Rwanda bill live: legislation passes third reading as rightwing rebellion recedes – as it happened

We are now closing the blog.

Here is a summary of events today.

• Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation bill passes its final Commons hurdle by 320 votes to 276 - a majority 44.

• The bill will now go to the House of Lords where it is there is more chance of it being amended, partly because the government does not have a majority there and partly because the chamber is full of lawyers who take safeguarding rights particularly seriously.

• The government said (prior to the vote) that if the Rwanda bill is passed, it will scrap guidance to civil servants saying they must always obey injunctions from the European court of human rights (rule 39 orders) blocking deportations.

• New guidance on ECHR injunctions puts officials in an “invidious position”, Prospect, a union representing civil servants has said. It has condemned the new guidance being issued to officials about injunctions from the European court of human rights.

• Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has said he will return UK taxpayers’ money if no asylum seekers arrive. The UK has paid £240m to Rwanda, with a further £50m to come. No asylum seekers have so far been sent to the country. Kagame added efforts to implement asylum plan cannot “drag on”.

• Labour has said the UK should quickly take up Rwanda’s president on his offer to return money spent on deportation scheme.

• Robert Jenrick’s amendment was defeated, but it saw 61 Conservative rebels back it. Yesterday, 60 Tories backed Sir Bill Cash’s amendment.

• Peers have said it’s too early to know if Rwanda has made changes needed to address supreme court’s deportation concerns.

• David Cameron has denied Rwanda bill makes UK an embarrassment on world stage. He made the comments during a Q&A at Davos.

• Suella Braverman strongly attacked ECHR, prompting claims from opposition MPs she’s campaigning for Tory leadership.

• Labour condemned No 10 for saying it will allocate more judges to asylum cases when rape victims wait years for trials to start.

• Keir Starmer led tributes to the Labour MP Tony Lloyd who has died, paying tribute to his “desire to make the world a better, fairer place”.

• The UK government says it’s seeking costs from Scottish government to pay legal fees from gender bill challenge.

• Earlier at PMQs Keir Starmer labelled Rwanda plan a “farce” and said spending £400m on a removals problem that does not remove anyone is not a plan.

• Plans to change the Whitehall code of conduct to facilitate Rwanda deportations has been dismissed as “madness” by Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the union that represents senior civil servants.

• Illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson claims Rwanda policy will have 94% deterrent effect on small boat crossings.

• Conservative former minister Dr Liam Fox has been accused of using a “misogynistic term” when he described SNP MP home affairs spokeswoman Alison Thewliss’s speech as “hysterical”.

The third reading of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill passed by 320 votes to 276, a majority of 44.

Conservative former minister Dr Liam Fox has been accused of using a “misogynistic term” when he described an SNP MP’s speech as hysterical.

Dr Liam Fox faced criticism for the remark in the Commons, which he made as he told MPs: “It is very clear from the debate and the last couple of days that it is this side and this side only that understands the concept of deterrence when it comes to...”

SNP home affairs spokeswoman Alison Thewliss could be heard to shout as Dr Fox spoke, and the senior Conservative interrupted his opening words to respond: “She has had her hysterical say. I will have mine.”

The SNP frontbencher shouted back: “Misogynist!”

Ms Thewliss had claimed in her speech that the Government “has become the criminal gang, breaking international law, moving vulnerable people across the world without legal process, no right of appeal, no concern for the safety or human rights of asylum seekers, to a country they do not know, involving money and involving profit”.

Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, later criticised Dr Fox, telling MPs:

I also am shocked to hear a member calling another member - a female member - hysterical. It is a classic callout of misogynistic term and I am shocked to hear it.

The Commons has divided to vote on a motion to approve the Safety of Rwanda Bill.

More on the vote on Jenrick’s Amendment 23.

According to the division list, 61 Conservative MPs backed it, making it the largest Tory rebellion of the Rwanda Bill so far.

Yesterday, 60 Tories backed Sir Bill Cash’s amendment.

Next vote on Amendment 36. This requires the publication of a full impact assessment on the costs involved in removal to Rwanda before the Bill comes into force. This was rejected by 339 votes to 263. A majority of 76.

Amendment 23 from Robert Jenrick, seeking to block last-minute injunctions from European judges has been rejected 536 to 65, a majority of 471.

Britain is ramping up pressure on western governments to use $350bn of frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine’s war-shattered economy, with the foreign secretary, Lord David Cameron, insisting there were legal, moral and political justifications for action.

Cameron said the countries that were backing Ukraine had economies that when combined were 25 times the size of Russia and it was important to make that firepower count.

Speaking in Davos, where Ukraine has been high on the agenda at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, the foreign secretary said: “When Putin launched this illegal invasion, the world changed, and we have to change with it and recognise we are in a more dangerous, uncertain and difficult world.

Read the full report here.

Tory rebels are now admitting that only a handful of their number will vote against the Rwanda bill at third reading, according to reporters who have been covering their meeting in the Commons this afternoon. (The MPs meet in private, but sometimes they talk to reporters on the way out.)

This is from Aubrey Allegretti from the Times.

Rebellion has melted away Rebel source says a “small number” of MPs will vote against the Rwanda bill at third reading. They say the “overwhelming likelihood is the bill will pass quite comfortably” They say this isn’t the end of the matter and if the Lords weaken the bill, MPs will toughen the bill. “The PM is by no means out of the woods.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg emerges from rebel meeting to confirm he will vote for the Rwanda bill at third reading.

And this is from Sky’s Beth Rigby.

BREAK: told overwhelming number of rebels at the gathering of the right WILL vote for the bill. Small number will vote against. Rebel source: we expect the bill to pass tonight (c 30 MPs in meet)

Prospect, a union representing civil servants, has condemned the new guidance being issued to officials about injunctions from the European court of human rights. (See 4.45pm.) Garry Graham, the union’s deputy general secretary, said:

This in effect could put civil servants in an impossible position where the choice is potentially between breaking international law, disobeying the instructions of a minister (and facing potential disciplinary action) or resigning.

This is a problem of the governments own making and they should not be putting civil servants in this invidious position.

If the Rwanda bill passes the Commons tonight, it will then go to the House of Lords where there is more chance of it being amended, partly because the government does not have a majority there and partly because the chamber is full of lawyers who take safeguarding rights particularly seriously.

This afternoon the Lords international agreements committee has published its verdict on the government’s new treaty with Rwanda which is the basis for the declaration in the bill that Rwanda is a safe country for refugees, and it is sceptical. The committee says the government should delay ratifying the treaty with Rwanda until it is satisfied that Rwanda has addressed the problems with its asylum system highlighted by the supreme court.

The report says:

On paper the Rwanda treaty improves the protections previously set out in the memorandum of understanding [the original basis of the UK’s deal with Rwanda, with less legal standing than a treaty], but there are a significant number of legal and practical steps which need to be taken before the protections could be deemed operational such that they might make a difference to the assessment reached by the supreme court. Evidence that these arrangements have bedded down in practice is also needed. In short, the treaty is unlikely to change the position in Rwanda in the short to medium term.

We recommend that the treaty is not ratified until parliament is satisfied that the protections it provides have been fully implemented since parliament is being asked to make a judgment, based on the treaty, about whether Rwanda is safe. The government should submit further information to parliament to confirm that all the necessary legal and practical steps and training which underpin the protections provided in the treaty have been put in place, and then allow for a further debate before proceeding to ratification.

In paragraph 45 of its report, the committee identifies 10 improvements Rwanda is supposed to be making under the treaty and it says it will “take time” for them to happen. They include “a new asylum law in Rwanda; a system for ensuring that non-refoulement does not take place; a process for submitting individual complaints to the monitoring committee; training for international judges in Rwandan law and practice; and training for Rwandan officials dealing with asylum applicants”.

The committee says:

It is clear from this that significant legal and practical steps have to be taken before the assurances provided in the Rwanda treaty can be fully implemented. The government has provided no indication of the timeframe for the completion of these steps, but plainly it will take some time.

The government has announced that, if the Rwanda bill is passed, it will scrap guidance to civil servants saying they must always obey injunctions from the European court of human rights (rule 39 orders) blocking deportations.

Current Home Office advice to officials tells them: “Where you have been notified that a R39 indication has been made you must defer removal immediately.”

Instead new guidance will be issued saying that in future, if a rule 39 order is issued, officials must refer the matter for a ministerial decision immediately, so the minister can decide whether or not the deportation goes ahead.

Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, has revealed the new policy in a letter published today. He was responding to a separate letter from Darren Tierney, head of propriety at the Cabinet Office, who has produced draft guidance on this topic for all civil servants. The draft guidance says:

As a matter of UK law, the decision as to whether to comply with a rule 39 indication is a decision for a minister of the crown. Parliament has legislated to grant ministers this discretion. The implications of such a decision in respect of the UK’s international obligations are a matter for ministers. In the event that the minister, having received policy, operational and legal advice on the specific facts of that case, decides not to comply with a rule 39 indication, it is the responsibility of civil servants – operating under the civil service code – to implement that decision. This applies to all civil servants.

This guidance will be issued if the Rwanda bill becomes law.

This wording skirts over the issue of whether it would be lawful for a minister to ignore a rule 39 order. In the Commons this afternoon Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, said the attorney general’s view was that ignoring the Strasbourg court like this would be unlawful. (See 1.17pm.)

The Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd has died. His family has issued this statement.

And Keir Starmer has issued this tribute.

Last week Lloyd, 73, issued a statement saying he was ill with an aggressive and untreatable form of leukaemia.

His death will trigger a byelection in Rochdale, where Lloyd had a majority of 9,668 at the last election.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, said today that if the UK scrapped the Rwanda scheme, Rwanda would return the money it has received to fund it.

In response, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the UK should grab the offer quickly. In a statement she said:

If Rwanda says we can have the money back from this failing scheme, Rishi Sunak should seize the chance, instead of dragging out this Tory asylum chaos any longer. We need proper grip not more of this failing gimmick.

The taxpayer is being hit for more than £400m for a scheme that is only likely to cover 1% of those arriving. That money could go instead into strengthening our border security, including Labour’s plan to crackdown on the criminal smuggler gangs with cross-border law enforcement and establish a major new returns unit.

But the Rwandan government seems to be having second thoughts. In a clarification of Kagame’s comment, Yolande Makolo, the Rwandan government’s spokesperson, said they would consider a future UK request for a refund, but declined to say how much of the UK’s cash has been spent so far. She said:

Under the terms of the agreement, Rwanda has no obligation to return any of the funds paid. However, if no migrants come to Rwanda under the scheme, and the UK government wishes to request a refund of the portion of the funding allocated to support the migrants, we will consider this request.

To talk about figures at this point is premature, as we are still awaiting the conclusion of the UK legislative process and remain committed to making the partnership work.

Back in the Commons, Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is speaking. Since being sacked, she has often strongly criticised the government’s policy on immigration and small boats.

She says the bill as drafted will lead to a re-run of what happened in the summer of 2022 when a plane was blocked from leaving for Rwanda by an injunction from the European court of human rights.

She says these injunctions were not part of the original European convention of human rights. They were invented by the court, as part of the process by which it has expanded its remit.

And she says Labour’s Human Rights Act has made the situation worse. It has encouraged a rights culture, and decisions by the government has been undermined by an activist legal industry.

As an example, she cites the case of a Nigerian national sentenced in 2016 to four years in jail for serious offences, including battery and assault. But an attempt to deport him was blocked on the grounds that he would face serious problems integrating in Nigeria, and those concerns outweighed the public interest in deportation, Braverman says.

She cites another case where a drug dealer was not deported because he would lose ongoing access to medical treatment he was receiving.

And she claims that another case has established that, if the government wants to deport someone, it has to show that their life will not be shortened by the removal of their access to NHS facilities.

As Braverman condemns the ECHR as a “foreign court”, Labour’s Stella Creasy asks, if the ECHR is a foreign court, what is Nato?

Braverman claims that’s “elementary politics”. She says the court does not have the UK’s interests at heart.

Patrick Grady from the SNP follows Braverman and he starts by telling MPs they have seen “the first act of the next Conservative leadership contest”.

David Cameron has rejected suggestions that the controversy about the Rwanda bill is embarrassing for the UK on the world stage.

When this was put to him at a panel at Davos, the foreign secretary replied: “Quite the contrary.”

He said countries around the world were having to find a way of dealing with illegal migration and that, although Britain’s approach was “quite unorthodox in some ways”, out-of-the-box thinking like this was necessary to break the model of this “appalling people smuggling”.

Graeme Wearden has more on this here on his business live blog.

The UK Government will seek costs from the Scottish government over the gender recognition bill court challenge, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has confirmed.

Jack’s use of section 35 of the Scotland Act – the first in the history of devolution – to veto the controversial bill, which was passed by a majority at Holyrood – was challenged by the Scottish government at the court of session, which ruled it was lawful last December.

The bill would have made Scotland the first country in the UK to introduce a self-identification system for people who want to change their legally recognised sex.

Jack said he has told Scottish ministers that a motion for the award of expenses will be lodged on Friday.

After the court of sessions’ judgment, Scottish ministers announced they would ditch their legal action against the Westminster’s block, while challenging a future Labour government to allow it to become law by lifting the veto.

Today Jack said:

The Scottish government chose to pursue this litigation in spite of the cost to the taxpayer. My legal advisers have today intimated to the Scottish government that we have started the process of seeking an award of expenses in defending the case.

Last month Jack told a Commons committee the UK government had spent £150,000 on the case.

Downing Street was not shown the legal basis for rebel amendments on the Rwanda bill despite this being offered and asked for, Rishi Sunak’s press secretary has said, in another sign of No 10’s apparent exasperation with the MPs behind the plans.

Downing Street had said it would look carefully at any amendments which would not breach the terms of the deal with Rwanda, and which had legal opinions setting out how this would be the case.

MPs seeking to change the bill, such as the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, insisted that they had this.

But asked if No 10 had been able to see the legal advice, the PM’s press secretary told journalists at the post-PMQs lobby briefing.

We asked to see last week, and they said that they’d be happy to share it. And I understand that we have since asked to see it every day, and we haven’t received it.

Asked what conclusions should be drawn from this, she added: “I will let you draw your own conclusions.”

UPDATE: Adam Payne from Politics Home says the advice No 10 wants to see is the opinion from John Larkin KC, the former attorney general for Northern Ireland, that Robert Jenrick referred to in his speech yesterday.

An update on this...

A No 10 source tells PolHome the legal advice they have not yet seen, and which was referred to earlier, is John Larkin KC’s which Robert Jenrick’s amendment relies on

The ERG’s legal advice, which is separate, is in the public domain

The Conservative MP Giles Watling has published a statement on his website suggesting he would like to see British troops deployed in northern France to stop the boats. He says:

The Home Office has demonstrated time and again that it is either unwilling or unable to grapple with the scale of the challenge facing it, and to that extent I believe it is time that it is relieved of the responsibility of policing our borders and instead the issue is handed to the Ministry of Defence. This is after all a defence of the realm matter and we need British boots on the ground.

Our borders must be stronger, and in order to achieve that we must explore negotiating with our continental neighbours, pointing out that they would regain control of their overrun towns from Dunkirk to Boulogne if they allow that, in addition to the people we already have in their command and control centres, we put British boots on the ground in northern France to assist their efforts.

The statement says Watling will be supporting the government in votes on the bill – even though he does not think the legislation goes far enough and believes “it will not ultimately succeed in full”. Even with the amendments proposed by Tory MPs, it would not go far enough, Watling says – which (rather confusingly) he cites as a reason for not supporting the amendments.

Sir Jeremy Wright, the Conservative former culture secretary, who was also attorney general between 2014 and 2018, has tabled two amendments to the bill and he is speaking now.

He says his amendments would remove from the bill passages that imply parliament has the right to decide whether or not the UK is in compliance with international law.

He says it would be a mistake for the government to imply that international law does not matter. He points out that only two days ago the government was justifying the airstrikes against the Houthis on the grounds that their attacks on shipping were against international law. And he says the UK would not want to leave it up to the Houthis to decide whether or not they were complying with international law.

UPDATE: Wright said:

What [the government] cannot properly do is set themselves up as judge in their own cause on questions of international law. This house would be wrong to pass a bill that suggested that they could. That is really where my amendments are focused.

As I say, there is a good practical reason why we should be nervous about this: because we do sometimes rely on international law to discharge our own policy intents and purposes. Not more than 48 hours ago in this place, we were doing exactly that. We were saying that it is important to criticise the actions of the Houthis in the Red sea because they contravene principles of international law. We were saying too that we justify our own response to that because it is in accordance with the principles of international law, and quite right, too. We would not have accepted the Houthis’ unilateral declaration that they were in compliance with international law when they did what they did, nor should we have, and we would not of course accept a Russian legislative Act to say that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia was in compliance with Russia’s international law responsibilities.

Let me make it clear that I am not, of course, suggesting that what the government have in mind here is in any way comparable to those two examples, but it seems that the point here is that to arrogate to oneself the right to declare one’s own compliance with international law runs the risk of, first, other states finding comfort in our example and, secondly, undermining our own messages in other situations. That makes this not just bad law, but bad foreign policy.

In his speech opening the debate Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, said:

I don’t believe that our membership of the European convention on human rights is sustainable.

But he said that was an argument for another day, and he said his amendments were not about leaving the convention.

Here is our story about the comments from Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. (See 1.11pm.)

And this is how it starts.

Rwanda’s president has said there are limits to how long attempts to implement an asylum deal with Britain can “drag on”, adding that he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped.

Paul Kagame’s comments to the Guardian in Davos on Wednesday came before Rishi Sunak faced a potentially leadership-ending rebellion by Conservative MPs threatening to vote down his Rwanda deportation bill on Wednesday night.

Asked if he was following the debate in London, Kagame said: “It is the UK’s problem, not ours.”

But in comments that are likely to set alarm bells ringing in London, Kagame went on to express frustration at the drawn-out debate about whether asylum seekers would be processed in Rwanda. “There are limits for how long this can drag on,” he said.

Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, is speaking now for Labour.

He started by attacking the government for spending so much time on the Rwanda policy when there were so many other problems that needed addressing, like soaring food bills, massive NHS waiting lists and sewage being pumped into rivers.

And he was particularly scathing about the announcement yesterday that the government was claiming to have found 150 more judges to hear asylum appeals. He said:

Does the prime minister know that under his leadership and on his watch the crown court backlog in this country is at a record high of 65,000, victims of serious crime regularly are waiting more than two years for their day in court so they can seek justice against their perpetrator?

A completely and utterly broken system due to 14 years of Tory incompetence and indifference, and yet the prime minister clicks his fingers and is glibly apparently able to magic up 150 judges and 1,000 staff …

Regardless of the operation issues, just imagine the impact the prime minister’s glib announcement yesterday would have on you if you were the victim of rape who has been languishing for years in our broken judicial system.

Just imagine the anger and disgust you would feel at the spectacle of a Conservative prime minister sacrificing your fight for justice on the altar of his desperate attempt to cling to power by appeasing his backbenchers. What an utterly shameful and shabby way for the prime minister of our country to behave.

Back in the Commons, Robert Jenrick said the Rwanda bill as drafted says it is up to a minister to decide whether or not to comply with an injunction from the European court of human rights blocking a deportation flight.

But he said, as far as he was aware, the attorney general, Victoria Prentis, took the view that if minister did ignore one of these injunctions (known as rule 39 orders) that would be illegal, and in breach of the ministerial code.

He said, as far as he could remember, the attorney general said there may be “a very small number of cases” where ignoring a rule 39 order might be possible. But that was not the norm, he said, and he told MPs that if the bill is passed unamended, the government would end up having deportation flights blocked, as happened in 2022.

UPDATE: Jenrick said:

The attorney general and the government legal service, as far as I am aware, continue to advise ministers and civil servants that a decision not to support a rule 39 interim measure would be illegal and would be in breach on the ministerial code.

In fact my best recollection of that was that no minister should give any indication that they would ignore a rule 39 interim measure. The attorney general’s position as I understand it is that there is a very small number of cases in which it is conceivable that one could do so.

But that is a vanishingly slim number of cases and situations. So were that situation to continue, as night follows day we will find ourselves in exactly the same situation we were in in the summer of 2022.

Starmer says spending £400m on a removals problem that does not remove anyone is not a plan. It is a farce. He asks the question again; where are the missing people?

Sunak list things that are happening: more enforcement raids, more bank accounts blocked (both of which using powers Labour opposed), a record number of people returned. That is a plan that is working. Numbers coming to the UK are down by a third. And it is a bit rich to hear Starmer says he would stop the boats. Starmer has “no values, no conviction and no plan”. It is back to square one, he says.

As Michael Tomlinson confirmed in interviews this morning (see 9.35am), the government’s latest ploy to assure Tory rebels that it is serious about ignoring European court of human rights’ injunctions banning deportation flights is to suggest that the civil service code will be amended to make it clear that officials can’t use injunctions as a reason to block flights themselves.

But this idea has been dismissed as “madness” by Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the union that represents senior civil servants. In an interview with Kevin Schofield from HuffPost, Penman said:

They’re essentially advising civil servants to act illegally, which will put them in conflict between their obligation to uphold the rule of law and to follow their instructions from elected ministers.

Ministers have an obligation to not put civil servants in that position. This is madness – changing the civil service code does not change the law.

And here are some more lines from Michael Tomlinson’s interview round this morning.

• Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, said he was confident the Rwanda bill would pass its third reading. “We are not going to be defeated tonight, he said.

• He said the Conservatives shared a “unity of purpose” over the Rwanda bill and that disagreements over what should be in it only amounted to an “inch”. He said:

When we go through the detail of the legislation, yes, there is a difference in emphasis … but in terms of the overall message, the overall desire and aim, every single Conservative speaker yesterday stood up and said that they want this policy to work.

When it was put to him that Tory MPs fundamentally disagreed, he replied:

They don’t fundamentally disagree. There are disagreements of emphasis. There’s an inch between us, there’s a determination to ensure that the policy works.

• He claimed that the bill would have a 94% deterrent effect on small boat crossings. In his interview on the Today programme, he claimed the Rwanda policy could have the same impact as the PM’s deal with Albania, which has led to a big increase in returns to Albania. When Mishal Husain insisted the two policies were very different (because Albanians are being returned to their home country), Tomlinson persisted with the analogy. He said the Rwanda policy would “start off with small numbers” and then move into the thousands. He said nearly 6,000 Albanians had been deported. Asked when 6,000 people would be sent to Rwanda, he refused to say. But he went on:

We have seen the deterrent effect working in relation to Albania. Albanians crossing on small boats has reduced not by 90%, not by 93%, but 94% as a result of the measures and the steps that have taken. That is exactly the same principle.

When Husain put it to him, again, that the Albanian scheme was very different, Tomlinson insisted the deterrent principle was the same. He went on:

It’s a different country, it’s the same principle. It is the deterrent principle that is working and that is in effect 94% of those coming from Albania. We will see the same deterrent effect.

Good morning. Rishi Sunak faces another difficult day over his Rwanda bill, but it seems much more likely than not that by the time he goes to bed he will have got the legislation through the House of Commons unamended.

Even CCHQ would find it hard to present that as a triumph. Sixty Conservative MPs opposed the government in one of the votes last night, in the biggest rebellion of Sunak’s premiership, three people resigned from party or government positions, the bill still has to get through the House of Lords, and, even if it does become law, you would have to be very generous to say No 10 has made a convincing case to show that it will work.

But getting the bill past third reading in these circumstances would be a lot, lot better than losing and No 10 seem confident they will win the final vote. According to the Commons website, the government has a working majority of 54 and so if 60 Tory MPs were to vote against, or even if all of them just abstained, the majority would vanish. But only around a dozen or so have said they will vote against and most of them are likely to vote with the government (including Lee Anderson, Brendan Clarke-Smith and Stevenson, the three people who resigned yesterday so they could vote in favour of rebel amendments, according to Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt).

Faced with a choice between a Rwanda bill they believe is too weak, and no Rwanda bill at all, a possible no confidence vote in Sunak (which he would probably win), and an increased chance of an early election, Conservative MPs seem minded to reject the self-destruct option. This is not the way they have always behaved in recent years, and it is why Sunak may conclude that the outcome could be a lot worse. He is likely to feel more satisfied by the end of the day than the hardline, ERG rightwingers who brought down Theresa May’s Brexit deal and said explicitly they wanted to do the same to the Rwanda bill.

Today MPs will be discussing amendments including the one from Robert Jenrick intended to ensure that the government really does ignore European court of human rights’ injunctions saying deportation flights should not be allowed to take off. Sunak has said in principle he is willing to do this. But he has not given a cast-iron assurance that in all circumstances he would.

Why not? Probably because of the attorney general, Victoria Prentis, who has reportedly said that if a minister actually does ignore one of the injunctions (rather than just declaring they might), that would be in breach of international law. And breaking international law is a breach of the ministerial code.

Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, was doing the morning interview round and he offered the Tory rebels an olive branch on this point. He said the government is considering changing the civil service code to say that government can ignore these injunctions, which would mean officials could not ignore them by citing the international law argument. Asked to confirm that was the case, he told the Today programme:

We are looking at that. What happens at the moment is that civil servants advise, ministers decide, and then our excellent civil servants go on and effect and carry out those policies. But, yes, we are looking to see what can be done to strengthen and reassure.

I will post more on his interviews shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Noon: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

Noon: The Northern Ireland assembly is being recalled because Sinn Féin wants a debate on public sector pay ahead of a planned mass strike tomorrow. But it is expected that a full sitting will not be possible because the DUP, which has been boycotting power sharing for almost two years, will continue to block the election of a speaker.

After 12.45pm: MPs resume their debate on the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill. Up to six hours is set aside for the rest of the committee stage debate, and then – if no amendments are passed – up to another hour is set aside for the third reading debate. So the final vote could be mid-evening.

1pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, takes part in a discussion at Davos with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. Later, at 4.30pm, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a discussion on growth. Graeme Wearden is covering all the Davos event on his business live blog.

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