Yvette Cooper described the policy, which was introduced two-and-a-half years ago and sought to send UK asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, as “the biggest waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen”.
Cooper said the £700m cost included £290m payments to Rwanda, chartering flights that never took off, detaining people and then releasing them, and paying more than 1,000 civil servants to work on the policy.
Under the government’s plans, new offences will be created to allow enforcement agencies to treat people smugglers like terrorists and to penalise social media companies that fail to remove advertisements for small boat crossings.
In her statement in the Commons, Cooper blasted the Conservative government’s “unworkable” Illegal Migration Act, which was introduced in March 2023 and cost the taxpayer billions by putting asylum seekers who arrived in the UK in a state of limbo.
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, accused Cooper of “hyperbole and made-up numbers” and said Labour had “scrapped the Rwanda partnership on ideological grounds”.
Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson, called for the creation of a resettlement scheme to create a safe and legal route and disincentivise asylum seekers from travelling to the UK before they have made an application.
The original article contains 687 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Yvette Cooper described the policy, which was introduced two-and-a-half years ago and sought to send UK asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, as “the biggest waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen”.
Cooper said the £700m cost included £290m payments to Rwanda, chartering flights that never took off, detaining people and then releasing them, and paying more than 1,000 civil servants to work on the policy.
Under the government’s plans, new offences will be created to allow enforcement agencies to treat people smugglers like terrorists and to penalise social media companies that fail to remove advertisements for small boat crossings.
In her statement in the Commons, Cooper blasted the Conservative government’s “unworkable” Illegal Migration Act, which was introduced in March 2023 and cost the taxpayer billions by putting asylum seekers who arrived in the UK in a state of limbo.
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, accused Cooper of “hyperbole and made-up numbers” and said Labour had “scrapped the Rwanda partnership on ideological grounds”.
Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson, called for the creation of a resettlement scheme to create a safe and legal route and disincentivise asylum seekers from travelling to the UK before they have made an application.
The original article contains 687 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!