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the prime minister says the first flight carrying asylum seekers to rwanda will leave in 10 to 12 weeks�* time "come what may". he says an airfield is on standby and charter planes are booked. rishi sunak had originally promised the first flight would take off this spring, but his timetable now suggests a delay until the summer. he says peers and mps will have to sit through the night tonight if necessary to pass the government's controversial rwanda legislation. our political correspondent, helen catt is in westminster. helen. new statistics out this morning show one of the reasons why rishi sunak might be so keen to get those flights off soon, last year parliament passed a law that said that some asylum cases could only be dealt with by being removed from the uk. but they can't go to rwanda because the supreme court ruled it
welcome to the world today — an hour of international news from the bbc. here in the uk — mps are debating the government's controversial rwanda bill, which aims to send some asylum seekers to the central african country. prime minister rishi sunak says the first flight carrying asylum seekers to rwanda will leave in 10—12 weeks time "come what may" with an airfield on standby and charter planes booked. rishi sunak had originally promised the first flight would take off this spring, but his timetable now suggests a delay until the summer. and he says peers and mps will have to sit through the night tonight if necessary to pass the government's controversial rwanda legislation. let's take a closer look at the controversial policy and the stakes. so far this year, more than 6,000 migrants have made the journey across the channel from continental europe to england.
welcome to the world today — an hour of international news from the bbc. here in the uk — mps are debating the government's controversial rwanda bill, which aims to send some asylum seekers to the central african country. prime minister rishi sunak says the first flight carrying asylum seekers to rwanda will leave in 10—12 weeks time "come what may" with an airfield on standby and charter planes booked. rishi sunak had originally promised the first flight would take off this spring, but his timetable now suggests a delay until the summer. and he says peers and mps will have to sit through the night tonight if necessary to pass the government's controversial rwanda legislation. let's take a closer look at the controversial policy and the stakes. so far this year, more than 6,000 migrants have made the journey across the channel from continental europe to england.
decades, with the greatest respect to all these whips, the whips' office have been downgraded. tony blair never saw the point, thought it was a complete waste of time, wasn't interested. and you can only work as a whip and have that sort of scary element if it is feared that you have the complete backing and the complete authority of the prime minister. if the feeling is that the prime minister sort of doesn't really take it that seriously, then you do lose that authority. right, something that the whips have been doing a lot this week is getting their mps and their members of the house of lords to vote the correct way, as they would see it, on the rwanda legislation. and chris, this is the now infamous totemic legislation that would allow the government to send people to rwanda if they had entered the country illegally. yeah, and so this process of parliamentary ping—pong, as it's known, goes on when towards the tail end of the process of making a new law, a bill goes back and forth between the commons and the lords.
or to give it the more positive spin, summer begins at the beginning ofjune. so what's that, about six weeks or so from now? ailbhe, do you think all this effort is worth it for the government? oh, i'm sure they would say... which is a way of sort of saying how important is the success or failure of the rwanda legislation, irrespective of then the actual operation to send people to rwanda? i think that this is a fight - that they are enjoying having or that it's quite central to the government's i agenda right now. otherwise, i would think it's not unfair to say- that their legislative agenda| is quite thin at the moment. they don't have a lot else going on. the rwanda row is a big part of what they're - doing alongside stuff - on the economy, basically. but does it make a difference? so you're basically saying the battle with the lords and with labour is almost worth as much to the government as getting it through? yes, well, there's a lot of talk about, i mean, i the way we're looking at politicsl this year essentially is all around
report the allegations to the police? did conservative head office reported the allegations to the police? additionally, they are also asking if there are indications for electoral law, because the allegations in the times suggested that donations for political campaigning was used for a quite different purpose. if mark menzies was suspended from the conservative whip, it means that in practice he cannot stand as a conservative candidate at the general election this year. but i think the bigger fearful conservative party bosses is that if he resigns, there could be a by—election. he has a really healthy majority of more than 16,000, but in recent by—elections, both labour and lib dems have overturned a much bigger conservative majorities. is another danger, too, ithink bigger conservative majorities. is another danger, too, i think for the prime minister. 0n another danger, too, i think for the prime minister. on monday he is hoping finally that his rwanda legislation will go through, but if questions persist about one of his mps who was until recently a trade envoy, then that might end up overshadowing the more positive news that downing street would prefer to
Sunak could face a humiliating defeat that could cost the Conservative Party its next general election win if Tory MPs continue to vote for Rwanda policy amendments.