Judge orders Sunak to reveal date of first planned Rwanda flight

A High Court judge has ordered Rishi Sunak to reveal when the first planned Rwanda flight will take off amid confusion over the date.

Mr Justice Martin Chamberlain said there was “insufficient clarity” from the Government over the date for him to work out when to hear a legal challenge against the Prime Minister’s Rwanda deportation scheme.

With Sir Keir Starmer favourite to win the general election and committed to scrapping the scheme, legal experts suggested it could be a smart move by the judge to avoid hearing the challenge before polling day on July 4, saving the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds.

The legal action against the Government is being brought by the FDA, the union for top civil servants, who claim staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the Prime Minister’s Safety of Rwanda Act.

They say civil servants could be in violation of the Civil Service code – and open to possible prosecution – if they followed a minister’s demands to ignore an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights banning a deportation.

The challenge had been due to be heard between June 4 and 7 after the Government told the High Court that the earliest dates individuals were expected to be removed to Rwanda were July 1 to 15. It was subsequently amended as being from as early as June 24.

However, following the announcement of the general election, Mr Justice Chamberlain said the Cabinet Office and Home Office had to tell the court of the earliest date they now plan to start removals.

The order comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared to admit that Rwanda flights will not take off before the election. “If I’m re-elected as Prime Minister on July 5, these flights will go, we will get our Rwanda scheme up and running,” he said.

In the order on May 23 - published on Tuesday - Mr Justice Chamberlain said: “The timetable for this claim was set on the basis that removals to Rwanda would begin at the earliest on July 1 2024.

“The Government then changed its position, saying that removals could begin in the week commencing June 24 2024. Following the announcement of a General Election, the Prime Minister has said that removals will begin ‘in July’. That provides insufficient clarity for the purposes of timetabling this claim.”

Mr Justice Chamberlain said a response was required by May 24. No response has yet been made public.

Some migrants detained ahead of their deportation to Rwanda have already secured bail. The Home Office can only detain them if they can show there is a realistic prospect of removal in a reasonable timescale.

The order also comes after more than 10,000 migrants arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel. Home Office figures show 51 people made the journey in one boat on Sunday, taking the provisional total for 2024 to date to 10,448, with no crossings recorded on Monday.

Crossings are up 38 per cent on this time last year (7,558) and are 12 per cent higher on the 9,326 recorded at this stage in 2022.