The previous government was set to spend £10bn on the now-scrapped Rwanda scheme, the home secretary has revealed.
Giving a statement in the Commons, Yvette Cooper said £700m of taxpayers’ money had already been spent on the scheme, which the Conservatives brought in to act as a deterrent to those travelling in small boats across the Channel.
Ms Cooper branded the scheme – which would have sent people arriving in small boats to the African country for processing – “the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen”.
The Labour home secretary said the £700m spent so far had not been spent on sending actual migrants who arrived in small boats to Rwanda, but volunteers.
She said: “Two years after the previous government launched it, I can report it has already cost the British taxpayer £700m, in order to send just four volunteers.
Politics latest: Reaction as Tory government ‘planned to spend £10bn on Rwanda scheme’
“Those costs include £290m payments to Rwanda, chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more than a thousand civil servants to work on the scheme.
“A scheme to send four people, it is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen.”
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She added: “Looking forward, the costs are set to get worse.
“Over the six years of the migration and economic development partnership forecast, the previous government had planned to spend over £10bn of taxpayers money on the scheme – they did not tell parliament that.”
Almost as soon as they assumed office, Labour scrapped the Rwanda scheme which it had repeatedly described as an expensive gimmick.
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Border security ‘let down for too long’
The government previously announced it would divert tens of millions of pounds from the scheme to set up a new Border Security Command (BSC) to tackle the people smuggling gangs that engineer the Channel crossings.
According to the government, the BSC will sit across the security services, the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force, to provide “strategic direction”.
Ms Cooper has also announced an audit of the funds sent to Kigali as the Labour administration looks to find ways to save or recoup cash committed under the Conservatives.
Before the general election, Sir Keir Starmer said his party wanted to send around £75m a year to their new border scheme, from the scrapped Rwanda deportation programme.
The prime minister described the Conservative-era plans to send asylum seekers to Africa as “dead and buried” earlier this weekend.
Responding to Ms Cooper in the Commons, former home secretary James Cleverly claimed Labour had already worsened the issue of small boats crossings in their two and half weeks in government.
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Starmer gets down to business
The shadow home secretary told MPs: “The reality is everybody knows, including the people smugglers, that the small boat problem is going to get worse, indeed has already got worse under Labour because they have no deterrent.”
Mr Cleverly also criticised the government for scrapping the scheme, saying: “The fact there is now no safe third country to return people to who cannot be returned home means that we ask, where is she going to send the people who come here from countries like Afghanistan or Iraq, in Syria?
“Has she started negotiations on returns agreements with the Taliban, or the ayatollahs of Iran, or Assad in Syria?
“And if she’s not going to send those that arrived here on small boats to Rwanda, which local authorities will she be sending people to?
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“We were closing hotels, when I was in government and I wonder which local authorities will be receiving those asylum seekers if not Rwanda – will it be Rochdale or Romford or Richmond?”
Meanwhile, Ms Cooper also joked with Mr Cleverly about previous reports he had called the Rwanda plan “batshit” in private.
“I’m sorry, four volunteers being sent to Rwanda isn’t a deterrent to anyone for anything at all and the idea that he would spend £10bn on this fantasy, this fiction, this gimmick rather than ever do the hard graft,” she said.
Referring to a possible Tory leadership bid when Rishi Sunak stands down, she added: “I don’t think he believes any of the stuff that he said, he’s only saying it for his Tory leadership contest.
“He’s just too weak to tell his party the truth. He thought the whole policy on Rwanda was batshit and then he went out to bat for it. It’s just not serious.”