Over 33,000 Illegal Immigrants Face Removal to Rwanda, Committee Told

Families are helped ashore by the RNLI after being rescued in the English Channel by the RNLI in Dungeness, England, on Aug. 16, 2023. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

At least 33,000 people who arrived illegally to the UK are subject to removal to Rwanda once the government’s immigration bill is passed, MPs have heard.

Home Office civil servants confirmed to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on Monday that anyone who arrived by small boat or otherwise from a safe third country could be removed to Rwanda.

The removal would apply to those who arrived under the purview of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and “applies to anyone who’s arriving irregularly or illegally into the UK from a safe third country,” said Dan Hobbs, the director general of the Home Office’s Migration and Borders Group.

Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary to the Home Office, said the official numbers to the end of 2023 were approximately 33,000.

Official quarterly figures for 2024 will not be released until May, Sir Matthew said, so he was unable to confirm how many people that would be to date. However, the members of the committee noted that in addition to the provisional 6,265 that have arrived since the beginning of the year, the total figure could be approaching 40,000.

In terms of time frame, Sir Matthew said that it was “government policy” to “get flights to Rwanda as soon as possible after Royal Assent and ratification of the treaty. The home secretary and the prime minister will set out what that means in detail after Royal Assent and ratification.”

MPs and peers returned from recess on Monday with the parliamentary ping-pong over the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which aims to set in law that Rwanda is a safe country, set to continue. The Rwanda bill will sit above the Illegal Migration Act, which includes a measure to send any illegal immigrant to their home country or to a safe third country.

Spending Foreign Aid on Asylum Seekers ‘Not Sustainable’

The Public Accounts Committee also challenged Sir Matthew on whether it is sustainable for the government to continue to spend vast amounts of money earmarked for foreign aid overseas to be spent on refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

“It’s absolutely not sustainable,” responded the senior civil servant. “That is why the government is taking such novel, decisive, and robust action to stop the boats and more broadly to deter illegal migration.”

Last week, data published by the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office showed that more than one-quarter of overseas aid was spent on supporting asylum seekers and refugees in the UK for the second year in a row.

In 2023, £4.28 billion was spent in the form of “in-donor refugee costs,” equalling 27.9 percent of the total Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the year.

International rules allow governments to include the first year of in-country refugee and asylum seeker costs to count as ODA. These expenses include payments for transport to the host country, food, shelter, and training.

Record Illegal Immigrant Landings

Official figures released by the Home Office on Monday showed that 534 illegal immigrants crossed the English Channel in 10 boats on Sunday, the highest number on a single day so far this year.

This takes the provisional number of illegal immigrants who have entered British waters in small boats to 6,265, which is 28 percent higher than the total at this point last year when 4,899 arrived, and 7 percent higher than at this stage in 2022, when the figure was 5,282.

Downing Street said this “unacceptable” number of migrants demonstrated the need for Parliament to pass the Rwanda bill because it will act as an “important deterrent” to those wanting to illegally enter the UK.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said, “It’s an unacceptable number of people who continue to cross the Channel and it demonstrates exactly why we must pass this bill and get flights off the ground as soon as possible and provide important deterrent that the bill will provide.”

Asked whether the prime minister believes he is succeeding in his pledge to stop the boats, the spokesman said: “Clearly we’ve made progress. As I said, small boats crossings are down by a third in the last 12 months compared to 2022. And agreements with Albania, France, and other countries have obviously contributed to that.

“But clearly there is much more to do and that is exactly why the PM’s message is so clear that we must pass this bill in order to get flights off the ground.”

PA Media contributed to this report.