A top civil servant revealed in an email that the UK had paid Rwanda another £100m to send asylum seekers there, The Guardian reports.
Sir Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office’s chief civil servant, told MPs that the payment was made in April after £140m had already been sent. He added that the UK would pay a further £50m next year.
The information comes after Rishi Sunak told an emergency press conference in Downing Street on Thursday that he would “follow through” on his deportation plan despite criticism from MPs. The chair of the public accounts committee, Meg Hillier, who received the letter, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
“This is all something cloak and dagger behind the scenes.” The committee had been pushing to discover what the real cost of the scheme would be. It seemed pretty obvious to us that if it was being changed, this programme, there would be money attached to that. And we asked that direct question and didn’t get an answer.”
Rycroft had previously said that the government would provide annual costings and that only the initial £140m was known. However, on Thursday, in a letter to Hillier and Diana Johnson, chair of the home affairs committee, he revealed the full cost of the programme to date. Hillier said it was a “ridiculous approach” to only report the costs annually. He noted:
“That is not how you report a major project like this. It almost looks like the government’s got something to hide and we need to get this sorted.”
Rycroft said the additional £100m payment to the Rwandan government was part of the economic transformation and integration fund and was not linked to the treaty. Hillier claimed:
“We’re very concerned that at each step of the way as a change is proposed we have no detailed information about what’s happening … It’s unconscionable that MPs would be expected to vote on this without understanding fully what the costs are so far, what they are expected to deliver and what the costs are going forward.”
Sunak has published an emergency bill giving ministers the power to ignore Strasbourg judgements, but without leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. The bill prompted the resignation of Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick. The new minister for legal migration, Tom Pursglove, told Sky News on Friday that the bill was an important step towards the scheme. He noted:
“The legislation closes off so many of the grounds that people have come forward with in raising claims about being sent to Rwanda previously … I believe that this will do the job.”
Pursglove, who was appointed to the post following Jenrick’s resignation on Wednesday night, also said he believed Conservative MPs would support Sunak on the Rwanda legislation. Pursglove noted that with Sunak under pressure, the prime minister would lead the party into the general election. He added:
“I think colleagues back the prime minister in taking action on this issue. I think colleagues will support the passage of this legislation. We have a unity of purpose about stopping the boats. I think that he will lead us into this election. I think we will win the general election, and I think he is showing the leadership the country wants to see on this really important issue.”
