The previous UK government spent approximately £700 million on its controversial Rwanda scheme, with over £10 billion earmarked for it over six years, according to revelations by the new

administration.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper informed MPs that the scheme, which resulted in the voluntary removal of only four asylum seekers over two and a half years, was "the most shocking waste of taxpayers' money I have ever seen."

The £700 million expenditure included £290 million in payments to Rwanda, costs for chartering flights that never took off, detaining and subsequently releasing hundreds of people, and employing over 1,000 civil servants to manage the scheme, Cooper detailed.

The outgoing Conservative government had planned to spend over £10 billion on the scheme but did not disclose this to Parliament, she added.

Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly, who served until this month, accused Cooper of exaggeration and fabricating figures.

Cooper defended the figures and remarked, "We have often warned that it would be cheaper to put [asylum seekers] up in the Paris Ritz. As it turns out, it would have been cheaper to buy the Paris Ritz."

The scheme aimed to permanently relocate asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda but faced persistent legal challenges on human rights grounds. Its credibility was further damaged by a High Court ruling in Belfast in May that legislation supporting the deportation of asylum seekers could not be enforced in Northern Ireland.

The new Labour Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer KC, scrapped the scheme upon taking office, deeming it "unworkable."

However, human rights campaigners are urging the new government to make stronger commitments to asylum seekers' rights. Amnesty International UK's chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, warned last week that the new administration's focus on "border security" and "smashing the gangs" risks repeating the previous government's approach.

"It would be enormously refreshing for the new government to acknowledge that some people must and will make dangerous journeys to escape persecution and conflict, and that the UK will play its part in helping and respecting the rights of these people," Deshmukh added. Photo by SteveRwanda, Wikimedia commons.