According to Shadow Leader of the House, Angela Eagle MP, 'the elusive Immigration Bill has made a sudden and dramatic reappearance'. Conservative backbenchers are on a collision course with ministers although Cameron is set to head them off, according to some press reports.
Centre-right commentators like Paul Goodman from ConservativeHome refer to the resurrection of the Bill as 'puzzling', because Number 10 has pushed it forward without cooling down the rebellion, while the Telegraph's Benedict Brogan says Government whips are trying 'peel away' the rebellion in order to isolate Nigel Mills MP.
The very likely reason why the Bill has re-emerged after 9 weeks of hostage-taking by Tory backbenchers is down to the time-limit of the legislation. If held back any longer, the Bill would not make its way through the Lords in a timely fashion and the Queen's Speech would have to be pushed back in order to accommodate this Bill. This means the government's next legislative timetable would be heavily restricted ahead of the 2015 General Election.
In order to start peeling away at the backbench rebellion the government will be supporting a number of amendments to the Bill from backbench Euro-sceptic Stephen Phillips MP, including provisions that put a duty on the Secretary of State for the Home Office to assess whether EU migration has been excessive and to produce a report every time the situation is assessed.
It will be tricky waters if this is law, how and when will the Secretary of State decide if migration has been too excessive from the EU and how will they be able to do anything about it if it has?
Further amendments have been introduced by Labour and Liberal Democrats. Labour is opposing the harshest aspect of the Bill, removing the appeal rights for migrants and provisions to restrict access to private housing. Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather has introduced amendments to safeguard children. Teather in general is opposing the Bill while the majority of Liberal Democrat MPs will be supporting it. Apart from their dividing lines on the Bill, it is likely that the Labour Party will abstain.
The Report Stage and Third Reading will be restricted to four and a half hours. It is very unlikely that all the amendments will be addressed but the proxy anti-EU war will take up much of the debate. The Mills amendment will certainly be debated and voted on and Labour's amendment on piloting the residential provision will be discussed.
We don't know how far the debate will reach and more crucially if Labour's fight-back on the appeals process will be voted on, an important tenet of Labour's position on the Bill.
The political fallout will be interesting, however. It will mean that a running three-line whip will pull in the numbers for David Cameron and, for the first time, euro-sceptic ministers will be forced to vote in favour of unrestricted migration of Romanian and Bulgarian nationals. A move that could potentially see one or two ministers disappear on Thursday, resulting in a nervy show-down with Mills et al.