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”.
Politics latest: Reaction as Tory government ‘planned to spend £10bn on Rwanda scheme’
The Labour home secretary said the £700m spent so far had not been spent on sending actual migrants 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.
“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.”
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.
The Labour government has 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.
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.
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