Rwanda plan to cost UK L1.8m for each asylum seeker, figures show

Source: The Guardian

Rwanda plan to cost UK £1.8m for each asylum seeker, figures show

Disclosure, calculated on basis of 300 deportations, called ‘staggering’ by chair of home affairs committee

Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor
Fri 1 Mar 2024 00.01 GMT
Last modified on Fri 1 Mar 2024 02.30 GMT

Rishi Sunak’s flagship plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost taxpayers £1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali, Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has disclosed.

The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released to the National Audit Office. Even if the UK sends nobody to the central African state, Sunak has signed up to pay £370m from the public purse over the five-year deal.

The disclosures follow nearly three years of refusals by prime ministers, home secretaries and senior Home Office staff to explain the full costs of the deal, citing “commercial confidentiality”.

So far, no asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda, because of repeated challenges to the scheme under European and UK laws.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/01/rwanda-plan-uk-asylum-seeker-cost-figures