Rishi Sunak’s beleaguered Rwanda deportation plan will cost taxpayers more than £500m, a shock report reveals today.
In a revelation branded a “national scandal” by Labour, the public spending watchdog said the scheme would cost £576.8m if just 300 asylum seekers were sent to the east African nation.
It would represent a total of £1.92m per person sent to Rwanda and account for just 1 per cent of the UK’s asylum seekers.
Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “This report reveals the national scandal the Tories have been trying to hide.”
The government’s plan, unveiled two years ago by Boris Johnson, was for those arriving in the UK via irregular routes such as channel crossings to be permanently deported to Rwanda.
It was deemed unlawful in November by the Supreme Court and Mr Sunak is staging a desperate last-ditch bid to force the plan through – with a bill deeming Rwanda a “safe” country making its way through the House of Lords.
But the PM will come under fresh pressure over the scheme after the National Audit Office (NAO) laid bare its cost – enough to cover the £20,000-a-day bill for migrant patrol vessel HMS Mersey for the next 70 years.
Among the report’s key findings were:
The deportation policy is a key plank of Mr Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats”, with the PM and home secretary James Cleverly arguing it will act as a deterrent to potential asylum seekers.
But the government has been heavily criticised for failing to produce any evidence of the supposed deterrent effect, and Home Office permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft told MPs last year there was none.
The Home Office has so far refused to say how much more money, on top of the £290m already confirmed, the UK has agreed to pay Kigali under the stalled plan.
But the NAO’s first full breakdown of the costs of the scheme will pile pressure on Mr Sunak to scrap the programme.
Labour, which will scrap the policy if it wins the general election expected this autumn, said the PM has “staked his position on this scheme” and “must account for this fiasco”.
Ms Cooper said: “This report reveals the national scandal the Tories have been trying to hide. Its shocking analysis shows the costs of the failed Rwanda farce are even higher than previously thought.
“In order to send less than 1 per cent of UK asylum seekers to Rwanda on a few symbolic flights, the taxpayer will be forced fork out over half a billion pounds – with no ability to recover any of the money already sent. This is the equivalent of nearly £2m per person sent.”
Meanwhile, Dame Diana Johnson, chair of parliament’s influential home affairs committee, said the cost of the scheme was “staggering”.
“For all its rhetoric about ensuring value for money in the asylum and immigration system it is unclear how schemes such as Rwanda or the Bibby Stockholm barge achieve that,” she said.
Dame Diana said the “huge initial outlay” and ongoing costs “raise serious questions about how this can be cost-effective, even compared to high hotel accommodation costs”.
Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said: “These figures reveal the extortionate bill the taxpayer will have to pay the Rwandan government for an unworkable and inhumane scheme that will not deter people seeking protection on our shores.”
Rishi Sunak has staked his premiership on the promise to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda
