'The Tories' have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers' money on a failing scheme which hasn't sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.'
The cost of the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme, which has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, has more than doubled to £290 million, despite the fact that not a single deportation flight has taken off.
The latest costs of the scheme were revealed overnight, with the prime minister signing off on a £100m payment to the east African nation this year, on top of the £140m already spent on the policy.
The Home Office has pencilled in another £50m payment next year as the plan hangs in the balance.
Labour has condemned the waste of taxpayers’ money, with Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying: “This is just incredible. The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.
“How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?”
She added that the scheme has now cost “basically £100m for every home secretary sent to Rwanda.”
Rishi Sunak has made stopping small boat crossings a key priority, with his plans taking a major hit after the Supreme Court ruled that the scheme was unlawful as Rwanda isn’t a safe country for refugees.
Since then, the Prime Minister has tried to stamp his authority after a growing rebellion among the right of his party against his approach. Sunak has put forward the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which compels judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country and gives ministers the powers to disregard sections of the Human Rights Act.
Sunak faces the biggest test of his premiership yet. Having staked so much of his authority on ‘stopping the boats’, he is facing criticism from the Tory left, who believe the bill is too extreme, while also facing attacks from the Tory right who believe the measures set out by Mr Sunak are not tough enough to ensure flights take off.
Commenting on the spiralling cost of the scheme, Labour MP John McDonnell told LFF that it “demonstrates how much the Tories are willing to spend on brutalising people who have already endured such hardship and human suffering in their flight to secure safety and security”.
He called the deportation scheme an ‘appalling act of inhumanity’.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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