James Cleverley, Home Secretary, and Vincent Biruta, Rwandan Foreign Minister, shake hands after signing a new treaty to revive British politics asylum Photo: Ben Birchall/AFP
This year the UK has given Rwanda an extra £100 million – on top of the £140 million it has already paid – before asylum seekers are deported to the country, The Telegraph reports.
The payment, which has not previously been announced, was agreed in April as part of an agreement that would see illegal migrants from the UK claim asylum in Rwanda. The government expects to pay Rwanda a further £50 million next year, taking the total to £290 million.
This week the agreement was upgraded to a legally binding treaty as part of Rishi Sunak's efforts to get the first flights to be cancelled. the following spring after the Supreme Court ruled the deportation plan illegal.
Last month, senior Home Office civil servants refused to tell members of the Home Affairs Committee whether any additional payments had been made since the original £140 million figure was agreed in 2022. They said they would have to wait until the Home Office's annual reporting next summer. .
It is understood that the committee has since asked the National Audit Office, an independent public spending watchdog, to urgently investigate the true costs of Rwanda's plan.
Tim Loughton, a former minister who sits on the committee, said: “It is very important that there is full transparency so that we can see exactly what we are paying for and what our financial obligations are if we are to secure this agreement.” work and that the agreement enters into force as soon as possible.”
This comes amid a growing row over Rwanda's threat to withdraw from the agreement if the government acts illegally by excluding asylum claims from the European Convention on Human Rights .
Rishi Sunak insisted on Rwanda's position on Wednesday. supported his refusal to bow to demands from right-wing MPs to exclude asylum claims from the convention. “If we go further, the whole scheme will collapse, and there is no point in passing a bill that has nowhere to send people,” he warned.
Suella Braverman, who was sacked by Sunak as home secretary after pushing for a tougher line, said the argument was “intellectually incoherent” because the bill declaring Rwanda safe no longer applied elements of international law, including the Status Convention. refugees and the Convention on Human Rights.
“The measures I have proposed do not violate international law. There is a perfectly legitimate basis in international law to justify the measures I have proposed,” she said.
The bulk of the money given to Rwanda is earmarked for economic development, such as tech businesses, with £20 million earmarked for housing for deported migrants. It falls under the five-year Migration and Economic Development Partnership signed by Dame Priti Patel in April 2022 when she was Home Secretary.
Additional payments appeared before the conclusion of the contract. This week James Cleverley, the Home Secretary, said Rwanda had not received any additional funding for the new deal it signed to revive the government's asylum plan.
Mr Cleverley told a press conference in Kigali: “Let me be clear: the government of Rwanda did not ask for, and we did not provide, any funding related to the signing of this treaty.”
However, he added that while Rwanda did not ask for money specifically for the treaty, “the solution to the problem is migration” was not a “free option”.
“The financial agreement, which is inevitably part of the international agreement, reflects the costs that may be imposed on Rwanda as a result of the changes that this partnership has created in their systems – in their legal systems and their institutions,” he said.
In a letter sent to the Home Affairs Committee on Thursday, the Home Office defended its decision not to disclose the payment. It said it recognized the “public interest in transparency and accountability” in how taxpayer money is spent, but added: “This must also be balanced against public interests that run the other way.
For example, you understand the importance of respecting commercial trust and maintaining trust between international partners.”
Documents released under freedom of information laws revealed that the Home Office also More than £2.1 million has been spent so far fighting legal challenges to the Rwanda plan.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “It’s absolutely incredible. The Tories spent an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers' money on a failed scheme that failed to send a single asylum seeker to Rwanda. How many more blank checks will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories admit this scheme is a complete farce? The UK simply cannot afford any more of this costly Tory chaos.”
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