The first deportation flight to Rwanda has been booked, Number 10 has said, on the same day that Rishi Sunak’s controversial bill became law.
The Safety of Rwanda Bill, which declares the African a safe country to deport asylum seekers to, received royal assent today, meaning it has become an act of parliament and has become law.
The prime minister created the bill to revive the scheme to send people arriving on small boats to the east African nation in a bid to stop dangerous crossings in the Channel.
It states that Rwanda should be regarded as a safe country “for the purposes of relocating people, including in UK courts and tribunals” .
After a number of setbacks and delays, the bill was passed in parliament earlier this week, with Home Secretary James Cleverly hailing the moment as a “landmark moment in our plan to stop the boats”.
Anticipating the bill’s passage, the prime minister earlier this week promised the first flights would take off in 10 to 12 weeks – “come what may”.
And today Downing Street said the first flight to Rwanda had been booked and the first group of people to deport had been identified.
“We have identified the initial cohort, we are now contracting on resources like case workers, judiciary spaces,” a spokesperson said.
The Lord Speaker today told the House of Lords that the bill had received royal assent – the process by which the King agrees to make the bill into an Act of Parliament and therefore law.
For weeks, peers had been pushing back on the scheme and trying to get ministers to make changes to the controversial legislation, but later backed down from its opposition and let the bill pass, as is convention.
Royal assent paves the way for deportation flights to get off the ground – but it does not mean there will not be further obstacles in the form of legal challenges.
Campaigners have already said they are identifying migrants who may be singled out for deportation and will be lodging legal challenges, while a clash with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – which blocked the first flight from taking off in June 2022 – could also be on the cards.
Source Agencies
