Rishi Sunak’s plan to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda had faced several barriers in parliament, but the Safety of Rwanda Bill will now become law, with the House of Lords backing down over some of the final proposed changes.

Some of those amendments included making it harder for parliament to declare Rwanda a safe country and requiring the government to comply with domestic and international law.

In March, MPs in the House of Commons initially voted to reject all 10 amendments to the Rwanda bill, which meant the bill was passed back to the House of Lords for consideration. On 23 April, peers debated two amendments to the legislation: setting up an independent monitoring committee to consider whether Rwanda is a safe country and exemptions for Afghans who had assisted the British military.

MPs accepted the amendment on the exemption of some Afghans with a “credible link” to special forces but rejected the final amendment on the safety of Rwanda.

Now, royal assent is expected to be given by King Charles in the coming week, which would officially pass the bill into law. The prime minister said that flights will begin deporting migrants to Kigali within 10-12 weeks, even though Sunak has already missed his own target of flights taking off by spring and will likely face more legal challenges.

The Safety of Rwanda Bill is part of Sunak’s wider ‘stop the boats’ plan and the prime minister told fellow MPs that he remains “committed to the timeline that [he] set out previously“, which aims to get a flight off in the spring.

The Illegal Migration Act became law in July 2023 and was created with the aim of stopping people from crossing the English Channel in small boats. The new legislation means that anyone coming to the UK via the Channel will have their claims deemed inadmissible and the Home Office won’t even consider the claim.

The Illegal Migration Act also allows the home secretary to deport anyone arriving ‘irregularly’ to the UK either to their home country or to a ‘safe’ third country, such as Rwanda.

A main point of contention in the Safety of Rwanda Bill is that it seeks to declare Rwanda a safe country for deportation. The legislation was initially put together to overcome the supreme court’s objections to the government’s plan. The supreme court ruled against this safety, citing concerns that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at “real risk” of being returned to their home countries where they could face persecution.

Another controversial element of the bill is that it’s designed to give government ministers the power to effectively disregard the Human Rights Act and other international laws that could prevent deportations.

Many human and migrant rights organisations have criticised the Rwanda plan, including Refugee Action’s Tim Naor Hilton, who, after the supreme court ruling, said: “It’s now time to scrap this inhumane and unworkable deal and any similar plans it has with other countries – and consign to history the awful and totally unworkable Illegal Migration Act that supports them.”

The government’s Rwanda deportation bill will become law – here’s what you need to know