In April, Britain reached a deal worth 120 million pounds ($148 million) with Kigali to send some migrants who arrived in the UK illegally in small boats across the English Channel to live in Rwanda.
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The previous British government had planned to spend 10 billion pounds ($12.9 billion) on a now-abandoned program to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which had cost taxpayers, new home secretary Yvette Cooper said on Monday £700 million was lost.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new Labor government has scrapped controversial plans to fly thousands of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda in its first major policy announcement since its election victory earlier this month.
Cooper said the costs included charter flights that never took off, work fees for government officials and a £290 million payment to the Rwandan government.
“This is the most appalling waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen,” she told parliament.
The previous Conservative government first announced plans in 2022 to send migrants arriving in the UK without permission to the East African country, saying it would eliminate asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats.
But legal challenges mean no one has been sent to Rwanda except four people on the voluntary programme.
Cooper also said tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have been stranded by the threat of deportation to Rwanda will now have their asylum claims processed.
She said the government would also revoke a provision in the Illegal Immigration Act that had barred anyone entering the country illegally from being granted asylum since March last year.
Instead, the government pledged to process their applications, stop using expensive hotels to house asylum seekers and clear the backlog.
Cooper said the change in policy was expected to save taxpayers £7 billion over the next 10 years.
“We inherited the asylum system from Hotel California: Once people arrive in the asylum system, they never leave,” she added.
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