Casciani
Legal Correspondent

So the first thing we can say about the legislation is that it seems to place a pretty black and white duty on ministers to remove most of those who have passed through a safe country en route to the UK.

In practice that means virtually everyone who sets off from a French beach for Kent. Children appear to be exempt.

That was almost 45,000 people last year - and that raises huge questions about whether the Home Office has the capacity to meet this challenge - not least because the UK has no returns agreement with the European Union.

The number of asylum seekers waiting for a decision on their case in the UK has reached record levels, with about 166,000 people in the backlog.

While almost 110,000 have been waiting for six months or more, according to Home Office published last month.

The 166,000 backlog includes people waiting for the outcome of appeals as well as for initial decisions. This figure is a rise of 60% on last year and is more than 160,000 for the first time.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to clear much of the backlog by the end of 2023.

Simon Jones
Reporting from Dover

One hundred and ninety-seven migrants in five boats reached the UK yesterday.

It brings this year’s total to 3,147 people.

It was bitterly cold yesterday, but the sea was calm - and this shows how the crossings have become an all-year-round phenomenon, as long as the weather conditions are right.

Today, the sea has been rougher, so it has been all quiet. But as soon as the weather changes for the better, the crossings will continue.

Image source, EPA

In a campaign email sent out to the Conservative party mailing list, the home secretary has blamed civil servants for failing to stop small boats.

In it, she says the government tried to stop the Channel crossings without changing the law “but an activist blob of left-wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us."

The email then takes a swipe at Sir Keir Starmer for refusing to back previous proposed laws to deal with the small boats, before laying out the main points of her new bill.

Reality Check

In the debate over those who arrive in small boats, the government often talks about “safe and legal routes” as an alternative.

The two biggest schemes have been for those coming from Ukraine and Hong Kong.

Between March 2022 and the end of February 2023 - 220,300 visas were issued, external to people applying under the two Ukraine schemes.

The British National Overseas route for people coming from Hong Kong issued, external 129,415 visas in 2021-2022.

Also in 2022, 5,792 people came to the UK through resettlement schemes, external (for Syrians, for example) and 4,473 partners and children of refugees living in the UK were granted family reunion visas.

And there were 31,448 people offered protection in 2022 via the Afghan routes, external.

In addition to that, 16,649 people were granted refugee permission following an asylum application, although we do not know how they arrived in the UK.

But there has been criticism of the availability of safe and legal routes, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman struggling to explain to MPs how a child refugee from Africa – for example - could access these routes.

Dominic Casciani
Legal Correspondent

The Bill has finally made it into the public domain after three days of speculation and briefings to selected media. You can see it for yourself, external on Parliament's website. Stay tuned for details from me.

Image source, PA Media

Rishi Sunak has been on the south coast today meeting Border Force employees and discussing some of the government's plans outlined in Parliament earlier.

The PM has been telling staff at a Home Office joint control centre in Dover, Kent, that plans to prevent small boat crossings need to have a "deterrent effect".

"We're actually already seeing that to some extent with the initiatives we put in place at the end of last year with Albania that are starting to now bear fruit," he says.

"Early signs, but you can start to see actually the numbers coming off, people realising there's not much point in this, and we need that on a bigger scale."

He says that the government is trying to do "something different" to stop people dying in the Channel.

Staff have also shown him a boat which was intercepted by Border Force on Sunday.

Earlier in the Commons, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper responded to Suella Braverman's statement.

Reality Check

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs: “Removals of unsuccessful asylum seekers are down 80% on the last Labour government.”

Labour confirmed that she was comparing current figures with the numbers from 2010.

The total number of enforced returns for 2021 was 2,768, which was indeed an 80% fall from the 13,928 from 2010, although Labour was only in government until early May 2010.

It is likely that Covid had some impact on the 2021 figures, although the 2019 figure of 7,198 was about half of the 2010 level.

Correction, 17 April – This post originally said that Labour had been in power for half of 2010. It has now been updated to clarify it was a shorter period.

Amnesty International have also given their response to the government's plans.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, the group's refugee and migrant rights' director, describes the bill as a "shocking new low" for the government.

"There is nothing fair, humane or even practical in this plan, and it's frankly chilling to see ministers trying to remove human rights protections for groups of people whom they've chosen to scapegoat for their own failures," he says.

He says that people fleeing conflict and persecution would be "irreparably harmed" by the proposals, accusing the government of "callously using vulnerable people for its own political ends" and setting an "utterly terrible example" to other nations.

He adds that the real issue is the urgent need to "fairly and efficiently" decide asylum claims and introducing accessible schemes so that people do not have to rely on smugglers or make dangerous journeys.

Image source, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The UK government's new Illegal Migration Bill will create "more cruelty and misery" for migrants, Katy Chakrabortty, head of policy and advocacy for the charity Oxfam, has said.

She also says the new legislation will "risk breaching refugee, humanitarian and human rights law".

Chakrabortty adds that the bill is "yet another example of the UK turning its back on some of the world's most vulnerable people".

She says the UK cannot "hope to legislate away" the reasons why so many migrants to attempt the dangerous journey to the UK by boat across the Channel.

In a letter to MPs to accompany the Illegal Migration Bill, the home secretary says there is a “more than 50% chance” that it is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

In the letter, seen by the BBC, Ms Braverman says that her plans are "robust and novel”.

“This does not mean that the provisions in the bill are incompatible with the convention rights, only that there is a more 50% chance that they may not be,” the letter reads.

“We are testing the limits but remain confident that this bill is compatible with international law.”

Lucy Williamson
Paris correspondent in Calais

The rain is pelting down on the rows of blue and green tents here at the Sudanese migrant camp in Calais.

Their residents are slowly emerging, one by one, pulling on shoes, and gravitating to the small fire in a nearby shelter, or across the field to a charge their phones at a power-bank run by a local charity.

Few have heard about the new UK policy, and those that have say it won’t stop them trying to cross into the UK – either by small boat or by hiding on lorries.

Salah points to the Rwanda Policy announced by the UK government last year.

“I see it not happening,” he says.

Salah has been trying to reach the UK for nine months already, and says the new tougher legislation being introduced by the UK government today won’t deter him.

“I will go to England and stay there,” he tells me. “[Whatever] happens, I will stay. If police take me to prison – no problem.”

I ask what he would do if he was deported to Rwanda.

He told me he would go to extreme lengths to avoid it – even insisting that he could take his own life.

“I can kill myself in England, but I’m not [going] to Rwanda,” he repeated.

Migrant associations here say levels of depression and despair in the camps here have risen in recent years as life has become harder and police tactics harsher, with one long-time aid worker telling me she had witnessed a rise in the number of suicides.

Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent

This was a divided and divisive debate, short on any details about how this new policy is actually going to work.

One after another, opposition MPs stood up to criticise the plan as a policy “that depends on dehumanising some of the most vulnerable people on earth”, one based on “xenophobia and racism” and one that may breach the UK’s international legal obligations.

Suella Braverman appeared content to be able to portray herself as someone prepared to take robust action. It was, she said, “irresponsible to suggest someone who wants to take a firm lie on our borders is racist.”

One after another Tory MPs rose to call her approach “excellent.”

But she couldn’t say whether the legislation in fact complies with human rights law, where holding centres will be built, what ‘safe’ countries refugees could be deported to, or what routes will be opened for people to come legally to the UK.