Rwanda asylum plan could cost £400 million, Labour warns
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper branded the proposal ‘extortionately expensive’.
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Your support makes all the difference.The Government’s Rwanda asylum scheme could cost £400 million and take more than 100 years to deport 15,000 people, according to Labour.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper branded the proposal “extortionately expensive” after she questioned whether ministers have made further commitments beyond the cash already spent on the grounded scheme.
The Home Office confirmed £240 million has been paid to Rwanda so far with another payment of £50 million anticipated in 2024/25.
No asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda so far as flights remain grounded because of a series of legal setbacks.
The National Audit Office (NAO) will publish a report next year on the costs of the scheme so far and estimated spending in the future, the spending watchdog confirmed on Tuesday.
So if Rwanda is only going to take a few hundred people a year, it's going to take them over 100 years to send the 15,000 people who have arrived since they passed the last law
Ms Cooper, speaking during the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill second reading debate, asked Home Secretary James Cleverly if the deal meant a further £50 million will be sent to Rwanda in 2025/26 and another sum of the same amount in the following year.
Mr Cleverly replied: “(Ms Cooper) is asking me to confirm figures which we have put in the public domain so unsurprisingly I’m totally comfortable confirming what I’ve already said.”
Pressed by Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, on further payments planned, Mr Cleverly said the Home Office has committed to report updates to Parliament.
Ms Cooper later told MPs: “Hundreds of millions of pounds could now be £400 million, and I would like the immigration minister – whichever of the immigration ministers is winding up today – to explain whether in fact this is now a £400 million plan.”
Ms Cooper said the money could be spent on thousands more police officers to boost border security and “smash the criminal gangs” or clear the asylum backlog to end the use of hotels.
She said clause two of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 requires the Home Secretary to “remove everyone to Rwanda or elsewhere if they arrived after July”.
Ms Cooper added: “They put it on hold apparently until Rwanda gets off the ground but even if they do manage to do that quickly more than 15,000 people will have arrived in the country on small boats since then – all of whom they’ve now promised to send to Rwanda.
“So if Rwanda is only going to take a few hundred people a year, it’s going to take them over 100 years to send the 15,000 people who have arrived since they passed the last law.
“It’ll take them 10 years to send everyone who has arrived in the last fortnight alone and in the meantime while they focus on this gimmick, they’re failing to get a grip and they’re failing to bring down the backlog and instead we’ve got people in asylum hotels at taxpayers’ expense at the astronomical cost of £8 million a day.”
Ms Cooper later said of the Government’s plan: “£400 million for a failing plan is hell of a lot of money.”
SNP home affairs spokesperson Alison Thewliss also criticised the “secrecy” surrounding the costs of the scheme.
Speaking from the SNP front bench, the MP for Glasgow Central said: “Quite typical of the way this Tory Government runs its business, there has been secrecy over the cost.”
She added: “It will cost £169,000 per asylum seeker, significantly more than if they were processed in the UK and allowed to rebuild their lives here and to contribute to society as so many dearly wish to do.”
It comes as Public Accounts Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier and Home Affairs Committee chair Dame Diana Johnson wrote to the NAO to suggest that it looks into the cost of the Rwanda scheme and its value for money.
In a reply sent on Tuesday, Comptroller and Auditor General Gareth Davies said: “I have considered your suggestion to assess the value for money of the UK-Rwanda scheme and I do not think it possible to conclude on value for money at this stage, given that this rests on the deterrent effect of the scheme.”
But he said he would “produce a factual report covering the costs incurred to-date and the Department’s estimate of costs when the scheme is operational”.
That report is expected in 2024.