The justice secretary has faced multiple formal complaints over his dealings with civil servants
The government’s illegal migration bill, which will stop people arriving in the UK illegally from ever claiming asylum here and allow them to be detained and deported, was already billed as the toughest piece of immigration legislation introduced for decades. Now it is about to get tougher.
The bill is due to have its final day of debate in the Commons next week and, according to a report by Matt Dathan in the Times which has been confirmed by government sources, the government will accept two amendments that would significantly tighten its already-draconian provisions (which ministers have accepted might prove incompatible with the European convention on human rights). Dathan writes:
The government has agreed to amend its illegal migration bill to allow ministers to ignore interim injunctions from the European court of human rights that attempt to stop a deportation flight. Known as rule 39 orders, they have been branded “pyjama injunctions” by Conservative MPs after a judge from the Strasbourg court suspended the first scheduled deportation flight to Rwanda last June late at night.
The government had previously only committed itself to introducing the power to ignore last-minute injunctions if ministers failed to persuade the Strasbourg court to reform Rule 39 orders.
The Home Office is expected to bring forward an amendment that would commit it to publishing its plan for new legal routes for refugees within six months of the bill passing into law. It is also about to make a commitment to introduce stringent safeguards to protect unaccompanied child refugees.
