Tory backlash against Archbishop after Justin Welby uses House of Lords speech to slam government’s migration bill

LBC says Government ministers have hit back at the Archbishop of Canterbury after he used a speech in the House of Lords to criticise the proposed Illegal Migration Bill.

Justin Welby slammed the bill on Wednesday, saying it “has no sense at all of the long term and the global nature of the challenge that the world faces”.

Speaking in the House of Lords, Mr Welby argued against the flagship legislation aimed at ensuring people who arrive in the UK in small boats would be detained and promptly removed.

He said: “It ignores the reality that global migration must be engaged with at source as well as in the Channel as if we as a country were unrelated to the rest of the world.”

But government ministers have hit back at the archbishop, with immigration minister Robert Jenrick saying he was “wrong on both counts”.

Mr Jenrick told LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr that while the government “will listen carefully to all views expressed in the Lords”, the “British public expect us to take action”.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/ministers-clash-archbishop-canterbury-justin-welby-immigration-speech/