Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill should make it through the House of Lords “fairly fast”, a minister said this morning after the flagship legislation cleared the House of Commons last night.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, said the Government wanted migrant deportation flights to Rwanda to start “as soon as possible” and it is “absolutely the intention” that they will be underway before the next general election.
The Bill has now gone through all of its main stages in the Commons, with MPs voting for it by 320 to 276 as a major Tory rebellion failed to materialise.
The Bill will now be sent to the Lords for further scrutiny and the Government will be hoping for rapid progress but opposition peers are expected to try to make changes to it which could cause delays.
Mr Philp told Times Radio: “The aim is to get these flights off as soon as possible and the target is to do that by the spring because obviously operationally the Home Office has been getting ready, Rwanda is ready, we just need this Bill to get onto the statute book.
“It is a pretty short Bill, it is only about five or six substantive clauses. To give you a sense of context, the Criminal Justice Bill that I am taking through Parliament… has about 80 clauses. So it is a pretty short Bill which means it should be able to get through the House of Lords fairly fast.”
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