Climate minister Graham Stuart makes 6,824 mile round trip for Rwanda vote

Climate Minister Graham Stuart has flown back from the Cop28 conference in Dubai to take part in a crunch Commons vote on the government's Rwanda bill.

Mr Stuart is due to return to the Dubai summit after the vote - a round trip of 6,824 miles.

The government wants to avoid a humiliating defeat in the vote on Rishi Sunak's flagship migration legislation.

With some Tory MPs threatening to abstain on the bill, the result could be tight.

Tory opponents of the bill argue it does not go far enough to prevent legal challenges to asylum seekers being sent to the east African country.

In a further sign of government nerves, Tory MPs on the International Development Committee had to cancel a fact-finding trip to the Caribbean after party managers refused to grant them permission to miss the vote.

Voting on the second reading of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is due to get under way after 1900 GMT.

Downing Street confirmed that Mr Stuart was retuning to take part, adding: "Ministers have a number of roles, the negotiations continue and he will return to Cop."

Asked about the carbon emissions from the flights, the prime minister's official spokesman said: "This government is not anti-flying.

"We don't lecture the public to that regard. The most important thing is the outcomes of Cop, which minister Stuart is obviously leading for the UK on."

Chiara Liguori, Oxfam's senior climate change policy advisor, said: "There can be no more tragic outcome for UK climate diplomacy than this - flying home from talks to avert a climate catastrophe at the most critical moment in an attempt to salvage a cruel and impractical policy."

A government spokesperson said: "There will continue to be full official representation on the ground at the summit, including by Lord Benyon at ministerial level."

Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "I guess they can say at least one flight has taken off as a result of this legislation."

Labour has said it will vote against the Rwanda bill and would scrap the policy if it wins the next election.

Delegates at Cop28 are awaiting the publication of the next draft version of the final agreement, with the deadline having passed on Tuesday morning.

The previous version published on Monday made many countries and NGOs furious for excluding a commitment to phase out fossil fuel use, suggesting instead that countries "could" do so within an undefined time.