Minister declines to guarantee flights to Rwanda will take off before election

Cabinet minister Mark Harper has declined to guarantee that migrant flights to Rwanda will take off before the general election, while Labour attacked the Government’s flagship asylum policy as a “gimmick”.

Parliament is currently considering the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which seeks to compel judges to regard the east African country as safe in a bid to clear the way to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats on a one-way flight there.

The Government will on Monday seek to overturn in the Commons changes made to the Bill in the House of Lords earlier this month.

Ministers suffered 10 defeats in the Lords, some with unusually large margins of about 100, with changes backed by peers including overturning the Government bid to oust the courts from the process.

The Bill will pass between the two Houses of Parliament, in what is known as “ping-pong”, until they can reach agreement on its wording.

A delay of the second stage until after Easter in April could infuriate some Tory MPs who would see it as a weakening of ministers’ commitment to getting flights quickly off to Kigali.

Mr Harper said it was the Government’s “intention” for flights to take off before the election, but would not give a firm guarantee.

With Rishi Sunak having this week ruled out a May 2 vote, the general election is expected in the latter half of 2024.

The Transport Secretary told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “Well, that is the intention.

“We will hopefully have the legislation in place shortly once it’s finished going through Parliament.

“The Home Office team has been working very hard on making sure all the operational matters are in place once that legislation is on the statute book.

“And we are going to work very hard to make sure that we can get those flights away as quickly as we can to send out that message to break the backs of those organised crime groups. That is our intention.

“Obviously there will be people that will try and challenge us and stop us, but that is our intention. And we’re working incredibly hard to deliver that commitment that the Prime Minister made when he was elected.”

Mr Sunak has made “stopping the boats” a key pledge of his leadership, with the Rwanda plan central to it.

The cost of the stalled scheme could soar to half a billion pounds, plus hundreds of thousands more for each deportee, a recent investigation by the public spending watchdog found.

The plan, which is yet to see a flight take off after a series of legal setbacks, could cost taxpayers nearly £2 million for each of the first 300 asylum seekers sent to Rwanda, according to the National Audit Office.

Shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth described the plan as a “gimmick” and said it would be cheaper to put up migrants in a luxury hotel.

The Labour frontbencher said: “This plan, this proposal from the Government is really a gimmick costing over half-a-billion pounds.

“It would actually be cheaper to put up the failed asylum seekers in the Paris Ritz for a number of years than this scheme.

“Obviously the Government are going to get their legislation through, they’ll get flights taking off, but it’s something like less than 1% of the total number of asylum seekers, yet costing half-a-billion.”

He continued: “I think it’d be much better and more prudent to use that money, that half-a-billion pounds, and put that money into a proper cross-border policing operation.”

“We think there is a better way to spend that money in order to put in place the policing and security services that we think are able to go after these gangs, smash these criminals smuggling gangs, and bring order to the border there,” the politician added.