Rwanda Plan Cost and Asylum System
Debate between Hywel Williams and Yvette Cooper(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Member is right. There are many ways in which the hundreds of millions of pounds spent could alternatively have been invested. It is probably roughly equivalent to about a third of the budget of the National Crime Agency, for example, to take action on criminal gangs.
The right hon. Member is right, and we do know some figures on the costs of the Rwanda scheme. We know that Ministers wrote a cheque for £120 million in April 2022, and then there was another £20 million in summer 2022. They then did not want to tell us anything more at all. It was only thanks to the Rwandan Government and the information that they provided to the International Monetary Fund that the Home Office has been forced to give us a bit more information. Against Ministers’ will, we know that they have written another cheque for £100 million during 2023, and they promised another £50 million in spring this year, in just a few months’ time.
We have £290 million of cheques to Rwanda for no asylum seekers to be sent, £290 million to send more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers, nearly £100 million per Home Secretary trip, and there is more. The permanent secretary has admitted that there is a further payment planned for 2025 and another one for 2026, all independent of whether any asylum seekers are ever sent. I asked the Home Secretary in December whether in fact those payments were also £50 million each; he said that he was happy to confirm that. The following morning, it was put to him in media interviews that the Government were now spending £400 million on Rwanda, and he did not deny it. So we can only conclude that the sums are indeed nearer £400 million. Independent of what happens with this law, the plans and the flights, £400 million of cheques are being written to Rwanda when that could have been invested in tackling criminal gangs and could have been invested in making a difference. If it is not £400 million, again, Ministers should tell us what the actual figures are.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
The right hon. Lady is making a persuasive case, with which I entirely agree. But does the Labour party have any moral or ethical opposition to processing in third countries?
Yvette Cooper
We already have, and have had for a long time, processing in other countries within the UK asylum system. For example, the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which I think both he and I support, means processing cases in other countries. It is also what happened for the Hong Kong scheme.
We know that the cost is now £400 million, and we can conclude that it is possibly considerably more. According to the treaty, there are additional per-person costs—if anyone is actually sent—to cover asylum processing, to cover accommodation costs for five years, and to cover three meals a day for five years. That is in the treaty, but the Government will not tell us how much all that adds up to. We know from the impact assessment for the Illegal Migration Act 2023 that the Home Office was prepared to say that the average cost of sending someone to a theoretical third country would be £169,000—a remarkable level of precision for a figure picked out of thin air. However, it will not have chosen a figure for that assessment that was higher than the Rwanda costs, because it will not assume that it would have to pay for three meals a day for five years everywhere. That suggests that the actual figure per person is higher. Maybe nearer £200,000 per person? Again, if that is wrong, Ministers should tell us.
Otherwise, it suggests that if the Home Office manages to sort out its legal wrangles and get flights off the ground, another whopping bill is coming. Suppose the Home Office manages to send 100 people to Rwanda this year, which is what the Court of Appeal said was Rwanda’s capacity. Well, that means another £20 million cheque. If that is wrong, again, tell us the additional per-person costs.
Ministers say that they cannot possibly tell us any of these things because it is somehow commercially confidential. What a load of total nonsense. This is not a contract with a company with shareholders and intellectual property rights and competitors who will not bid if they think all their cost details will be scrutinised by other companies; this is an agreement with a sovereign state. If the Kigali Government choose to contract out housing to a private provider, that might have some commercial considerations, but that is a matter for them, not for us. Ministers claim that it will somehow make it harder to agree deals. Again, they are making up these arguments because they are embarrassed and do not want to reveal the figures.
In other areas, the Government have told us the facts. In March 2023, the Prime Minister announced £476 million over three years for the agreement with France. It was set out in detail, with £124 million in 2023-24, £168 million in 2024-25 and £184 million in 2025-26. We know what the future spending will be on that agreement with France, so why not tell us the future spending agreed with Rwanda? The work with France, which we support, covers coastal patrols, drones and technology. It needs to be properly scrutinised to ensure that we are getting value for money, but we support working with the French police along the coast to prevent dangerous boat crossings and to protect our border security. We want to go further, working with other countries to tackle the criminal gangs, but why publish those details in full and set them out several years in advance for France and not for Rwanda? The Government cannot claim that it is because they might be trying to negotiate agreements with other countries compared to Rwanda and not with France. They might have to negotiate future agreements with Belgium, the Dutch police and other Governments, given that the borders inspectorate has pointed out that many of the smuggler routes pass through there, but that is not preventing the Government being public about the facts on the France scheme. It is time that the Government gave us the facts that Parliament would normally be entitled to, and that the public and, crucially, the taxpayer should be entitled to. How much of taxpayers’ money have they promised to Rwanda for a scheme that is failing?
The motion sets out some of the facts that we want: payments made or scheduled, including the fourth and fifth year figures; the per person costs; the memorandum of understanding that sets out the money agreement; and the agreement between the Home Office and the Treasury while the Prime Minister was Chancellor on costs and numbers, so that everyone has the chance to see what doubts the Prime Minister had, rather than their being hidden away from the taxpayer. We are holding this Opposition Day debate to give the Government the chance to give us the proper figures, which cross-party Select Committees such as the Public Accounts Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Liaison Committee have been asking for.
The Government also claim that none of that matters because the costs will be outweighed by the savings on asylum hotels, but I must break it to them that all this money for Rwanda is in addition to asylum hotels. It has been reported this week that the Prime Minister told the Home Office to keep open some asylum hotels. We know their plans for bases and barges have been unravelling. One hundred people were quietly moved out of Wethersfield in the Home Secretary’s constituency and moved into hotels. Plans to put people into Catterick, in the Prime Minister’s constituency, have now been dropped. It is costing more to keep people on the Bibby Stockholm than it is in hotels. It is total chaos and a total mess, which is why there are 20% more people in asylum hotels than there were a year ago when the Prime Minister promised to end them. Rwanda does not change any of that. In fact, their migration legislation, supposedly to enable Rwanda, is likely to make the backlog and the costs worse.
Customs and Borders
Debate between Hywel Williams and Yvette Cooper(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
I have huge respect for the hon. Lady’s views on this, and I agree. We have to show some responsibility. This is not something on which we can simply trade political slogans or vote for an abstract. We have to be very honest and real about the consequences. The removal of the security and economic checks at that border and the growing economic integration between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as well as with the rest of the United Kingdom, are an important part of ending a conflict in which so many people have died. We have a huge responsibility to future generations who will not forgive us if we just rip all that up and throw it away because we did not face the facts.
Yvette Cooper
May I make some progress first?
Three specific objections to a customs union tend to be presented. First, people say that we do not need a customs union because there are alternatives, usually based on new technology. Secondly, they argue that we will be better off outside the customs union, and that being outside is a price worth paying for the benefits that we will enjoy as a result. Thirdly, they make an emotional appeal, claiming that it is somehow at the heart of our sovereignty or the Brexit vote. I disagree with all three counter-arguments, and I will deal with each of them briefly.
Let me deal first with the claim that a customs union is not needed and we can solve everything with new technology instead. So far the Government have put forward two alternatives: a customs partnership and “max fac”, which seems to be the latest name for a streamlined arrangement described as “maximum facilitation”. The customs partnership—to be honest, I had to struggle to get my head around it—seems to involve our collecting EU tariffs at the border, tracking products, and then paying some of the money to the EU. I understand that both the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and Brussels have agreed that it is unworkable. It is quite a triumph for the Government to have come up with a proposal whose unworkability has managed to unite Brussels and the Brexit Secretary and those whom he defends.
The alternative is speeded-up customs arrangements at the border. The idea is that all the customs forms would be filled in online, customs checks would be carried out at the trader’s own premises rather than at the border, and there would be cameras and automated number plate recognition. An extreme version of that was proposed by the Financial Secretary, who compared it with the congestion charge between the Islington and Camden borders.
Let me be clear: I think we could do a great deal more with new technology at our borders. In the interests of trade, we should be improving the technology, and the use of technology, at our borders and at borders throughout Europe and the world. However, there is still a limit to how far we can go. First, it will take a long time and a lot of investment to roll out many elements of the technology. Secondly, in the case of the congestion charge, the cameras identify only the cars, not what was in them, so cameras do not solve all the problems involving checks. Thirdly, we would have to rely on the willingness of France, Belgium, Ireland and other countries to provide the same level of investment in the technology at the same pace.
The proposal also assumes a higher level of tolerance of smuggling and evasion of tariffs. The Prime Minister, for example, has suggested that in Northern Ireland 80% of trade—the micro, small and medium-sized businesses—could be exempt from all checks. That level of exemption would require agreement with other countries. There is also the question of how enforcement would take place to ensure that there was no systematic evasion of tariffs.
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the concern relates to what happens around the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and the introduction of new infrastructure at that border, especially such symbolic infrastructure, and especially anything that would increase the sense of there being targets for dissident organisations. We do not want them to become more active and have more to focus on.
Hywel Williams
When the Exiting the European Union Committee visited South Armagh a couple of months ago, everyone we met, from Sinn Féin councillors to the deputy chief constable, agreed that there should be no infrastructure on the border, for the very reason that the right hon. Lady outlined.
Yvette Cooper
It is significant that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee concluded last month that there were no technical solutions anywhere in the world “beyond the aspirational” that would remove the need for physical infrastructure at the border.
Passport Applications
Debate between Hywel Williams and Yvette Cooper(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The Conservatives have been in government for four years. They cannot simply blame history to explain why things have gone wrong this time.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
The right hon. Lady will be pleased to know that there is a Welsh language helpline. However, Sian Burton, my constituent, applying for a passport for her son, called the Welsh language helpline repeatedly over several days and never managed to get through to an adviser. She was eventually put through to an English-speaking adviser. She speaks English and so eventually collected the passport from Liverpool. She told me that staff in the Liverpool office were friendly and helpful, but clearly under very great stress. She is going on holiday this afternoon—she is flying now.
Yvette Cooper
I wish the hon. Gentleman’s constituent a good holiday after the stress she has endured.