Rishi Sunak faces defeat by Tory rebels over small boats plan to ‘lock up children’

Exclusive: PM will ‘struggle’ to pass immigration bill unless he backs down on child detention, MPs warn

Rishi Sunak has been warned by rebel Conservative MPs that he could face defeat over his flagship small boats bill unless he backs down on plans to “lock up” children.

Moderate Tories are worried that the current government policy not to detain children will be overturned by home secretary Suella Braverman’s Illegal Migration Bill.

If the prime minister and Ms Braverman don’t back down, rebels want to push amendments to make sure powers of indefinite detention in their small boats crackdown don’t apply to children.

Amendments tabled by Tim Loughton picked up the support of 12 Tory MPs before recess – but rebels believe they can muster up the dozens of backers needed to defeat the government if a vote is forced in the Commons after Easter.

Senior MP Tobias Ellwood told The Independent: “The bill as it stands requires amendment so our children so our international obligations on prevention of child detention are met.”

The chair of the Defence Select Committee added: “Without these changes I suspect the bill will struggle to pass through parliament.”

Senior Tory David Davis said there was a “fair chance” of defeating the government “if we don’t get what we want” – warning that the Lords would pick up the child detention issue even if Tory rebels were to lose a Commons vote.

Mr Davis wants the government to “go back to the existing restrictions” preventing lengthy child detention, saying: “If the government doesn’t deliver protections – particularly for unaccompanied children – then there will be amendments going down.”

The former cabinet minister added: “Unaccompanied children are particularly vulnerable and you have to take care. The tougher the overall policy, the more care with this there should be.”

It is understood that Labour and the Liberal Democrats will support any fresh amendments by Tory rebels on the child detention issue. Getting support from between 35 and 40 Tory MPs would leave Mr Sunak facing his first Commons defeat.

Former Tory justice secretary Robert Buckland previously told The Independent “we shouldn’t be locking children up – it’s not right”, while senior Tory MP Caroline Nokes likened the “horrendous” plan to Donald Trump’s “caging of children”.

Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman under pressure from backbenchers (PA Media)

Current limitations on child detention – brought in by the David Cameron-led coalition government – mean asylum-seeking families with children cannot be detained for more than 72 hours.

However, the bill does offer any time limit for the detention of families with children under plans to “detain and swiftly remove” those who arrive across the English Channel to Rwanda and other countries.

The home secretary would be “required” to remove asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats as unaccompanied children when they turn 18, and “has the power to do so” before that.

A Home Office factsheet says that if a decision is made to remove an unaccompanied child under 18 then “detention will be for the shortest possible time in appropriate detention facilities”.

The factsheet also shows that child asylum seekers can be restrained if they “resist” forcible deportations. “Using force on children in family groups may unfortunately be necessary if a family is resisting removal,” it states.

Mr Loughton told the Commons before the Easter recess that he wanted the government to provide some “serious assurances” that they would retain the protections “children have been entitled to” at the next stage of the bill.

But the government has not offered any pledges that changes will be made, unlike the assurances given to right-wing Tory MPs the bill will be tightened to allow British judges to ignore the European Court of Human Rights’ injunctions on deportations.

Grilled by Ms Nokes at a recent committee hearing on why children were not exempt from the small boats bill, Mr Sunak said he didn’t want to “incentivise people to bring children who wouldn’t otherwise come here”.

The prime minister said: “Otherwise you create an incentive for a criminal gang to bring a child with them when they otherwise wouldn’t be, and I don’t think that is a good thing.”

Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesperson, said the party had “already stopped the detention of children once before – it’s shameful that over a decade later we are having to fight this battle again”.

Mr Carmichael added: “But we will not give up. We are determined to stop this awful legislation in any way we can and have already been trying. We are committed to working cross party with anyone as horrified by the idea of locking up children … We will support any attempt to stop it from happening.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are changing the law so that people who come to the UK illegally can be detained and swiftly returned to a safe third country or their home country, so we can stop the boats. These changes will be compliant with our obligations under international law.”

They added: “If families, children and refugees are seeking protection, the fastest route to do this is to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach so that we can prioritise protection for the most vulnerable people rather than those who could have claimed asylum elsewhere.”