The British parliament is set to hold two days of debate over Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's bill designed to allow Britain to send asylum seekers who arrive illegally in Britain to Rwanda amid deep divisions in his Conservative Party on the issue. - REUTERS
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00:00 Britain's parliament is set to debate and vote on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's flagship
00:07 Rwanda bill, which aims to override legal challenges to sending some asylum seekers
00:12 to Rwanda.
00:13 Let's take a look at what's at stake in this highly contested piece of policy.
00:18 Taking back control of borders was a key pledge from conservative politicians that led to
00:23 the UK voting to leave the European Union back in 2016.
00:27 In 2022, net migration soared to three quarters of a million people.
00:32 The government's under pressure to keep those numbers down, especially those who arrive
00:36 illegally in small boats to England's southern shores.
00:40 This was Suela Braverman, former Minister of the Interior and staunch backer of sending
00:45 migrants to Rwanda in parliament last month.
00:48 We are all here familiar with the problem.
00:52 Tens of thousands of mostly young men, many with values and social mores at odds with
00:58 our own, pouring into our country day after day, month after month, year after year.
01:08 The Rwanda scheme, agreed in April 2022 by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, sends anyone
01:14 who arrives illegally to Britain in January of the same year to Rwanda.
01:19 However, European judges blocked the first deportation flight in June 2022.
01:25 The UK Supreme Court then upheld a ruling that the scheme was unlawful.
01:30 It said migrants were at risk of being sent back to their homelands or to countries where
01:34 they could risk being mistreated.
01:37 Although no one's been deported yet, Britain's already paid Rwanda 300 million US dollars.
01:42 And while London hopes to send Rwanda thousands of migrants, at the moment the East African
01:47 country has the capacity to only take a few hundred.
01:50 But stopping the boats, Mr. Speaker, stopping the boats is not just my priority, it is the
01:55 people's priority.
01:58 Since taking office, Rishi Sunak has made it a priority to fast-track the Rwanda plan.
02:04 His government says Britain spends nearly four billion US dollars a year on processing
02:09 asylum applications and around 10 million US dollars a day on accommodation for migrants.
02:16 To address issues raised by the Supreme Court, Sunak introduced the new emergency bill the
02:21 one MPs are discussing in Parliament now.
02:24 The bill essentially reaffirms Rwanda is a safe country.
02:28 It disapplies some sections of Britain's Human Rights Act and it lets ministers decide whether
02:35 they should comply with any injunction from the European Court of Human Rights.
02:39 So how does Britain's approach compare with its European neighbours?
02:43 Many EU countries, such as Germany, have tightened their border controls to address immigration
02:48 concerns.
02:50 Denmark has signed a similar agreement with Rwanda, but has yet to send any migrants there.
02:55 And Italy has announced plans to build reception centres in Albania.
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