UK Conservatives planned to spend US$13 billion on Rwanda migrant scheme, minister says
- Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament the Rwanda plan, now scrapped, has already cost taxpayers US$905 million
Britain’s new Labour interior minister on Monday accused the previous, Conservative government of concealing the fact that it expected to spend £10 billion (US$13 billion) on a now-scrapped plan to deport thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament that taxpayers had already spent £700 million (US$905 million) on chartering flights that never took off, payments to the Rwandan government and many hours of civil servants’ work, among other things.
She said that since her appointment as home secretary two weeks ago, she had reviewed the “policies, programmes and legislation that we have inherited”, adding: “It is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money that I have ever seen.”
The previous Conservative government had announced in 2022 that it would put an end to asylum seekers arriving on small boats by sending those who arrived in Britain without permission to Rwanda.
But legal challenges have prevented anyone being sent to east Africa except for four individuals who went under a voluntary scheme.
