Rishi Sunak suffers heaviest defeats yet as peers square up over Rwanda Bill

The Archbishop of Canterbury and Tory former Cabinet ministers have helped inflict the heaviest defeats Rishi Sunak has suffered in the Lords over his proposed Rwanda asylum law.

The string of Government setbacks, most passed by unusually large margins of more than 100 votes, set the stage for a Westminster showdown over the legislation that aims to clear the way to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats on a one-way flight to Kigali.

The Prime Minister has previously warned the unelected chamber against frustrating “the will of the people” by hampering the passage of his Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which has already been approved by MPs.

Ahead of the next election, Mr Sunak has made “stopping the boats” a key pledge of his leadership.

The draft legislation 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, it would also 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.

But Downing Street has said the Government remains committed to sending flights to Rwanda “in the spring”.