It's a tough week for Rishi Sunak. He faces grilling on COVID decisions and revolt over Rwanda plan

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a rebellion from restive lawmakers over his signature immigration policy, while fending off tough questions Monday about his judgment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The twin pressures add up to one of the toughest weeks of Sunak’s 13 months in office, with both his present authority and past record at stake.

Legislation intended to salvage Sunak's blocked plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda faces a vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday. While disparate groups of Conservative lawmakers met in Parliament to pick holes in the bill, Sunak was undergoing a six-hour grilling at the U.K.’s pandemic inquiry, where he denied taking risks with public health.

Sunak was Treasury chief to Prime Minister Boris Johnson when the pandemic hit, and backed a discount initiative that encouraged people to go back to restaurants in August 2020 after months of lockdown.

The government’s scientific advisers have told the inquiry that they weren't informed in advance about the “Eat Out to Help Out” program, which scientists have linked to a rise in infections. One senior government science adviser referred to Sunak in a message to colleagues at the time as “Dr. Death.”

Sunak denied there had been “a clash between public health and economics" when it came to confronting the pandemic, which authorities said left more than 230,000 people dead in the U.K.

He said that he saw his role “as making sure the prime minister had the best possible advice, information and analysis relating to the economic impact” of potential measures. He stressed that Johnson, as prime minister at the time, was ”the ultimate and sole decision-maker.”

Johnson told the inquiry last week that the restaurant plan “was not at the time presented to me as something that...