Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of its policy on removing asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda on the number of (a) English Channel crossings in small boats by asylum seekers and (b) asylum seekers undertaking small boat crossings in the next two years; and on what evidential basis the policy was introduced.

The Home Office is committed to ending people smuggling, and the Migration and Economic Development Partnership between the UK and Rwanda is part of a suite of measures aimed at dismantling the business model of organised crime gangs.

The Ministerial direction letter (April 2022) can be found here:- Letter from Matthew Rycroft to Rt Hon Priti Patel (accessible) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).