After the votes on amendments resulted in 11 defeats for aspects of the government’s proposed bill, a group of Liberal Democrat lords tweeted on July 3 that the "changes we have made show just how terrible the Illegal Migration Bill that the government wants is. It is time for it to be scrapped," they concluded.

One of the biggest changes called for by the Lords relates to a government proposal to weaken detention limits placed on incarcerating children and pregnant women. Currently there is a limit of 24 hours on the incarceration of unaccompanied children; if the lords' amendments hold, that would remain. The government was also hoping that the Home Secretary would acquire powers to decide what was a "reasonable limit" on detention, but that proposal has also been defeated.

Also read: UK Court of Appeal strikes down Rwanda asylum policy, for now

If the government’s new bill had been allowed to go ahead, the legal caps on the length of time certain groups of people can be detained would have been scrapped. But members of the House of Lords defeated this proposal. Pregnant women can currently only be detained for up to 72 hours, this will also remain if the lower house of parliament votes to retain the lords' amendments.

Rwanda policy

A second amendment proposed that LGBTQ+ people should not be deported to a country where they might have a well-founded fear of prosecution. This could include a country like Rwanda where although on paper being gay is not illegal, it is still frowned upon. Critics like the support and campaign group Rainbow Migration have pointed out that in June 2021, more than a dozen gay and transgender people were rounded up ahead of a high-profile international conference.

Rainbow Migration says it aims to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex people through the asylum and immigration system. In 2022, when the Rwanda proposals were first put forward, they cited a report from the organization Human Rights Watch that noted some LGBTQ+ people had been told by security officials in Rwanda that they did not "represent Rwandan values." They also gathered testimony from some who had been detained in Rwanda, claiming that police and security officials "more frequently and violently beat people they knew were gay or transgender than others."

Alex Carlile, a former Liberal Democrat Lord and now a crossbench peer (unaligned to one party), who tabled two of the amendments, told the BBC Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 on Monday (July 3) that he believed the British public was not as supportive of the UK government’s pledge to "stop the boats" as the Conservative party believes.

'People should not be detained, unless there is a real purpose'

Lord Carlile told the BBC that "the people do not want people who have legitimate claims for asylum refused consideration of that claim just because they came in a lorry or in a small boat."

He added that the UK's legal principles had until now ensured "that people should not be detained unless there is a real purpose in their detention, and an end in sight for their detention."

Some analysts have described the bill following the amendments as "emasculated." Lord Carlile commented that the purpose of the bill was now "dead", reported the left-leaning newspaper The Guardian. He said he used the word dead because the purpose of the bill, which was to stop the boats and enable the government to send potential asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims assessed there was also now "dead" following the ruling in the High Court that the proposal was illegal.

Also read: UK and France refocus on limiting Channel migration

Bill is 'dead', states one lord

On the BBC, Lord Carlile said, "we were told that this bill would stop the boats. It hasn’t stopped the boats – June had record numbers. We were told that it would provide for refugees and asylum seekers to get to a safe country. We were told that same country was Rwanda. Rwanda is not a safe country. The court of appeal has held that Rwanda is not a safe country, because there was a risk of people being, the term is refouled, sent on to the very country which they were escaping from injustice in."

Lord Carlile said the role of the House of Lords was to amend and revise draft legislation so it is "fit for purpose." The amendments voted for by the Lords, which continues debating today (Wednesday, July 5) do not hold sway until the bill has gone back to parliament and is then debated and revoted in the lower chamber of elected representatives.

While the bill cannot be blocked, it is unlikely that the government can proceed with it as it had hoped due to the amendments made by the lords, which the lower house now has to debate and take into account. The more amendments that are made, the longer it takes for the bill to reach the final stages, meaning that the most recent amendments will probably have a weakening effect on the overall bill and its impact, even if not all the amendments go through.

"What the government really should have done is park it, leave it until the supreme court has decided whether the court of appeal was right, and then, if appropriate, bring it back to parliament and go through it all over again," commented Lord Carlile on the BBC.

Last week, the House of Lords also defeated the government’s proposals to amend modern slavery safegards. They also voted to force the Home Secretary Suella Braverman to consider people’s asylum claims even when they had arrived by unauthorized means, like small boats or lorries, if they had not been removed in the six months since their arrival.

Rishi Sunak answers questions regarding migration

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared before the Parliamentary Liaison Committee on Tuesday (July 4) to answer questions about, among other things, the illegal migration bill. Dame Diana Johnson, Labour MP and chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, asked Sunak whether he had a plan if his appeal to the supreme court over the Rwanda deal fails?

Rishi Sunak answered: "Our belief remains that the plan that we have is legal and compliant with all our obligations. We will be appealing it vigorously. If you look at the ruling, the Lord Chief Justice ... agrees with the government that the safeguards we have in place are sufficient."

In the broadcast of the committee hearing, Sunak often looked slightly wrong-footed by Johnson’s questions, pertaining to whether or not and by when he would be meeting the targets he had promised regarding migration when he took power. He tried to point to policies that he felt were working, including deals with Albania, but Dame Johnson continued to question him over the targets she felt he would not fulfil.

Although he continued to insist the government was on target, Dame Johnson pointed out that the National Audit Office (Britain's public spending watchdog) and the evidence of arrivals and returns so far would find it very hard to arrive at the absolute targets of clearing the legacy backlog of asylum claims which stands at just over 70,000 by the end of the year, or indeed stopping the boats altogether, since June represented a record number of arrivals to the UK for this year so far.