Rishi Sunak insists Britain can stop small boats without leaving the ECHR — as it happened

Legislation due to be published tomorrow will give ministers powers to detain tens of thousands of people and give the home secretary a duty to remove them “as soon as reasonably practicable” to Rwanda or another safe country.

• Migrants on small boats to be barred from Britain

“The prime minister has made a commitment to the British public to stop the boats, which are putting lives at risk and lining the pockets of ruthless criminal gangs,” Sunak’s official spokesman said.

“We have an unacceptable situation, depriving people who genuinely need our help and that is simply not fair, so we have to take away the incentive to jump the queue by coming here illegally and stop the boats. That is what we intend to do.”

He said that “the focus will be on deporting people to safe third countries or indeed back to their country of origin. That is the stated aim and obviously we have the agreement with Rwanda; we have some returns agreements”.

However, with the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda being challenged in the courts, the spokesman acknowledged that the timescale was “not in our gift”. “We want to do this as quickly as possible. As we’ve always said, we recognise there will likely be challenges in many forms to this sort of legislation,” he said.

Conservative backbenchers have been pressing Sunak to leave the ECHR if it steps in to block his attempt to refuse migrants the right to remain in Britain. However, the spokesman said: “It still remains the case that we believe we can bring in tough new legislation that remains within [the] ECHR.”

Tomorrow’s package has been delayed while ministers attempt to make it legally watertight and Simon Clarke, who served in Liz Truss’s cabinet, said today: “If the new immigration bill either falls short or is derailed by legal challenges, we need to leave the ECHR. It was never intended to enable illegal migrant crossings numbering in the tens of thousands and it is sophistry to pretend otherwise.”

After George Freeman, the science minister, said this morning that Sunak’s Brexit deal had made it easier to get French help in stopping the boats, the prime minister’s spokesman said Brexit and small boats were “not dependent on each other”.

However, he acknowledged: “Certainly we want to do more with EU countries to check and tackle a problem further upstream. We know this is a challenge of migration across Europe that many countries are facing. As we said before, we will we will look to work with them.”

Rishi Sunak has refused to back Sue Gray’s integrity while her resignation is being investigated by the team of civil servants that she used to lead (Chris Smyth writes).

The prime minister’s official spokesman said that the Cabinet Office was “looking into the circumstances under which she resigned” to take a job as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

It is understood that the propriety and ethics team that Gray headed between 2012 and 2018 is investigating whether any rules were broken during her talks with Labour about the role. This is not yet a formal investigation.

It is not yet clear whether Sue Gray will be contacted by the propriety and ethics team that she used to lead

When asked whether Sunak believed that Gray was a woman of integrity, the spokesman said: “The Cabinet Office are looking at the circumstances around this particular resignation — but I’m not going to be drawn further.”

The civil service code says that officials must not be influenced in their official duties by personal politics or the hope of gain and cannot disclose sensitive information, but government sources point out that it does not ban them from having job interviews.

Gray is expected to submit an application to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) today asking to take up the role, in which she will have to say “when and how the offer of the post arose”. Labour are refusing to reveal details of when Gray was approached by Starmer.

Many Tory MPs want Sunak to block the appointment. “There is a process; the prime minister is the ultimate arbiter of that process once he receives a recommendation from Acoba,” said his spokesman.

Boris Johnson has nominated his father, Stanley, in his resignation honours list

ANDREW PARSONS/PARSONS MEDIA

Boris Johnson’s plan to give his father a knighthood is “absolutely outrageous”, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

After The Times revealed that the former prime minister had put Stanley Johnson’s name forward in his resignation honours list, the Labour leader ridiculed the decision.

He told LBC radio this morning: “The idea that Boris Johnson is nominating his dad for a knighthood — you only need to say it to realise just how ridiculous it is.

“It’s classic of a man like Johnson. I mean, I think the public will just think this is absolutely outrageous.”

He added: “The idea of an ex-prime minister bestowing honours on his dad — for services to what?”

• Johnson nominates father for knighthood

Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, dismissed controversy about the award this morning, saying there were “bigger fish to fry” and that “it’s the ex-prime minister’s prerogative to be able to make those types of appointments”.

Her deputy, George Freeman, said that “due process must apply” in granting the award. He told Times Radio that Stanley Johnson had “had a distinguished career as a conservationist, but that [the award] needs to be done by the process on the usual criteria, not just because he is the former prime minister’s father. If it goes through due process, yes, I’m relaxed, but it’s due process that must be applied.”

George Freeman, the science minister, says the prime minister’s relationship with President Macron is key to stopping the small boats crisis

THE MEGA AGENCY

Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal with the EU will help him fulfil his pledge to stop migrants arriving in small boats, a minister has said.

George Freeman, the science minister, said that a “rapprochement” with France after last week’s agreement on the Northern Ireland protocol would help strike a deal to stop migrants crossing the Channel and return them elsewhere in Europe.

“We have a fantastic agreement in the Windsor framework — that’s resolved — the same approach here, I’m confident can achieve success,” he told Times Radio. “But we can only do it with France, which is why the very strong relationship the prime minister has built with President Macron with a summit at the end of this week in Paris is key.”

Freeman said this morning that it was “completely unsustainable and clearly wrong” that 45,000 crossed the Channel in small boats last year. “Many of these people are coming from a safe country, Albania, through safe countries [in] Europe, through France, illegally trafficked,” he said. “This is about sending a very clear signal that we will not continue to put people up in hotels across the country and be a soft target to allow people to disappear.”

Freeman argued that as a result of last week’s deal “we now have the ability, as the prime minister did say last week, to sit down and sort a whole raft of issues out with EU”, telling Today on BBC Radio 4 that progress on small boats was “linked to a whole raft of negotiations with Europe”.

There is widespread scepticism about whether new policies could work while plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda are held up in the courts and Britain lacks return agreements with other European countries. However, Freeman said: “People said it was impossible to resolve the dilemma in Northern Ireland. The prime minister has shown what is possible with very, very careful assiduous, diligent attention to detail, careful negotiation.”

The Home Office is not capable of deporting people quickly enough to make Rishi Sunak’s small boats policy work, its former permanent secretary has said.

Sir David Normington said there were “very great” practical problems with the plans the government is due to announce tomorrow, expressing scepticism about whether they would work.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “at the heart of the policy is a gamble” that would-be migrants would be deterred. “That’s highly doubtful — these are people many of whom are desperate, they have fled from persecution, and being told that there’s been a change in legislation in the British parliament, I don’t think is going to make a big difference to them,” he said.

The government will pledge to detain everyone arriving, but Normington said: “Where is it going to detain them, because it doesn’t have the space? And where’s it going to deport them to, because it doesn’t have agreements with enough countries that are safe? So there are lots of practical issues here.”

Pointing out the “huge backlog” of asylum claims because the Home Office had not been able to keep up with arrivals since 2012, he added: “A policy which is dependent on deporting people is up against a practical problem, that there’s nowhere to deport people to and the Home Office doesn’t have the capacity to deport them.”

The Labour leader took calls this morning from LBC radio listeners

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested he approached Sue Gray about becoming chief of staff at the end of last year but insisted he had “absolutely no contact” with her while she was writing her report into Downing Street parties.

The Labour leader refused to say exactly when conversations began about a possible role running his office but said that Gray was “not a friend, I don’t mix with her in the same social circles”, despite acknowledging he had known her personally for more than a decade.

He told LBC that contact “was recent, it was after we moved on from my last chief of staff”. Sam White left in October last year and the Labour leader had then taken some time to consider what he wanted from the role, he said. He is understood to have concluded last November that he wanted an experienced civil servant.

Rejecting allegations of a “stitch-up” by Boris Johnson’s allies, Starmer said: “I had absolutely no contact with Sue Gray during the preparation of her report when she was writing or anything like that, so the whole suggestion is a complete and utter nonsense.”

He added: “Sue Gray is known for her integrity, she’s known for her delivery in government, and those are two things that I think are essential to an incoming Labour government if we get the privilege of being voted in next year.”

Migrants could be encouraged to cross the Channel before new rules are introduced

BEN STANSALL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Rishi Sunak’s plan to stop the boats will lead to a surge of migrants crossing the Channel before new rules come into effect, border staff have warned.

Lucy Moreton, head of the ISU (Immigration Service Union), said that new policies were unlikely to succeed in preventing people arriving through illegal routes.

“We can’t move anyone to Rwanda right now — it’s subject to legal challenge. We can’t remove anyone back into Europe because there are no returns agreements and we lost access to the database that allows us to prove that individuals have claimed asylum in Europe — Eurodac — when we left with Brexit,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“So unless we have a safe third country that isn’t Rwanda to send people to, this just doesn’t seem to be possible.”

Asked if the plans would succeed, she said: “Not as things stand at the moment. In fact, it’s actually going to be the converse when these things are published and announced in this way. What it actually does is fuel the service, if you like, that the criminals provide.”

She added: “The gangs will tell people ‘quick, cross now before anything changes’.”

Sue Gray is leaving the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff

MICHAEL COOPER/GETTY IMAGES

A cabinet minister has said there is “no reason to believe” that the inquiry into Downing Street parties by a senior civil servant was biased against Boris Johnson.

Johnson and his allies have hit out at what they have claimed is a “stitch-up” after Sue Gray, who led last year’s investigation into illegal Downing Street gatherings, announced she was quitting the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, told Sky News: “She was a leading civil servant who obviously swore and accepted the civil service code in which one of those key requirements is impartiality.”

• Gray took job after being blocked for Whitehall role

Asked whether Gray was impartial, Donelan said: “I have no reason to believe she wasn’t.”

However, Donelan said that the circumstances under which Gray opened discussions with Starmer while still a senior civil servant needed to be investigated.

“I think what people are mainly concerned about here is what process has taken place for her to acquire this new job, have talks taken place when potentially they shouldn’t have, etc? These are the questions that need to be looked at and answered.”

Gray is understood to be ready to tell the advisory committee on business appointments today how long she has been talking to Starmer. An approach is thought to have been made several weeks ago but was not declared to ministers until news leaked last week.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, dismissed complaints as “sour grapes”, saying: “She was asked by Boris Johnson to do an inquiry. He lauded her integrity when he asked her to do it, as have, by the way, many decent Conservatives in recent days.”

He added: “She is a professional civil servant who’s worked well with Labour and Conservative ministers. She has not breached confidences, there’s no reason to expect she will do so now.”