08/12/2023 11:00
The Guardian
Tom Pursglove defends cost of scheme after Labour brands it an ‘astronomical’ waste of taxpayers’ moneyThe DUP has played down suggestions that it is close to an agreement that would see it lift its boycott of power sharing at Stormont. The Northern Ireland assembly has not been sitting, and there has been no power-sharing executive, as a result of the boycott, which started in 2022. The DUP is protesting against the post-Brexit trading rules set out in the Northern Ireland protocol, and amended by the Windsor framework.As PA Media reports, speculation has been growing in recent weeks that the DUP could be closing in on an agreement with the UK government that could restore the assembly at Stormont. The Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said negotiations were in their “final, final phase”.Jeffrey Donaldson [the DUP leader] said a number of weeks ago that we will not be calendar-led.The issues that we are raising with the government have been long in fruition.The Times has been told that Downing Street was warned by two senior lawyers that the scheme risked failure because it would continue to allow migrants to lodge challenges against their individual removal to Rwanda. Legal advice from a senior government lawyer said “the scheme would be seriously impeded” if the bill did not include a so-called “ouster clause” that barred individual legal challenges.Separate external legal counsel that was sought by the government warned that the failure to bar individual challenges “is inconsistent with the intellectual underpinning of the bill and also would provide an easy way for many applicants to avoid the effects of the bill”. Continue reading...
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