Politics live updates: Minister having ‘torrid time’ in migration bill debate; MP becomes ninth under investigation

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Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Cox makes a dramatic intervention in the Commons where MPs are debating the migration bill.

He asks: “Isn’t [Mr Jenrick] in fact asking this House to give legislative sanction to at least the possibility that a minister of the Crown will deliberately disobey the international law obligations of this country?”

Mr Jenrick reiterates that the UK takes its treaty obligations “very seriously”, but Sir Geoffrey intervenes again, saying that MPs are being asked to approve “quite consciously and deliberately a deliberate breach our obligations” under the ECHR.

Chief political correspondent Jon Craig says this is a “senior Tory joining the attack” on the government.

Moments earlier, the SNP’s Joanna Cherry had said elements of the bill allow ministers to breach international law, and asked why the home secretary has refused to appear before the joint committee on human rights to “justify her admission that this bill is not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Ms Cherry referred to a line on the front of the bill from Suella Braverman that reads: “I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the bill.”

However, Mr Jenrick said the government believes the bill is, in fact, compatible with the ECHR.

If the bill were challenged in court, the government would defend it “robustly”, he said.

“We take our treaty obligations seriously.”

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