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Marley Morris, IPPR associate director for migration, trade and communities, said: 

“Getting the Safety of Rwanda bill passed was the easy part. Now the government faces an array of logistical and legal hurdles to making the Rwanda plan work in practice. 

“From dealing with individual legal challenges to ensuring Rwanda has enough housing capacity for arrivals, the Home Office has its work cut out for it. 

“At this stage, the prospects of the Rwanda plan operating at scale seem distant.”

Marley went on to say:

“As Parliament finally passes the Safety of Rwanda bill, new figures have revealed the growing ‘perma-backlog’ of people trapped in limbo in the asylum system. 

“There have now been more than 73,000 asylum claims since March 2023. Where these claims are from people who have arrived irregularly, they typically cannot be given permission to stay under the Illegal Migration Act. The Home Office has given no public explanation of how they will be dealt with. 

“Many are set to be stuck in limbo as the government struggles to deliver the Rwanda plan at scale. 

“With Rwanda expected to have limited capacity to process and accommodate arrivals and the UK government likely to face ongoing legal challenges, the Home Office’s ability to put the law into practice and deliver the Rwanda plan at scale remains in serious doubt. 

“While the government may have put the Safety of Rwanda bill on to the statute book, the plan remains impractical, unethical and astronomically costly. Moreover, there is no evidence it will deliver on the Prime Minister’s promise of stopping the boats. 

“The Home Office should instead focus on working with European partners to manage asylum claims, introducing new safe routes to divert people away from dangerous crossings, and fixing the flaws in our broken asylum system.”