"Two years after the previous Government launched it, I can report it has already cost the British taxpayer £700 million, [roughly $905 million] in order to send just four volunteers [to Rwanda]," Cooper told the House of Commons on Monday.
She noted that these funds include 290 million pounds in payments to the Rwandan government, as well as "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."
In total, the previous UK government planned to spend 10 billion pounds on the scheme, Cooper said. At the same time, she added that the new government plans to stop placing migrants in hotels, reduce the time it takes to process migrants' asylum applications, and repeal the provision that prevents migrants who arrive irregularly from seeking asylum..
The United Kingdom and Rwanda signed a migration agreement in 2022, under which people identified by the UK government as undocumented migrants or asylum seekers will be deported to Rwanda for processing, asylum and resettlement. The scheme has drawn criticism from human rights organizations, as well as numerous politicians and officials within the UK. In late May, Ex-UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that Rwanda flights would not take off before the general elections in the country.
On July 6, newly elected UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed the plans to scrap the controversial Rwanda deportation scheme.