Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

The story of how Strasbourg might stop a Rwanda flight begins, believe it or not, in 2001 with death row in Arizona.

That year the United Nation’s International Court of Justice ruled that the USA had illegally executed two German-born bank robbers before Berlin had had a chance to exercise its right to advise its citizens of their rights.

The European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies later agreed that the ICJ's thoughts on such interim and emergency measures applied to their work too. It concluded these injunctions - known as Rule 39 in Strasbourg - were vital to ensuring both parties get a fair chance to put their case - the heart of justice itself.

When the Strasbourg court stopped June 2022’s Rwanda flight, London complained it had been given no reasons by the anonymous on-duty judge who took the call.

Since then, the court has said named judges will explain their decisions -- and only intervene if there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.

The stakes in such cases could not be higher.

Last year French judges were furious when President Macron’s government ignored a Rule 39 order from the ECHR and sent a terrorism suspect to Uzbekistan. They’ve demanded the man be brought back, external.

The risk for Rishi Sunak is that our judges could do the same over Rwanda.

Fact-checking Sunak's small boat pledgepublished at 18:26 Greenwich Mean Time 17 January

18:26 GMT 17 January

Rishu Sunak has made “stop the boats” one of his five priorities.

After announcing this pledge, he proposed new legislation including the plan to send some migrants who cross the English channel to Rwanda.

But the plan was blocked by the Supreme Court and no-one has been sent to Rwanda so far.

The small boats are still coming – with 263 migrants detected crossing this way last weekend.

But overall numbers last year were a third lower, external than the year before:

• In 2023, 29,437 migrants arrived in small boats
• In 2022, 45,755 migrants arrived in small boats

This was still significantly higher than arrivals in 2020 though.

You can read more about Sunak’s five priorities here.

Image source, .

As we mentioned earlier, the government has announced that if the Rwanda bill is passed, it will scrap guidance to civil servants that they must obey injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights - Rule 39 orders - that block deportations.

Now, the civil service union Prospect says the guidance could put civil service officials in an "impossible situation" with regards to the Rwanda scheme.

Deputy general secretary Garry Graham said: "This in effect could put civil servants in an impossible position where the choice is potentially between breaking international law, disobeying the instructions of a minister (and facing potential disciplinary action) or resigning.

"This is a problem of the government's own making and they should not be putting civil servants in this invidious position."

The Rwanda bill is "only a small part of [the government's] effort to tackle the small boats" health minister Maria Caulfield says, adding the government is making good progress on other elements.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM programme, she says other elements include processing claims quicker as well as a deal with Albania to reduce the number of migrants coming over.

"The Rwanda plan - as well as being a practical way of dealing with people who enter the country illegally - will also act as a deterrent," Caulfield says.

Caulfield says the prime minister will do "everything to make sure we get this off the ground", including providing extra capacity in terms of judges to deal with the applications.

Image source, House of Commons

SNP MP Alison Thewliss says the UK's "forced movement of people from here to Rwanda is nothing less than state sponsored people trafficking", and claims the government is a "criminal gang".

"People moved against their will with no regard for their safety, no recourse to appeal, to a country they do not know, involving money and profits. Well that sounds like people smuggling to me."

She expresses concerns that the legislation limits the courts' power, which act as a check on the Home Office and the government.

Thewliss says the courts are needed as "protection against the Home Office's instinct to deport first and ask questions later".

The government has set out draft guidance it plans to issue civil servants, scrapping a rule that they obey injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) blocking deportations.

It is contained in an exchange of letters sent by senior officials in the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, external.

The guidance says it is the "responsibility" of civil servants to "implement" any decision by a minister to ignore injunctions blocking flights to Rwanda.

Downing Street said earlier this would “provide additional clarity” on aspects of the Rwanda bill, which includes a clause saying it is for ministers to decide whether to abide by interim ECHR injunctions known as Rule 39 orders.

It was a Rule 39 order that halted a flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda at the last minute in June 2022.

Conservative rebels have argued that it should be the default position that such orders are ignored.

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

Assuming it passes the Commons, the next big hurdle is the House of Lords.

The government doesn’t have a majority there - and there are an awful lot of peers who care about constitutional questions, including protecting the independence of the British courts from alleged meddling by ministers.

Forcing judges to deem Rwanda to be safe, as well as wider questions about whether the bill breaks international law, could see a major attempt in the Lords to reject the plan and send it back to MPs.

The government does not have enough time left before a General Election to use special powers to ram the package through the upper house against its will.

If the Bill makes it into law, the question is whether the British courts will hear arguments that lead judges to conclude they have to intervene anyway.

The Supreme Court could make a “Declaration of Incompatibility”, meaning the plan breaks basic treatment safeguards in the European Convention of Human Rights - but ministers might try to ignore that.

This is really unknown territory.

• Read more here.

Would Labour allow 100,000 extra migrants into the UK?published at 17:25 Greenwich Mean Time 17 January

17:25 GMT 17 January

The government says Labour plans “a cosy deal with the EU, which would see the UK accept 100,000 illegal migrants”.

Keir Starmer has said he would negotiate a returns agreement with EU countries to send back some failed asylum seekers - if Labour won power.

The Conservatives claim that Labour would have to take 13% of all asylum seekers who arrive in the EU because the EU has a policy of sharing asylum seekers between countries, based on population size.

But although the EU has a new agreement on refugees,, external it does not include a deal based on population sizes.

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.

Image source, House of Commons

Tory MP Sir John Hayes says MPs on the Conservative benches might have differences on how to control migration, but says his party are united on addressing what he calls "perhaps the biggest existential crisis facing this country".

He says you can't have the numbers of people arriving in the UK through both legal and illegal migration in a short period of time without a "devastating effect on public services".

Hayes claims the "vast majority" of people arriving on small boats are not genuine asylum seekers, but economic migrants. He's challenged by SNP MP Alison Thewliss, who says they vast majority are granted asylum status, rather than economic migrant status.

Hayes doesn't answer that point but moves on to say that the cost of running the asylum system cannot be afforded and claims that legitimate asylum seekers are being compromised by those "gaming our far too lax system".

He talks at length of the problems he sees with the Human Rights Act, and urges MPs to back the amendments he supports in an attempt to limit the reach of the European Court of Human Rights from the asylum process.

Has the government lost contact with 4,250 asylum seekers?published at 17:04 Greenwich Mean Time 17 January

17:04 GMT 17 January

The Rwanda debate continues but earlier at Prime Minister’s Questions, the Labour leader Keir Starmer said "the government has been forced to admit that it has lost contact with 85% of the 5,000 people earmarked for removal to Rwanda".

He repeatedly asked Rishi Sunak where the 4,250 missing asylum seekers were.

We asked Labour where it got this figure – which we couldn’t find – from. It referred us to an article published in The Telegraph, external earlier this week. It claimed that “official documents” showed that only 700 of the original 5,000 people selected for removal to Rwanda are in “regular contact” with Home Office.

The Home Office told us the documents were leaked to The Telegraph and are not publicly available. It said the figures published are based on “out of date operational data” from last year. It did not say when or whether there are more up to date figures available.

The Home Office said that it has a “dedicated team who work with police and other partners, to help trace and locate absconders using all available technologies".

Former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron says the "evil trade" of smuggling people across the Channel in "rickety boats" needs to be stopped, but this bill will not stop the boats or create a deterrent.

The legislation is based on "false premises", he argues, the first of which is that the UK's position is "especially awful" and the country is being "overrun" or "swamped". A very small minority of migrants end up in Europe, he says, adding that Germany, France and Spain all take far more asylum seekers.

Farron adds that only 7% of migrants to the UK are asylum seekers. The real issue, he says are the 165,000 asylum seekers waiting for the system to process their claims. And on past experience, 75% of them are likely to be deemed refugees, he says.

Farron adds that "ducking" international law will undermine Britain's credibility in the world on upholding the rule of law.

He is referring to the fact that the bill would order British judges to ignore sections of the Human Rights Act and prevent them from considering other international safeguards - you can read more that here.

Image source, UK Parliament

As we watch the Rwanda bill debated in parliament, we have just learned of the passing of Sir Tony Lloyd, the Labour party MP for Rochdale.

The 73-year-old was a Labour Party veteran, and was receiving treatment for leukaemia.

In a short statement on X, external (formerly Twitter), Lloyd's family say they were "absolutely devastated" to announce is death, adding that he "died peacefully this morning surrounded by his family, as was his wish".

The statement goes on to say that he was working until a few days ago, and thanks health workers and blood donors who cared for him.

"A life well lived. May he rest in peace," the statement concludes.

Tim Loughton, Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, says he will be voting for the full bill tonight. The Rwanda scheme is “not perfect but it’s the only show in town”, he says.

He goes on to call for reform of the ECHR. “Why is the European Council not doing more”, he asks, about the “powers that have been surreptitiously extended?”

Loughton says that the Strasbourg court itself "admitted it needed to change its ways and that Rule 39 is not satisfactory".

We are not the only country concerned with how it's operating, he says, and in fact “the UK has been one of the best compliers with ECHR judgements”.

“If this bill does not go through there is no plan B for dealing with those people who we can’t transport back to the country they came from and there will be no obvious end to the small boats.”

Image source, House of Commons

How much will the Rwanda plan cost?published at 16:34 Greenwich Mean Time 17 January

16:34 GMT 17 January

The UK government says it has paid £240m to Rwanda so far. A further payment of £50m is expected in the 2024-25 financial year.

Labour estimates the government will pay about £400m to Rwanda under the scheme, but the government has not confirmed the total cost.

Official figures suggest that removing each individual to a third country, such as Rwanda, could cost £63,000 more than keeping them in the UK.

Rishi Sunak has claimed that the Rwanda plan, which the government says will act as a deterrent, will "literally save us billions in the long run".

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

The PM’s Rwanda plan partly depends on a parallel treaty in which the country’s government has committed to improving its asylum processes.

But a House of Lords committee has recommended, external that the treaty should not be ratified by Parliament until it is satisfied that the protections and guarantees Rwanda has promised have been “fully implemented”.

The International Agreements Committee says those steps are essential to proving that Rwanda is a safe country - the fundamental legal stumbling block. This is an important intervention because it exposes one of the big challenges Rishi Sunak faces even if his bill makes it through Parliament.

If Rwanda does not complete improving its asylum system before the first flight is scheduled, Rishi Sunak’s legal opponents are likely to go to court and argue the treaty is worthless.

While MPs continue to debate the Rwanda bill, Rwanda says it has "no obligation" to return any of the funds from the UK under the terms of the agreement, according to PA Media news agency.

However, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo says in a statement, if no migrants come to Rwanda "and the UK government wishes to request a refund of the portion of the funding allocated to support the migrants, we will consider this request".

Makolo says the funds paid to Rwanda under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership would both support Rwanda's economic development as well as allow the country to care for the migrants from the UK.

Her statement follows comments by Rwanda President Paul Kagame suggesting UK funds could be repaid if the deal failed.

Makolo says it is too early to give an indication as to how much could be repaid considering the UK legislative process has not yet concluded.

Image source, PA Media

Following Suella Braverman, the SNP's Patrick Grady says MPs have witnessed "the first act of the next Conservative leadership contest" - a debate about the party's future and its past.

He describes the bill as not relevant to Scotland or his constituents in Glasgow North, some of whom he adds are asylum seekers who have bad experiences of the Home Office.

Scotland has always welcomed refugees and asylum seekers, Grady continues, and the contradictions in the bill are shown by the number of Tory factions it has created, he argues.

Suella Braverman also argues that the amendment makes it clear that it will be the UK government that will determine its immigration policy, and not "a foreign court".

She lists several examples of individuals who had committed crimes or were risks to the UK public, but were not deported for several reasons - including one stating that the healthcare received in the home country was sub-standard compared to the UK.

The ex-home secretary says existing legislation would see the UK government responsible to ensure international health facilities are up to its own standard before deporting anyone.

Braverman says it must be the government that decides who can be deported - not for a foreign court "who does not have the same ambition or aspiration as this UK government to stop the boats".

This comes down to a simple but profound question, she says. "Of who governs Britain."

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

Clause 5 of the Bill says ministers can to choose whether or not to abide by a “Rule 39” interim measure from the European Court of Human Rights.

An interim measure is more commonly known as a court injunction: an order from a judge to temporarily prevent something from happening - such as a deportation - while an appeal by the person affected remains unresolved.

In June 2022, an ECHR judge issued a Rule 39 order to stop the first Rwanda flight after hearing that British courts had not given their verdict on whether plan was lawful.

The Tory right says Rule 39s are unfair because the judge is anonymous and there’s no reasons given for their decision.

But in actual fact, the court has already decided to be clearer about how these rulings are considered and made and to name the judge and give their reasons.

It’s said that interim measures are only to be used in “exceptional circumstances” when there’s a real risk of “irreparable harm” - full wording in the picture - and it’s consulting with the UK and other governments on further reforms.

Image source, House of Commons

We are here to fix a problem, says former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, to "stop the boats."

"This is our last chance to get it right."

Braverman says an amendment is here to remedy “a fatal flaw”.

She says she wants to prevent what took place in June 2022 from happening again - when the Home Office had a plane full of what she calls "illegal migrants" ready to go to Rwanda, but at the 11th hour a "still unidentified" judge in a “foreign court” stopped it from taking off.

“The foreign court overrode the will of the British people to control our borders and that is the problem we are trying to fix.”

It was because of these Rule 39 interim injunctions, she says, "these orders are not contained in the ECHR, they're a creation of the Strasburg court and judges."

"It's the court that has become interventionist."

As we've been reporting, the UCHR is not "foreign" law - but law drawn up and agreed by the UK with other nations.