What’s the true cost of the Rwanda deportation plan?

What’s the point of the government’s flagship Rwanda deportation scheme if it isn’t going to save money for the taxpayer? That’s a reasonable question to ask after the Home Office finally published its impact assessment on the plans – as yet unrealised – to deport asylum seekers to the East African country.

That document revealed it will cost £169,000 per person, and this would only represent a saving for the UK taxpayer if 37 per cent of small boat arrivals were deterred. Home Secretary Suella Braverman published this assessment (which she is legally required to do) with her own written ministerial assessment, in which she also argued that the costs of accommodating illegal migrants in the UK had ‘risen dramatically since 2020’.

‘If these trends continue, by the end of 2026,’ Braverman wrote, ‘the Home Office would be spending over £11 billion a year (or over £32 a day) on asylum support.