All The Hurdles Rishi Sunak's Rwanda Plan Must Still Jump

Rishi Sunak’s Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill cleared a difficult House of Commons stage this week, but the legislation still faces a number of hurdles before it can be used to enact Government plans to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda.

The Prime Minister avoided a rebellion from his backbenches on Wednesday evening as the revised legislation, published in December, completed its third reading in the House of Commons. 

However, it now must clear the House of Lords, and there is also still the possibility of legal challenges before Sunak can achieve his ultimate goal of removing any migrants to Rwanda. 

Here is a rundown of the remaining hurdles the Rwanda legislation could face, before flights may begin. 

The next challenge for the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will be clearing the House of Lords. 

It is widely expected that the Bill will face opposition from peers, as the earlier iteration of the plans did last year. 

On Thursday morning, Sunak sought to warn the Lords against rejecting the legislation, and said that the only question remaining is whether opposition in "the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House". 

Shami Chakrabarti, a Labour peer and the former shadow attorney general, told PoliticsHome that there are “many people” in the Lords who “really care about the rule of law” and peers will bear that in mind when they are debating and amending the Rwanda bill. 

“It’s particularly important that the unelected but independent second chamber stands up for the rule of law," she said. 

"Across the parties and the groupings, in the House of Lords [...] there are many people who really care about the rule of law.”

The three points