Downing Street has warned that peers will show a lack of ‘compassion’ if they do not pass the Rwanda Bill unamended. At this morning’s lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘Not acting is not an option and it certainly wouldn’t be a compassionate route.’

The government rejected all the amendments made by peers to the Bill last night in the first round of ‘ping pong’ between the two chambers, and the legislation will now go back to the Upper House for further consideration on Wednesday. Labour may try to reinsert around seven of the changes that were rejected by MPs last night. This could mean the Bill doesn’t become law until after Easter if the Lords refuses to sign off on it. The Labour line currently is ‘we are not going to back down on Wednesday’.

Sunak wants to use Rwanda as his next chance of getting a poll boost before the election

Wednesday is going to be a day of drama and unfamiliar faces in the Lords. Peers who have largely been ennobled for the title rather than the pleasure of revising and scrutinising legislation will be hauled in by the Tories to try to stop the government losing again.

Rishi Sunak has this week repeated his assertion that he expects the first flights to take off to Rwanda by the spring. So why hasn’t the government allowed for more time for this ping-pong stage? The House rises for the Easter recess next week, leaving very little time for the to-ing and fro-ing between the Lords and Commons.

It’s almost as though a delay might not be the worst thing for the Prime Minister, who could at least then continue to blame other people for the policy not working rather than face the reality of it being implemented. He also said yesterday that ‘everyone is trying to block us, including the Labour party, because they don’t have a plan to tackle this problem’ – clearly in anticipation of a delay.

Sunak wants to use Rwanda as his next chance of getting a poll boost before the election, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he will get the biggest boost from the policy being out in the wild (if he gets one at all). A fight with unelected peers and the opposition could help him more. Given much of the Tory party’s time is spent fighting itself at the moment, this is one of the areas where the Prime Minister has a reasonable chance of taking the fight to Labour instead.