06 January 2024 , 22:30
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Labour demanded Rishi Sunak come clean over documents it’s claimed show he had reservations about the Rwanda scheme.
The BBC said it had seen No 10 papers from March 2022, a month before the plan was announced by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, which showed that Mr Sunak was not convinced of the plan's effectiveness. But since becoming PM in October 2022, Mr Sunak has made the Rwanda plan one of his top priorities despite a string of delays due to legal challenges.
The documents suggest Mr Sunak felt "hotels are cheaper" than reception centres to house migrants and that he was also concerned about the cost of sending asylum seekers to Africa and wanted to limit the numbers. The BBC said the documents revealed the "chancellor wants to pursue smaller volumes initially" with 500 flown to Rwanda in the first year of the scheme, instead of the proposed 1,500.
They say he then proposed "3,000 instead of 5,000 in years two and three". He is described as believing the "deterrent won't work".
The documents, which say No 10 suggested Mr Sunak needed to "consider his popularity with the base" over the Rwanda plan, said the then Chancellor was reluctant to fund "Greek-style reception centres" at a cost of £3.5 million a day to house migrants in favour of hotels.
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Now Labour have called on the PM to publish the papers.
“The more we hear about the Government’s Rwanda scheme, the more obvious it becomes that this is an extortionate con that won’t fix the Tory chaos in our immigration system,” Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said. “The Home Secretary, the former Immigration Minister and now the Prime Minister clearly don’t believe the Government’s plans will work. It’s time the Tory Government was honest with the public, and publish both the papers outlining Rishi Sunak ’s concerns and the full details of the cost of the scheme.”
Mr Sunak has pledged to continue with the plan for migrant flights to Rwanda, despite a ruling by the UK Supreme Court that it was unlawful, while the BBC said a source close to the Prime Minister said he was "always fully behind the principle of the scheme" but need to ensure money was "appropriately spent" in his role as Chancellor.
Ms Cooper added: “In a few weeks’ time the Prime Minister will ask his divided and sceptical backbench MPs to vote for a Rwanda scheme he clearly doesn’t believe in and which he refuses to set out the costs for. They should stop wasting time on this costly charade and adopt Labour’s plan to go after the criminal smuggling gangs, negotiating new security arrangements with Europe to better protect our borders and set up a new returns unit to ensure those with no right to be in the UK are swiftly removed.”