UK planned to spend 10bn pounds on Rwanda deportation scheme: Home minister | Migration News [Video]

Britain’s previous government had planned to spend 10 billion pounds ($12.9bn) on a now-scrapped plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, and it has already cost taxpayers 700 million pounds ($830.7m), new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government scrapped the plan to fly thousands of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda in its first major policy announcement after winning a commanding election victory this month.

On Monday, Cooper said the costs include money for chartering flights that never took off, paying for the work of government officials and 290 million pounds ($344m) in payment to the Rwandan government.

“It is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money that I have ever seen,” she told parliament.

Conservative home affairs spokesman James Cleverly, who touted the plan when he was home secretary, accused Cooper of citing “made-up numbers” and criticised Labour’s “discourtesy” to the Rwandan government.

However, in November, the United Kingdom Supreme Court …