'You spent hundreds of millions of pounds on the Rwanda scheme and you had more home secretaries go there than anybody that had been sent as a result of this scheme' - @KayBurley
— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 3, 2024
'We were on the brink of getting the flights off the ground' - @MelJStridehttps://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3pic.twitter.com/4BJasUvoFz
Kay Burley clashed with Mel Stride over the last government’s failed Rwanda scheme - after it emerged it cost taxpayers £715 million.
Data published by the Home Office revealed the colossal sum was spent sending no asylum seekers at all to the east African country.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper who cancelled the scheme after Labour came to power - said it showed the policy was “a grotesque waste of money”.
On Sky News this morning, Stride, who was in the last Tory cabinet and is now shadow chancellor, said: “The reason that there was money arguably wasted was because Labour scrapped the scheme before it came into operation.”
But Burley told him: “No, stop it. You spent hundreds of millions of pounds on the Rwanda scheme and you had more home secretaries go there than anybody who had been sent as a result of the scheme.”
As Stride then claimed the last government had been “on the brink of getting the flights off the ground”, the presenter asked: “Well why did you call the election in July then?
“Why didn’t you wait until the planes had gone and then call the election in November?”
The shadow chancellor replied: “Elections are called at a particular time for a variety of different issues. The fact remains that the planes were ready to go and the deterrent effect was already working.”
After Stride then claimed that asylum seekers were waiting in France for Labour to take over so they could then cross the Channel, Burley asked him: “Says who? Anecdotally.”
Former Conservative home secretary Priti Patel signed the “economic partnership agreement” with Rwandan foreign minister Vincent Biruta in April, 2022.
The aim was for the east African country to accept asylum seekers who entered the UK illegally and deter others from attempting to cross the English Channel from France in small boats.
But the European Court of Human Rights prevented any deportation flights from taking off, and the policy was eventually ruled unlawful by the UK Supreme Court.
