The passage of the government’s Rwanda deportation bill could be delayed until after Easter in a move that risks a backlash from Conservative MPs.
The second round of “ping pong” between the Lords and Commons on the bill is no longer scheduled for the last week before the Easter break in the government’s legislative timetable.
Sources in the Conservatives and Labour said this could mean the bill will not become law until mid-April at the earliest.
It would mark a further delay in the implementation of the deportation policy, which was first announced by Boris Johnson’s government nearly two years ago.
Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, set out the forthcoming business statement on Thursday. The second round of ping pong on the Rwanda bill, which had been expected to start in the Commons on 25 March, did not appear in the statement.
Ping pong, whereby a bill passes back and forth between the Commons and Lords as they respond to each other’s proposed changes, had been scheduled to take place on 25 and 26 March before the Commons breaks for its three-week Easter recess.
A delay in passing the bill would risk angering Conservative MPs frustrated by the government’s record on illegal migration. Rishi Sunak has made “stopping the boats” a key pledge of his leadership.
The government could still theoretically push through all its changes by the middle of this week, which would allow the Rwanda bill to become law before Easter.
But sources in government and Labour said the timetable set out by Mordaunt indicated the passage of the bill was likely to be delayed. “They’ve said to us we won’t see it again until after Easter,” a Labour source said.
The government plans to remove several amendments in the Commons on Monday, after suffering a series of heavy setbacks in the Lords earlier this month. Ministers lost several votes with huge margins of about 100.
A delay in passing the Rwanda bill would be a sign that a general election will not be held in May. In an interview with ITV on Thursday, the prime minister ruled out 2 May, when voters are due to go to the polls for local elections.
There has been speculation that the prime minister intends to call an election soon after the passage of the bill, particularly if it allows deportation flights to start taking off. The government has promised that the first flights to Kigali will happen “in the spring”.
This bill and a treaty with Rwanda are intended to prevent further legal challenges to the stalled deportation scheme after the Supreme Court ruled the plan was unlawful.
As well as compelling judges to regard the East African country as safe would give ministers the power to ignore emergency injunctions. It has been warned that the legislation is “fundamentally incompatible” with the UK’s human rights obligations and would flout international law.
The Commons is due to return from Easter recess on 15 April.
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