DON'T YOU DARE BLOCK BOATS BILL

REBELLIOUS peers have been warned they face a "showdown" if attempts are made to block new laws stopping small boats.

- Sam Lister

The Government is to force all-night votes until the House of Lords retreats over the deportation legislation that some members want to water down.

Today senior judges will consider ministers' proposals to send migrants who entered the UK illegally to Rwanda.

If they are ruled to be legal, flights to Africa could start as soon as September. But the prospect of quick deportations is facing intense opposition in the upper chamber which the Government has pledged to fight.

One source warned: "We will not be doing this the polite way. There will be a showdown in the week before the summer recess. This is about showing the Lords they cannot go against the elected government."

Peers last night inflicted further defeats on the Government over its Illegal Migration Bill.

Ministers are considering making minor tweaks to the legislation, to let pregnant arrivals remain in the UK until they have given birth

Other changes may make children exempt from some processes, but there will be rigorous checks to stop adult men posing as teenagers.

Tory MP James Daly, a member of the Home Affairs select committee, said: "This is exactly the right thing to do. Unelected peers want to water down this Bill so much that it becomes meaningless."

He added: "They haven't got a clue about the public's concerns about migrants entering this country illegally and they don't seem to care either. Their hand-wringing is delaying new laws drawn up by the elected government.

"It is time they stopped frustrating the will of the people."