The former British government spent far more than announced on its plan to deport migrants to Africa, it emerged on Monday.
The controversial policy, which aimed to send asylum seekers to Rwanda while their applications were processed, was the former government’s flagship plan to combat illegal immigration. But not a single one has been deported to Rwanda.
Four asylum seekers did fly to Rwanda this year, but they left voluntarily in exchange for £3,000 each.
The policy has cost the British Treasury 700 million pounds (1.2 billion Canadian dollars), the new Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, told the House of Commons on Monday.
I have never seen such a shameless waste of public funds.
Yvette Cooper, UK Home Secretary
She said the previous government planned to spend more than £10bn over six years. “They didn’t tell parliament that,” Msme Cooper.
So far, the costs have exceeded £290m: direct payments to Rwanda; chartered flights that never took off; the detention and release of hundreds of asylum seekers; and the salaries of the 1,000 civil servants assigned to the programme.
Program canceled, no refund
Following his landslide victory on July 4, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the scrapping of the Rwanda deportation scheme.
PHOTO BEN STANSALL, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Around 15,000 migrants have crossed the Channel to England in small boats since 2014. At least 19 people have drowned during the crossing.
The government has said it is working to determine whether it can recover funds, but Rwanda has made it clear it will not repay anything.
A Rwandan spokesman said earlier this month that the treaty between the two countries did not include any repayment clause and wished the UK “good luck”.
The Rwanda deportation scheme was introduced by Boris Johnson’s government in 2022, and was immediately denounced as breaching British and international law by human rights campaigners and legal experts. It was ruled unlawful by the UK Supreme Court last year.
The Conservative government has maintained this policy as a cornerstone of its commitment to stem the flow of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had pushed through legislation declaring Rwanda a “safe country” to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling. He continued to push this agenda during the election campaign.
PHOTO GLYN KIRK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
The former Conservative government planned to spend more than £10bn over six years to move migrants to Rwanda while their asylum claims were being considered.
At least 19 migrants have died trying to cross the Channel this year; more than 15,000 have succeeded, according to government figures.
In his reply to the minister in parliament, Conservative MP James Cleverly, who was Home Secretary in the previous government, accused the Labour government of “making up these figures”. He accused the government of having “no credible plan to stop the boats and the tragic deaths in the Channel”.
This article was published in the New York Times.
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