Home Secretary James Cleverly arrives in Rwanda to sign migration treaty to get flights going
JAMES Cleverly touched down in Rwanda this morning to sign a fresh deportation deal.
The Home Secretary will hope the new treaty is enough to satisfy British courts and finally get illegal migrant flights off the ground.
No10 promised such a move after the Supreme Court struck down the original plan last month.
The new deal was delayed by wrangling over Britain’s involvement in the Rwandan asylum and legal system — but sources think those have been ironed out.
The fresh treaty will address concerns that Rwanda might return genuine asylum seekers to face “ill treatment” in the country they had fled.
It could also see British lawyers stationed in Rwandan courts.
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This morning Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said he’s confident flights will take off to Rwanda before a showdown general election next year.
Asked whether he is certain planes will leave for Kigali, the minister told Sky News: “I am. But we will need to do a few things to achieve that.
“The treaty that the Home Secretary is going to sign later today, I hope, will create a fundamentally different and better arrangement with the government of Rwanda that answers the concerns of the Supreme Court.
“Then we’re going to bring forward a piece of emergency legislation which will embed that in British, UK law and go further to close some of the loopholes that bring spurious claims and prevent migrants from being put on those planes.”
Mr Jenrick added: “Together, I think that will enable us to get this plan up and running.”
Sources said Mr Cleverly, who built up relationships during his time as Foreign Secretary, deserved “a lot of credit” over the new plan.
However, the Government still needs to get emergency legislation over the line in the UK to make it work.
Ministers hope to bring legislation to Parliament before MPs leave for their Christmas break in just over two weeks.
But they have not ruled out sitting over the festive period in order to get the legislation through.
Rwandan government sources stressed they remained “rock solid” in their commitment to Rishi Sunak’s scheme amid claims they were going wobbly.
Downing Street intends to hand Kigali an additional £15million on top of the £140million already sent to get the deal going.
It says it is value for money in the long run as it would “pale in comparison” with the £8million daily cost to house small boat arrivals in hotels.
A No 10 source said: “If there is an extra cost to addressing the problems the Supreme Court raised, we’re confident it pales in comparison to the £8million a day being spent on migrant hotels.”
The Rwanda scheme is a key plank of Mr Sunak’s promise to “stop the boats” crossing from France.