We're closing our live coverage of some lively moments in Parliament over the the thorny issue of migration. Thanks for joining us - here's a quick recap:
Starmer called the policy a "gimmick" - but Sunak accused him of not really wanting to stop the boats crossing the Channel, adding that an effective deterrent is needed
Suella Braverman later addressed the Commons, three weeks after being sacked as home secretary by Sunak - her personal statement focused on advancing a bill to ensure the Rwanda plan can go ahead
As a reminder, the government's plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda was declared unlawful by the UK Supreme Court in November - two days after Braverman was sacked. But Home Secretary James Cleverly signed a new treaty with Rwanda yesterday and details of a new government bill about it are expected shortly. You can read our latest story on it here.
Today's page was written by Francesca Gillett, Chas Geiger, Jaqueline Howard and Barbara Tasch. It was edited by Heather Sharp, Paul Gribben and Robert Corp.
Watch: Braverman warns Tories of 'electoral oblivion'
Video content
Video caption: Braverman warns of 'electoral oblivion' over migrationBraverman warns of 'electoral oblivion' over migration
The former home secretary has told her party it's "now or never" to act over illegal migration into the UK. Here is what she told the Commons.
What was in Braverman's personal statement to the Commons?
Former home secretary Suella Braverman has spoken in the Commons for the first time since she was sacked by Rishi Sunak last month.
In a personal statement to MPs, her central message was that Conservatives faced "electoral oblivion in a matter of months" if they introduced new Rwanda legislation which was "destined to fail".
She said the government must "finally act" to stop the "crisis" of "mass, uncontrolled, illegal migration", which was "putting unsustainable pressure on public finances and public services, undermining community cohesion, and jeopardising national security and public safety"
She said although small boat crossings were down, they would go on until expansive human rights laws, flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights, were tackled; these were "literally" preventing the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda "getting off the ground"
So new legislation, she argued, would work only if it blocked off all routes of challenge in international law
She said removals to Rwanda must take place within days of people arriving illegally and these people must be detained in the meantime
She concluded: "It is now or never... Do we fight for sovereignty or let our party die?"
'Now or never': Braverman ends with stark warning for Tories
House of CommonsCopyright: House of Commons
Braverman ends with a blunt conclusion: "It is now or never. The Conservative Party faces electoral oblivion in a matter of months if we introduce yet another bill destined to fail.
"Do we fight for sovereignty or do we let our party die?.. I refuse to
sit by and allow us to fail. The trust that millions of people placed in us can not be discarded
like an inconvenient detail," she adds.
She concludes by saying that if the government has "the political courage to do what is truly necessary" and fight for the interests
of the British people, and the PM "leads that fight, he has my total support".
Braverman sets test for new Rwanda plan legislation
Braverman makes clear that she - like many on the right of the Conservative Party - wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). And she wants to replace the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights that "finishes the
job of Brexit by extricating us from a foreign court and restores real parliamentary supremacy".
She accepts this is "a debate for another
day". But, she argues, new legislation will work only if it meets five tests:
It must address the Supreme Court’s concerns about the safety of Rwanda
It must pave the way for flights to Rwanda before the next election "by blocking off all routes of challenge", including under the Human
Rights Act, the ECHR, the Refugee Convention, and all other international law
It must ensure removals to Rwanda can take place within days of
people arriving illegally, rather than allowing challenges which drag on for months
It must allow people who arrive illegally to be detained until they are removed, and "Nightingale-style detention facilities" must be built to enable this, like Nightingale hospitals were built to deal with Covid
Parliament must be prepared to sit over Christmas to get this bill passed
'We are running out of time' on illegal migration - Braverman
Braverman continues by saying some progress was made during her tenure as home secretary - citing a 30% drop in overall crossings - but she stresses that saying "crossings are down is not the same as stopping the boats".
She goes on: "I advised that we should scrap rather than continue
passage of the Illegal Migration Bill, in favour of a more robust alternative
that excluded international and human rights laws."
She says she urged the need for a "credible Plan B in the event of a Supreme
Court loss".
"It is now three weeks on and we
are yet to see a Bill. I am told its
publication is imminent but we are running out of time. This is an emergency and we need to see the bill now," she tells the Commons.
Braverman explains that in her view, previous attempts to address the issue of illegal crossings failed because they did not address what she called the "root cause of the problem".
She says: "Expansive
human rights laws - flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights,
replicated in Labour’s Human Rights Act - are being interpreted elastically by
courts domestic and foreign, to literally prevent our Rwanda plan from
getting off the ground".
.Copyright: .
Braverman focuses on 'crisis' of 'mass illegal migration'
Suella Braverman begins by describing serving in the Cabinet as a "true honour" and thanking "the many civil servants and ministers" she worked with.
But the former home secretary quickly makes it clear she wants to focus on the "crisis" of "mass, uncontrolled, illegal immigration".
She says "tens of
thousands of mostly young men, many with values and social mores at odds with
our own" are "pouring into our country day after day, month after month, year after
year" - many of them not refugees and all coming from "safe countries".
Braverman adds that France should be doing much more to stop them.
She says this is "putting unsustainable pressure on our public finances and our public services, it's straining community cohesion, jeopardising national security and harming public
safety".
Will the government now "finally act" to stop it?
Braverman begins statement
The former home secretary has begun her address to MPs in the House of Commons. Stay with us.
Braverman making statement after sacking last month
Suella Braverman has started addressing the Commons for the first time since she was sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak last month.
She is making a personal statement to MPs, which by convention is not interrupted and not followed by a government response.
Government policy on migration and the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda was a major source of tension between Braverman and the PM, and will surely feature in her statement.
Forty-eight hours after she was sacked, the UK Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful, saying Rwanda wasn't a safe country.
Yesterday, new Home Secretary James Cleverly signed a new treaty in Rwanda, aimed at addressing the Court's concerns. Details of a new government bill on Rwanda are expected shortly.
Braverman to make personal statement in Commons after sacking by Sunak
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
Former home secretary Suella Braverman is to make a personal statement to the Commons in a little while, following a government statement on gender recognition.
Such personal statements often follow the departure of a major figure from the cabinet.
Braverman was sacked by Rishi Sunak days before the Supreme Court ruled their Rwanda plan was unlawful. It followed a series of disagreements - some of them aired in public - between the two of them on illegal and legal migration.
After she was sacked, Braverman wrote an excoriating letter to the PM, accusing him of "magical thinking" over his approach to stopping migrants crossing the English Channel.
A standard bearer for many on the Conservative right, she has argued the UK must override human rights laws to push through the Rwanda plan - legislation for which is expected very soon.
What happened this week at PMQs?
Francesca Gillett
Live reporter
And just like that, PMQs is over for another week. Here are some of the key moments from today:
On Rwanda:
As expected, the government's newly-signed Rwanda deal dominated. Labour's Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly brought up costs - asking how much the UK will be set back, since they haven't provided a total cost yet. Sunak said it doesn't come with extra costs - but Starmer said the new treaty states the UK will have to pay for asylum seekers' accommodation and upkeep for five years, on top of the £140m already paid
Starmer called it a "gimmick" - but Sunak accused him of not really wanting to stop the boats crossing the Channel. There needs to be an effective deterrent, Sunak said
Asked about what support he will give the International Criminal Court as it investigates events in Israel and Gaza, Sunak replied that the UK was a long-standing supporter of the ICC and, when it comes to Gaza, he had also stressed to Israel yesterday that international law must be followed
However, the number of people crossing
this year is still higher than in previous years:
In 2021, 28,526 people crossed
In 2020, 8,466 people crossed
In 2019, 1,843 people crossed
BBCCopyright: BBC
Tory MP urges PM to consider a minister for men
Earlier, Tory MP Nick Fletcher asked about issues affecting men - highlighting the rates of male suicide, men dying of heart disease and the number of men in prisons.
He asked whether the PM would consider creating a minister for men - since there is a women's minister - because "when one sex loses, both sexes lose".
Sunak praised Fletcher for his campaigning on this issue - and said on international men's day the government announced a role of the first men's health ambassador.
A men's health taskforce was also created, Sunak pointed out - and finished by saying he looked forward to collaborating with Fletcher further on the issue.
BBC Verify
Tamara Kovacevic
Would Labour accept 100,000 illegal migrants?
Rishi Sunak accused Labour leader Keir Starmer of having a plan “to cook up a deal with the EU that would see us accept
100,000 illegal migrants".
Mr Sunak's claim - which we’ve looked at before - is based on an assumption that Labour would have to take 13% of all asylum
seekers arriving in the EU as part of such an agreement.
The Conservatives said this
is because the EU has a policy of sharing asylum seekers between countries based
on population size. They said this would mean the UK taking over 100,000 of
them a year.
But although the EU has been
discussing for years how to share responsibility for refugees, no deal based on
population is in place.
Labour has said it would not
- and could not - sign up to an EU quota scheme because the UK is not a member
state, so any agreement would have to be outside that.
BBC Verify
Anthony Reuben
Have 17,000 people disappeared from the asylum system?
At PMQs, Keir Starmer said: “Last week the Home Office admitted that
17,000 people in the asylum system have disappeared” and quoted officials
saying “we do not know where all these people are”.
He was referring to a hearing by a committee of MPs who were
questioning senior Home Office civil servants.
The officials admitted they did not know what had happened
to all of the 17,316 people who had had their claims for asylum withdrawn by the
government since December 2022.
They told the committee that claims are withdrawn if asylum
seekers fail to respond to two successive case worker interview requests or
questionnaires.
"When he is taking a dip in his pool or he is on the beach in his place in California, he doesn't have to worry about swimming in sewage," is how Labour MP for Bristol East, Kathy McCarthy, started her question on why the PM would not support Labour's plans for criminal liability for water companies' bosses who fail to "clean up their act".
Sunak said that the government had already brought forward legislation for unlimited fines on this issue and that when there was a debate about it in the Commons, Labour didn't show up to vote.
DUP queries BBC licence fee budget
DUP MP Gregory Campbell chose to focus his question on the BBC licence fee.
He pointed out that people are facing increasing costs due to the cost-of-living crisis, and there are widespread staffing issues at the BBC. He asked: "Is now not the right time to proceed with an even larger £3.7bn licence fee budget enhanced yet again?".
The figure he was referring is the amount the BBC received in licence fee funding in 2022.
Sunak replied by saying the government "has already agreed a fair settlement with the BBC which will see the licence fee frozen until 2024".
He said Campbell raised an excellent point and that the fee "needs to be realistic" and only rise at a level people can afford. The culture secretary is looking at the issue and will set out more details in due course, Sunak added.
BBC Verify
Anthony Reuben
Will the UK have to take refugees from Rwanda?
Criticising the UK’s agreement to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, Keir Starmer
said: “Article 19 says we actually have to take refugees from Rwanda”, and
asked how many refugees from Rwanda would be coming.
He is right about Article 19, which says: “The Parties shall
make arrangements for the United Kingdom to resettle a portion of Rwanda’s most
vulnerable refugees in the United Kingdom.”
The prime minister did not say how many refugees would be
coming from Rwanda to the UK but said it was a "point of pride" that
the UK is a "compassionate country that does welcome people from around
the world".
Analysis
Tories and Labour want to appear tough on migration
Harry Farley
Political correspondent
It was a typically boisterous exchange between Rishi Sunak
and Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions.
Every single one of the Labour leader’s questions to Sunak was on migration.
Starmer described the Conservatives' Rwanda plan as a
“gimmick”. He pointed out that no asylum seekers had yet been sent to Kigali and
suggested hundreds of millions of pounds was being spent “for nothing in
return”.
Sunak replied that “if you believe in stopping the boats you need to have
an effective deterrent and returns agreement".
At the last election – when the Conservatives won a large
majority - polling suggested they were more trusted than Labour on immigration.
But recently several polls have indicated Labour is now more trusted than the
Tories.
From Starmer's questions today – and last week – it appears he thinks
this is an area Labour can exploit in a general election campaign, which we’re
expecting at some point next year.
Stay with us...
PMQs has now finished in the House of Commons, but stay with us as we catch you up on a few more backbenchers' questions, look back at the key moments and bring you analysis on what it all means.
Business has now turned to the government's response to a 2017 report into the experiences of the bereaved families from the Hillsborough disaster - you can follow our live coverage of that here.
Live Reporting
Edited by Heather Sharp and Paul Gribben
All times stated are UK
-
Prime Minister's Questions today largely focused on the issues surrounding the newly signed treaty with Rwanda - which is part of ihe government's plan to send some asylum seekers to the African country.
- Sunak said it doesn't come with extra costs - but Starmer said the new treaty states the UK will have to pay for asylum seekers' accommodation and upkeep for five years, on top of the £140m already paid
-
Starmer called the policy a "gimmick" - but Sunak accused him of not really wanting to stop the boats crossing the Channel, adding that an effective deterrent is needed
-
Suella Braverman later addressed the Commons, three weeks after being sacked as home secretary by Sunak - her personal statement focused on advancing a bill to ensure the Rwanda plan can go ahead
-
She said the Conservative Party would face "electoral oblivion" if it introduced a bill "destined to fail"
Video caption: Braverman warns of 'electoral oblivion' over migrationBraverman warns of 'electoral oblivion' over migration -
She said the government must "finally act" to stop the "crisis" of "mass, uncontrolled, illegal migration", which was "putting unsustainable pressure on public finances and public services, undermining community cohesion, and jeopardising national security and public safety"
-
She said although small boat crossings were down, they would go on until expansive human rights laws, flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights, were tackled; these were "literally" preventing the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda "getting off the ground"
-
So new legislation, she argued, would work only if it blocked off all routes of challenge in international law
-
She said removals to Rwanda must take place within days of people arriving illegally and these people must be detained in the meantime
-
She concluded: "It is now or never... Do we fight for sovereignty or let our party die?"
House of CommonsCopyright: House of Commons -
It must address the Supreme Court’s concerns about the safety of Rwanda
-
It must pave the way for flights to Rwanda before the next election "by blocking off all routes of challenge", including under the Human
Rights Act, the ECHR, the Refugee Convention, and all other international law
-
It must ensure removals to Rwanda can take place within days of
people arriving illegally, rather than allowing challenges which drag on for months
-
It must allow people who arrive illegally to be detained until they are removed, and "Nightingale-style detention facilities" must be built to enable this, like Nightingale hospitals were built to deal with Covid
-
Parliament must be prepared to sit over Christmas to get this bill passed
.Copyright: . 
ReutersCopyright: Reuters -
As expected, the government's newly-signed Rwanda deal dominated. Labour's Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly brought up costs - asking how much the UK will be set back, since they haven't provided a total cost yet. Sunak said it doesn't come with extra costs - but Starmer said the new treaty states the UK will have to pay for asylum seekers' accommodation and upkeep for five years, on top of the £140m already paid
-
Starmer called it a "gimmick" - but Sunak accused him of not really wanting to stop the boats crossing the Channel. There needs to be an effective deterrent, Sunak said
-
Legal migration also came up with Sunak defending his new policies. When the SNP's Stephen Flynn said he thought migration was a positive thing, Sunak replied saying economic migration was far too high
-
Asked about what support he will give the International Criminal Court as it investigates events in Israel and Gaza, Sunak replied that the UK was a long-standing supporter of the ICC and, when it comes to Gaza, he had also stressed to Israel yesterday that international law must be followed
-
And the focus of several of today's jokes was Starmer's comments on Sunday praising Margaret Thatcher. Tory backbencher Michael Fabricant called Starmer a "fan boy" - and Sunak joked that he was glad to learn of another Thatcherite
-
In 2021, 28,526 people crossed
-
In 2020, 8,466 people crossed
-
In 2019, 1,843 people crossed
BBCCopyright: BBC Analysis
Latest PostWhat happened today?
We're closing our live coverage of some lively moments in Parliament over the the thorny issue of migration. Thanks for joining us - here's a quick recap:
As a reminder, the government's plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda was declared unlawful by the UK Supreme Court in November - two days after Braverman was sacked. But Home Secretary James Cleverly signed a new treaty with Rwanda yesterday and details of a new government bill about it are expected shortly. You can read our latest story on it here.
Today's page was written by Francesca Gillett, Chas Geiger, Jaqueline Howard and Barbara Tasch. It was edited by Heather Sharp, Paul Gribben and Robert Corp.
Watch: Braverman warns Tories of 'electoral oblivion'
Video content
The former home secretary has told her party it's "now or never" to act over illegal migration into the UK. Here is what she told the Commons.
What was in Braverman's personal statement to the Commons?
Former home secretary Suella Braverman has spoken in the Commons for the first time since she was sacked by Rishi Sunak last month.
In a personal statement to MPs, her central message was that Conservatives faced "electoral oblivion in a matter of months" if they introduced new Rwanda legislation which was "destined to fail".
'Now or never': Braverman ends with stark warning for Tories
Braverman ends with a blunt conclusion: "It is now or never. The Conservative Party faces electoral oblivion in a matter of months if we introduce yet another bill destined to fail.
"Do we fight for sovereignty or do we let our party die?.. I refuse to sit by and allow us to fail. The trust that millions of people placed in us can not be discarded like an inconvenient detail," she adds.
She concludes by saying that if the government has "the political courage to do what is truly necessary" and fight for the interests of the British people, and the PM "leads that fight, he has my total support".
Braverman sets test for new Rwanda plan legislation
Braverman makes clear that she - like many on the right of the Conservative Party - wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). And she wants to replace the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights that "finishes the job of Brexit by extricating us from a foreign court and restores real parliamentary supremacy".
She accepts this is "a debate for another day". But, she argues, new legislation will work only if it meets five tests:
'We are running out of time' on illegal migration - Braverman
Braverman continues by saying some progress was made during her tenure as home secretary - citing a 30% drop in overall crossings - but she stresses that saying "crossings are down is not the same as stopping the boats".
She goes on: "I advised that we should scrap rather than continue passage of the Illegal Migration Bill, in favour of a more robust alternative that excluded international and human rights laws."
She says she urged the need for a "credible Plan B in the event of a Supreme Court loss".
"It is now three weeks on and we are yet to see a Bill. I am told its publication is imminent but we are running out of time. This is an emergency and we need to see the bill now," she tells the Commons.
Braverman explains that in her view, previous attempts to address the issue of illegal crossings failed because they did not address what she called the "root cause of the problem".
She says: "Expansive human rights laws - flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights, replicated in Labour’s Human Rights Act - are being interpreted elastically by courts domestic and foreign, to literally prevent our Rwanda plan from getting off the ground".
Braverman focuses on 'crisis' of 'mass illegal migration'
Suella Braverman begins by describing serving in the Cabinet as a "true honour" and thanking "the many civil servants and ministers" she worked with.
But the former home secretary quickly makes it clear she wants to focus on the "crisis" of "mass, uncontrolled, illegal immigration".
She says "tens of thousands of mostly young men, many with values and social mores at odds with our own" are "pouring into our country day after day, month after month, year after year" - many of them not refugees and all coming from "safe countries".
Braverman adds that France should be doing much more to stop them.
She says this is "putting unsustainable pressure on our public finances and our public services, it's straining community cohesion, jeopardising national security and harming public safety".
Will the government now "finally act" to stop it?
Braverman begins statement
The former home secretary has begun her address to MPs in the House of Commons. Stay with us.
Braverman making statement after sacking last month
Suella Braverman has started addressing the Commons for the first time since she was sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak last month.
She is making a personal statement to MPs, which by convention is not interrupted and not followed by a government response.
Government policy on migration and the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda was a major source of tension between Braverman and the PM, and will surely feature in her statement.
Forty-eight hours after she was sacked, the UK Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful, saying Rwanda wasn't a safe country.
Yesterday, new Home Secretary James Cleverly signed a new treaty in Rwanda, aimed at addressing the Court's concerns. Details of a new government bill on Rwanda are expected shortly.
Braverman to make personal statement in Commons after sacking by Sunak
Former home secretary Suella Braverman is to make a personal statement to the Commons in a little while, following a government statement on gender recognition.
Such personal statements often follow the departure of a major figure from the cabinet.
Braverman was sacked by Rishi Sunak days before the Supreme Court ruled their Rwanda plan was unlawful. It followed a series of disagreements - some of them aired in public - between the two of them on illegal and legal migration.
After she was sacked, Braverman wrote an excoriating letter to the PM, accusing him of "magical thinking" over his approach to stopping migrants crossing the English Channel.
A standard bearer for many on the Conservative right, she has argued the UK must override human rights laws to push through the Rwanda plan - legislation for which is expected very soon.
What happened this week at PMQs?
Francesca Gillett
Live reporter
And just like that, PMQs is over for another week. Here are some of the key moments from today:
On Rwanda:
Other moments:
BBC Verify
Lucy Gilder
Are small boat crossings down by a third?
Rishi Sunak said earlier that "the number of small boat arrivals" is "down by a third".
As of 4 December, 29,090 people had crossed the channel and arrived in the UK in small boats this year.
This is down by more than a third compared to the same period - 1 January to 4 December - last year, when 44,174 people crossed.
A total of 45,755 people made the crossing in 2022.
However, the number of people crossing this year is still higher than in previous years:
Tory MP urges PM to consider a minister for men
Earlier, Tory MP Nick Fletcher asked about issues affecting men - highlighting the rates of male suicide, men dying of heart disease and the number of men in prisons.
He asked whether the PM would consider creating a minister for men - since there is a women's minister - because "when one sex loses, both sexes lose".
Sunak praised Fletcher for his campaigning on this issue - and said on international men's day the government announced a role of the first men's health ambassador.
A men's health taskforce was also created, Sunak pointed out - and finished by saying he looked forward to collaborating with Fletcher further on the issue.
BBC Verify
Tamara Kovacevic
Would Labour accept 100,000 illegal migrants?
Rishi Sunak accused Labour leader Keir Starmer of having a plan “to cook up a deal with the EU that would see us accept 100,000 illegal migrants".
Starmer previously has said he would negotiate a returns agreement with EU countries to send back some failed asylum seekers - if Labour won power.
Mr Sunak's claim - which we’ve looked at before - is based on an assumption that Labour would have to take 13% of all asylum seekers arriving in the EU as part of such an agreement.
The Conservatives said this is because the EU has a policy of sharing asylum seekers between countries based on population size. They said this would mean the UK taking over 100,000 of them a year.
But although the EU has been discussing for years how to share responsibility for refugees, no deal based on population is in place.
Labour has said it would not - and could not - sign up to an EU quota scheme because the UK is not a member state, so any agreement would have to be outside that.
BBC Verify
Anthony Reuben
Have 17,000 people disappeared from the asylum system?
At PMQs, Keir Starmer said: “Last week the Home Office admitted that 17,000 people in the asylum system have disappeared” and quoted officials saying “we do not know where all these people are”.
He was referring to a hearing by a committee of MPs who were questioning senior Home Office civil servants.
The officials admitted they did not know what had happened to all of the 17,316 people who had had their claims for asylum withdrawn by the government since December 2022.
They told the committee that claims are withdrawn if asylum seekers fail to respond to two successive case worker interview requests or questionnaires.
You can read more about it here.
Labour MP mocks PM over California swimming pool
"When he is taking a dip in his pool or he is on the beach in his place in California, he doesn't have to worry about swimming in sewage," is how Labour MP for Bristol East, Kathy McCarthy, started her question on why the PM would not support Labour's plans for criminal liability for water companies' bosses who fail to "clean up their act".
Sunak said that the government had already brought forward legislation for unlimited fines on this issue and that when there was a debate about it in the Commons, Labour didn't show up to vote.
DUP queries BBC licence fee budget
DUP MP Gregory Campbell chose to focus his question on the BBC licence fee.
He pointed out that people are facing increasing costs due to the cost-of-living crisis, and there are widespread staffing issues at the BBC. He asked: "Is now not the right time to proceed with an even larger £3.7bn licence fee budget enhanced yet again?".
The figure he was referring is the amount the BBC received in licence fee funding in 2022.
Sunak replied by saying the government "has already agreed a fair settlement with the BBC which will see the licence fee frozen until 2024".
He said Campbell raised an excellent point and that the fee "needs to be realistic" and only rise at a level people can afford. The culture secretary is looking at the issue and will set out more details in due course, Sunak added.
BBC Verify
Anthony Reuben
Will the UK have to take refugees from Rwanda?
Criticising the UK’s agreement to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, Keir Starmer said: “Article 19 says we actually have to take refugees from Rwanda”, and asked how many refugees from Rwanda would be coming.
He is right about Article 19, which says: “The Parties shall make arrangements for the United Kingdom to resettle a portion of Rwanda’s most vulnerable refugees in the United Kingdom.”
The prime minister did not say how many refugees would be coming from Rwanda to the UK but said it was a "point of pride" that the UK is a "compassionate country that does welcome people from around the world".
Tories and Labour want to appear tough on migration
Harry Farley
Political correspondent
It was a typically boisterous exchange between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions.
Every single one of the Labour leader’s questions to Sunak was on migration.
Starmer described the Conservatives' Rwanda plan as a “gimmick”. He pointed out that no asylum seekers had yet been sent to Kigali and suggested hundreds of millions of pounds was being spent “for nothing in return”.
Sunak replied that “if you believe in stopping the boats you need to have an effective deterrent and returns agreement".
At the last election – when the Conservatives won a large majority - polling suggested they were more trusted than Labour on immigration.
But recently several polls have indicated Labour is now more trusted than the Tories.
From Starmer's questions today – and last week – it appears he thinks this is an area Labour can exploit in a general election campaign, which we’re expecting at some point next year.
Stay with us...
PMQs has now finished in the House of Commons, but stay with us as we catch you up on a few more backbenchers' questions, look back at the key moments and bring you analysis on what it all means.
Business has now turned to the government's response to a 2017 report into the experiences of the bereaved families from the Hillsborough disaster - you can follow our live coverage of that here.