Rwanda scheme 'has cost £700m'

THE Rwanda deportation scheme has already cost £700 million, Yvette Cooper has said, branding it the “most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen.”

The previous Tory government’s plan to send some asylum seekers to Kigali, which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is axing, saw just four volunteers removed to the east African nation. In a statement to the Commons on Monday, the Home Secretary also warned that high levels of small boat crossings in the English Channel are likely to persist over summer.

“Two and a half years after the previous government launched it, I can report (the Migration and Economic Development Partnership) has already cost the British taxpayer £700 million in order to send just four volunteers,” Ms Cooper said.