Home Office banned from routinely placing lone children in asylum hotels

High court order says hotels can be used only for very short periods ‘in true emergency situations’

The Home Office has been banned from accommodating lone asylum seeker children in hotels apart from for very short periods “in true emergency situations” after a long-running high court case.

The home secretary’s practice of routinely and systematically accommodating these children in hotels has been ruled unlawful in an order finalised on Thursday. The order states that since December 2021 this practice has “exceeded the proper limits of his powers”.

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Home Office accused of ‘chaos’ after U-turn on earnings threshold for family visa

Department unexpectedly announces interim increase to just £29,000, with no timeline given for planned full rise to £38,700

The Home Office has made a U-turn on its much-criticised plan to imminently raise the minimum salary requirement for British nationals bringing foreign family members to the UK, saying the threshold will first be raised to £29,000 instead of £38,700.

The revised proposal, announced unexpectedly and without fanfare in a parliamentary answer, said the threshold would be increased “incrementally” and would still eventually hit £38,700, but gave no timescale for when this would happen.

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No 10 drops proposal for end-of-year Sunak speech on immigration

Idea quietly shelved after Tory splits over Rwanda bill, as Home Office is accused of ‘fiddling’ asylum claim data

No 10 has dropped a proposal for an end-of-year immigration update from Rishi Sunak amid concern that key policies that are meant to “stop the boats” are running into trouble.

The prime minister had been expected to make a statement in December outlining progress on the Rwanda deportation scheme and plans to house asylum seekers in ships such as the Bibby Stockholm and in former barracks, Whitehall sources said.

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Rishi Sunak refuses to say if airlines will sign up for Rwanda flights

In liaison committee appearance, PM also says he cannot say when he will deliver on ‘stop the boats’ pledge

Rishi Sunak has refused to disclose whether any airline would be willing to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda, amid concerns they could face reputational damage if the deportation plan gets off the ground.

The prime minister said he was confident that the UK government would be able to send asylum seekers to the African state but did not reveal whether any airlines had agreed to participate, citing commercial confidentiality.

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Sunak rebuked by UK’s statistics watchdog for making misleading claim about government debt – as it happened

The prime minister has been facing questions on his government’s performance from senior MPs on the Commons liaison committee

Social care leaders felt “blindsided” by recently announced changes to visa rules banning care workers from bringing their families to the UK and have “grave concerns” it could drive people from the sector, the Commons health committee heard this morning. PA Media has filed this from the hearing.

The head of Care England, which represents social care providers across the country, criticised a lack of consultation with the sector, saying it left them “particularly concerned, annoyed and irritated”.

Prof Martin Green, its chief executive, told the committee the system is currently already “creaking at the edges” due to a lack of funding, and spoke of the “chronic workforce shortage” it faces.

Today’s guidance does not go far enough. During the many months we have been waiting for its publication, it has become increasingly clear that non-statutory guidance will provide insufficient protection and clarity, and that a change in the law of the land is required.

That is why I am today asking the government to back my private member’s bill which would change the law in this area to ensure children are fully protected.

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The Guardian and Observer charity telethon 2023: call our writers and donate

Marina Hyde, John Crace and Polly Toynbee are among those ready to take your calls in support of refugees

Readers have the opportunity to talk to some of their favourite Guardian and Observer journalists on Saturday as part of the annual charity telethon, this year in support of refugees and asylum seekers.

Journalists including Marina Hyde, John Crace, Polly Toynbee, Owen Jones, Peter Bradshaw, Sali Hughes, Simon Hattenstone, Nosheen Iqbal, Zoe Williams and many more will be on hand to take your calls and donations.

Non-telethon donations can be made online by credit card, debit card or PayPal.

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Asylum seekers housed at ex-RAF base tried to kill themselves, finds study

Report calls for immediate closure of Wethersfield as conditions causing irreparable harm to residents

Asylum seekers housed in the UK’s largest mass accommodation site have attempted to kill themselves and set themselves on fire because of conditions “no different from Libya”, according to a report.

The controversial Wethersfield site, on a remote military airbase near Braintree in Essex, is in the constituency of the home secretary, James Cleverly, who said earlier this year in a social media post that the site was not “appropriate”.

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Rwandan politician who criticised Sunak’s bill fears for her safety

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza has received threats after saying Rwanda was not a safe place to send refugees

A Rwandan opposition politician who publicly criticised the UK’s deportation deal this week fears for her safety after a presidential adviser condemned her for “waging war on her compatriots”.

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who wrote a column in the Guardian on Tuesday questioning her country’s treatment of refugees, said she has become concerned about the fallout from the criticism after the aide, an ally of Paul Kagame, wrote she was “maligning Rwanda” in international media.

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Scott Benton faces Commons suspension over lobbying to give Tories potential byelection headache – UK politics live

Commons standards committee recommends 35-day suspension for Scott Benton, who had Conservative whip suspended in April

Rishi Sunak has said that he is open to considering ways in which his Rwanda bill can be “improved”.

With Conservative rightwingers and centrists both wanting to amend the bill, in opposite directions, when it returns to the Commons in the new year, Sunak signalled that the government would be open to accepting some changes.

I’ve been very consistently clear, as have all ministers, if there are ways that the legislation can be improved, to be made even more effective — with a respectable legal argument and maintaining the participation of the Rwandans in the scheme — of course we would be open to that, who wouldn’t be?

This is a damning report from the cross-party standards committee, clearly concluding that Scott Benton seriously breached parliamentary rules in flaunting his position as a parliamentarian in exchange for remuneration.

This is not an isolated case, but comes off the back of a wave of Tory sleaze and scandal.

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Guardian and Observer charity appeal passes £350,000 in donations

Donations in support of refugee and asylum seekers have got off to a strong start thanks to our readers

The Guardian and Observer charity appeal in support of refugee and asylum seekers has received more than £350,000 in donations from generous readers in less than a week since it launched.

The 2023 appeal is raising money for three charities – Refugee Councils of Britain, Refugees at Home, and Naccom – that support homeless and destitute asylum seekers and refugees and campaign for a fairer and more humane treatment of people arriving in the UK after fleeing war and persecution.

Donations can be made online by credit card, debit card or PayPal, or by phone on 0151 284 1126. We are unable to accept cheques.

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Sadiq Khan: plans to cut migration will trigger London recruitment crisis

Exclusive: Key sectors of capital’s economy worth billions to exchequer could be left understaffed, mayor warns

Sadiq Khan has said ministers’ plans to cut legal migration will lead to a “full-blown recruitment crisis” in London, with vacancies in hospitality alone still higher than they were pre-pandemic.

Net migration to the UK boosted the UK population by 672,000 in the year ending June 2023, and about half (48%) of the country’s foreign-born population live in London or the south-east of England.

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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clash over homelessness and the UK economy at PMQs – as it happened

The prime minister faced PMQs for the final time before the Christmas recess

Rishi Sunak is about to take PMQs. It will be the last of 2023.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

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Rwanda bill ‘pushing at edge of the envelope’ but ‘within framework of international law’ says home secretary – UK politics live

James Cleverly says deportation bill contains ‘novel measures’ as MPs debate it

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a former lord chief justice of England and Wales, has said the government should not try to ignore the jurisdiction of the European court of human rights. In an interview for a podcast called the Judges, he said:

If you have subjected yourself to a court, and it was our voluntary decision to do so, then you have to take the rough with the smooth and if they’ve decided [the court] have this jurisdiction then you ought to follow it.

You can’t expect others to respect the law if you say you won’t respect the law of someone else.

You ought to actually be able, within a set period of time, say a fortnight, to investigate, decide, give him one right of appeal – why you should have more than one right of appeal I simply don’t understand – and remove them.” But, he concedes, it costs money.

Britain is a practical nation – always has been. People can’t afford Christmas. If they call an ambulance this winter – they don’t know if it will come. 6,000 crimes go unpunished - every day. Common sense is rolling your sleeves up and solving these problems practically, not indulging in some kind of political performance art.

This goes for stopping the boats as well. It’s not about wave machines, or armoured jet skis, or schemes like Rwanda you know will never work.

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Asylum seeker on Bibby Stockholm barge believed to have killed himself

‘Sudden death of resident’ onboard vessel in Portland, Dorset, is being investigated by police

A man seeking asylum is believed to have killed himself while being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge.

Police said they were investigating the “sudden death of a resident” on the giant vessel in Portland, Dorset, which was leased by the former home secretary, Suella Braverman, to house recent arrivals to the UK.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Why the outcome of the Rwanda bill matters for Sunak – and the Conservatives

Defeat for flagship immigration plan in the Commons would present serious legal and political problems for the PM

A revolt by 29 Conservative MPs could be enough to defeat the government’s Rwanda bill at its first Commons hurdle – something that has not happened to a piece of government legislation since 1986.

The legislation was designed to overcome concerns raised by the supreme court, which ruled last month that the previous policy for deporting people to Rwanda violated domestic and international law.

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Keir Starmer promises ‘red wall’ voters the basics of government done better

Labour leader to attack Tory ‘psychodrama’ and ‘self-importance’ in speech marking four years since last election

Labour will end the Conservative “psychodrama” and return government to the “mundane stuff”, Keir Starmer will pledge, in a plea to the “red wall” voters the party is targeting.

His “changed” party is committed to national security and careful management of taxpayer money, he will emphasise in a speech that has been moved to Buckinghamshire from a northern constituency in order for the Labour leader to stay close to Westminster as MPs prepare to vote on the government’s Rwanda bill.

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One Nation Tory MPs vow to drop support for Rwanda bill if there are amendments as ERG calls for it to be rewritten – as it happened

Damian Green says government must ‘stick to guns’ but chair of European Research Group calls for bill to be pulled and rewritten

Sunak says the PM had to balance competing interests during Covid.

Only he could do that, because only he saw all the competing arguments made by different cabinet ministers.

Your phone, you said, doesn’t retain, and nor do you have access to, text messages at all relating to the period of the crisis.

In addition, you said although on occasion you use WhatsApp to communicate around meetings and logistics and so on, you generally were only party to WhatsApp groups that were set up to deal with individual circumstances such as arrangements for calls, meetings and so on and so forth. You don’t now have access to any of the WhatsApps that you did send during the time of the crisis, do you?

I’ve changed my phone multiple times over the past few years and, as that has happened, the messages have not come across.

As you said, I’m not a prolific user of WhatsApp in the first instance – primarily communication with my private office and obviously anything that was of significance through those conversations or exchanges would have been recorded officially by my civil servants as one would expect.

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Robert Jenrick says he will not vote for Sunak’s Rwanda bill

Former immigration minister says legislation will not work, as talk grows of Tory plot to oust PM

The former UK immigration minister Robert Jenrick has said he will not vote for Rishi Sunak’s bill aimed at deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda this week, in a blow to the prime minister.

Jenrick, who resigned over the bill, said it would not work and needed to go further in setting aside human rights law if it was to have a chance of getting the Rwanda scheme to work.

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Tories warn Rishi Sunak that his Rwanda plan ‘will never be law’

As Tuesday’s crucial vote looms, MPs from both wings of the party say PM has tied his future to a bill that cannot succeed

• Read more: The UK’s deal with Rwanda must stay within the rule of law

Senior Tories from across the party are warning that Rishi Sunak’s emergency Rwanda plan will never become law in its current form, ahead of the most critical vote of his premiership.

Liberal Tories confirmed last night that, despite their desire to back the PM against the right, “serious concerns” remain about the plan and more reassurances will be required. Meanwhile, a self-styled “star chamber” of legal figures examining the proposals for the Tory right is understood to have found problems that are “extremely difficult to resolve”.

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Row brews between Home Office and Foreign Office on eve of UN refugee summit

Furore over the controversial Rwanda scheme labelled far from ‘helpful’ as Britain seeks to fulfil role in the international forum

Tensions between the Home Office and Foreign Office are said to be “strained” before the largest international gathering in years on the refugee crisis, with the UK’s contribution overshadowed by the row over Rwanda.

Headed by development minister Andrew Mitchell, the UK delegation at this week’s UN Global Refugee Forum will unveil what it describes as an “ambitious package” that includes delivering schooling to hundreds of thousands of refugee children.

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