Previous UK government spent £130 million on IT for failed Rwanda scheme

A total of £715 million was spent on deportation plan that was never put into effect

People crossing the English Channel. The previous UK government is under fire over the amount spent on a Rwanda deportation scheme that never got off the ground. AP

The last UK Conservative government spent more than £130 million ($158 million) on IT for a Rwanda deportation scheme that was never implemented.

Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak’s government spent total of £715 million on the scheme to remove failed asylum seekers as part of his Stop the Boats policy.

As the plan was never brought in – bar one person who was given £3,000 after he volunteered to go to Rwanda – its deterrent effect has never been tested, but last year Britain recorded the second highest number of annual small boat crossings over the English Channel, with nearly 37,000 arrivals on Britain's shores.

The biggest payment, £290 million, went directly to the Rwanda government.

Migrants arrive at Dover after being picked up by a Border Force vessel in the English Channel. Getty Images

But the Rwanda policy was immediately dropped by the Labour government elected last year, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper calling it “the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen”.

However, £134 million had been spent on computers and a database for complaints, as well as IT for a monitoring committee to ensure the deportations complied with human rights laws, The Observer reported on Sunday.

Home Office officials told the newspaper that spending had risen significantly, as data protection laws were to be enforced when supplying Rwandan administrators with the biometric details of asylum applicants.

“If people were sent to Rwanda and had an appeal going, the system meant they would have to wait for the decision while in Rwanda,” the official said. “If their appeal was successful, they would have been flown back to the UK, so part of those costs was setting up the IT infrastructure to get them visas and transport to come back.”

A further £87 million was spent on Home Office staff working on the policy but who have since been put in other jobs, the data received under a freedom of information request revealed.

A sum of £57 million spent since 2022 was classed as “programme and legal costs”, which covered a major court battle between the government and the Supreme Court and resulted in the judges declaring the deportation scheme unlawful.

Another £95 million was spent on increasing immigration detention centre space before the enforced flights to Rwanda, plus £50 million in legal and administrative costs for the first flight in 2022 that was grounded after a court ruling.