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The UK government has paid Rwanda an extra £100mn as part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s troubled plan to send asylum seekers to the central African nation, taking the total cost so far to £240mn.
The additional payment, made in April but revealed in a Home Office letter to MPs on Thursday evening, is a further sign of how much financial and political capital Sunak has invested in the controversial scheme.
The UK is expected to make another £50mn payment next year, which would raise the overall cost to £290mn.
Tom Pursglove, one of two new immigration ministers appointed this week, said the payments should be seen in the context of the £8mn the government is spending each day to accommodate asylum seekers in hotels, and as part of efforts ultimately to bring down costs.
“What we want to bring about is ensuring the [Rwanda] policy is robust, that the capacity is in place to operationalise this as quickly as possibly and that’s what this money is there to do,” he told the BBC’s Today programme, adding: “I think it is the right investment to get into a much more sustainable position as part of our overall package addressing the Channel crossings.”
The government hopes that removing some asylum seekers to Rwanda will help to deter others from entering the UK by irregular means, and begin to reduce the number of people making the journey in small boats across the Channel.
The policy was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court last month. Sunak is set to spend the weekend rallying restive Conservative MPs behind “emergency” legislation to rescue it ahead of a crucial test of his authority on Tuesday when MPs vote on the bill.
Rumours have swirled around Westminster about letters of no confidence in Sunak being submitted and the potential appetite among rightwing MPs for a fresh leadership contest ahead of a general election expected next year.
On Thursday, Tory chair Richard Holden said a leadership contest would be “insanity”. The Conservatives have changed leader twice since they won the 2019 election.
The opposition Labour party is expected to put forward a so-called reasoned amendment to the bill in the coming days, offering key reasons why MPs should reject it. If 29 Tory MPs vote against the bill alongside opposition party MPs, Sunak’s government would be defeated.
If MPs approve the bill, which declares Rwanda a “safe country” for asylum seekers despite the Supreme Court finding it otherwise, it would need to pass further parliamentary votes before becoming law.
In his letter to MPs, Sir Matthew Rycroft, the top civil servant in the Home Office, said the UK has paid £220mn into an Economic Transformation and Integration Fund (ETIF) for the economic development and growth of Rwanda.
Earlier this month Rycroft said there would be further payments made towards supporting asylum seekers in Rwanda if the policy became operational. But he initially declined to answer MPs questions on the total cost of the scheme, saying the information was “commercially sensitive”.
He stressed the extra payments were not linked to the new treaty signed this week between London and Kigali as part of UK government efforts to rescue the policy.
A separate payment of £20mn was also made to help support “initial set-up costs” for the relocation of individuals under the scheme. No asylum seekers have so far been sent from the UK to Rwanda.
The government expects to pay the further £50mn into the ETIF in the next financial year.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the rise in costs of the Rwanda scheme were “just incredible”.
“The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290mn of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda,” she said. “How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?”
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