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Despite Rishi Sunak's woes and battles with his peAG百家乐在线官网 party and peers, the government still wins important votes in the Commons with hefty majorities of around 70.

In six votes on government moves to throw out Lords amendments to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, the majorities were 65, 71, 70, 70, 74 and 59.

So the bill now goes back to the House of Lords for another bout of ping pong - round three - where the outcome of votes on further amendments is less predictable.

Politics latest: Crunch week for Rwanda bill

The word from the Lords while MPs were trooping through the lobbies in the Commons was that peers will vote another three or four times on Tuesday, setting up another round of ping pong on Wednesday.

Until now, the government has been losing Rwanda votes badly in the Lords, often by surprisingly big majorities, partly because around 30 of their regular voters - including many recent ex-ministers - have been abstaining.

One Lords insider told Sky News: "Some will fall into line tomorrow, clothes peg on the nose and all that, but if the crossbenchers hold firm it's unlikely to be enough to defeat anything pressed to a vote.

"Round three on Wednesday is likely to be different, though, as the crossbenchers might then fade a bit and more Tories might be ready to start voting with the government. We'll see."

We will indeed. Opening the two-hour debate in the Commons, illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson was uncompromising. "The entire passage of the bill should prevail," he told MPs.

"We simply cannot allow amendments that provide for loopholes which would perpetuate the current cycle of delays and late legal challenges to removal."

Veteran Tory MP Sir Bill Cash, a serial rebel on Europe for more than 30 years, said the Lords amendments were "ridiculous" and pleaded: "Let's get the House of Lords to calm down a bit."

Good luck, as they say, with that.

What has been remarkable about the Lords debates so far is the vehemence of the arguments against the bill from normally perfectly calm Tory grandees like Ken Clarke and the senior bishops, led by Justin Welby.

So what happens after the bill, as we expect, finally receives royal assent and limps on to the statute book later this week?

We learned a little, but not much, from the Home Office's top civil servant, Sir Matthew Rycroft, when he and a team of mandarins appeared before a Commons' committee earlier.

Smooth Sir Matthew is a mandarin's mandarin, a classic Sir Humphrey Appleby type. He uses appalling Whitehall jargon, like "operationalising" the Rwanda policy and moving "at pace".

Read more:
Cost of stalled Rwanda asylum scheme could soar to £500m
Welby preaches to the converted in House of Lords

But in classic Yes Minister style, despite a maths degree from Oxford University, Sir Matthew wasn't about to reveal any numbers about how many migrants will be sent to Rwanda or how much it will all cost.

He claimed royal assent was "imminent" and that Mr Sunak and Home Secretary James Cleverly would spell out the government's plans after the bill became law.

When that happens, the parliamentary battle over the bill will be over. But Mr Sunak's battle to get planes in the air and illegal migrants deported to Rwanda almost certainly won't be.

Cabinet minister Victoria Atkins more or less admitted on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News that the government still doesn't appear to have found an airline to take the migrants to Africa.

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And at his committee appearance, Sir Matthew appeared to confirm reports that ministers are looking at deporting illegal migrants to other countries, including Armenia, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica and Botswana, as well as Rwanda.

In other words, the government may win votes in the Commons with hefty majorities, but many of the details of the Rwanda policy are still unclear and opponents are unlikely to give up their fight to keep the deportation flights grounded.