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Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, has raised concerns about Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill before the crunch vote tonight.

She says Dover is “in a very real sense on the frontline of this crisis” as it is in her constituency that the boats arrive.

Ms Elphicke expresses “sadness” for the “many lives” she says have been unnecessarily lost – “because each and every person was safe already in France”.

She then moves on the contents of the bill and asks: “Will this bill stop the boats?”

She concludes: “I am gravely concerned that today’s bill in its current form won’t do what the government wants.

She says she hopes the government will consider “operational and diplomatic ways forward”, saying this approach could quickly deliver results “we all wish to see”.

Government ‘deserves credit’ for trying to stop the boats

Former Tory minister Conor Burns is giving his backing to the government as the debate around the Rwanda bill continues. 

Speaking in the Commons, he says he will vote for the new law and the government “deserves credit for attempting to try and deliver their promises to the British people on the boats”.

Mr Burns adds that the UK is “seeing far too many people coming in here without the necessary checks who are then doing things in this country that are deeply unwelcome”.

And he points to the killing of one of his own constituents by an asylum seeker to underline his point. 

“We have got to be straight with the British people,” the MP continues. 

“If we say we are going to do something we have got to do it, and we’ve got to try every means at our disposal to deliver directly for the British people.”