The Conservatives had planned to spend £10bn over six years on the failed plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, costs eclipsing the £700million already spent without a single asylum seeker being sent there.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper was accused of “hyperbole and made-up numbers” by a senior Conservative after revealing the figures to parliament.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government has scrapped the scheme, introduced by the Conservative government, designed to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for their claims to be processed.
Cooper said it was the “biggest waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen”, working out at £1.66bn a year. So how about some better ways to spend that?
Make up the HS2 shortfall
The London to Birmingham section of HS2 is estimated to cost between £8bn and £10bn more than initially planned. Figures from 2019 put the bill for the high-speed rail project at £56.6bn, but by January 2024 that had been updated to £66bn.
While Rishi Sunak scrapped the line north of Birmingham over costs, money taken away from the Rwanda costs could plug the gap for the portion set to go ahead.