A Home Office impact assessment estimates it will cost almost £170,000 to forcibly relocate migrants from the UK to Rwanda.
The £169,000 cost has been fiercely criticised by opposition politicians, with Labour shadow home secretary Yvonne Cooper saying the report is “evidence of the scale of Conservative failure.”
The document warns of soaring hotel accommodation costs for housing migrants which it predicts to rise from the current cost of £90 per person to £178 in 2026.
The internal government assessment states that two in five people would need to be deterred from crossing the English Channel in small boats for the Illegal Migration Bill to break even.
The publication of the impact report—previously demanded by peers debating the contentious bill—comes just days before judges are due to rule on the stalled Rwanda policy.
On Monday, judicial officials announced that Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, who sat with two other senior judges, will hand down his judgment on whether the flights are lawful at the Court of Appeal on Thursday.
In its impact document, the Home Office said the policy of relocating migrants to “safe third countries” could save between £106,000 and £165,000 per person.
‘Garbage’
Speaking about the report in Westminster on Tuesday, immigration minister Robert Jenrick said the “damage to society will continue to grow” unless the government acts “decisively” to deter small boats from crossing the Channel.“The impact assessment published yesterday makes clear that inaction is simply not an option,” he said.
“The volumes and costs associated with illegal migration have risen exponentially, driven by small boat arrivals. Unless we act decisively to stop the boats, the cost to the taxpayer and the damage to society will continue to grow.
“The asylum system currently costs £3.6 billion a year and £6 million a day in hotel accommodation. That is not the true cost of doing nothing.”
Responding, Cooper said: “I was going to ask if the immigration minister had seriously signed-off this garbage of an impact assessment that no self-respecting minister could possibly think was serious, but actually the nonsense he has just said is even worse and even less coherent.”
She added: “It does provide evidence of the scale of Conservative failure—he cost for one person in the asylum system for just one night has gone up five-fold in four years.
“That is just the cost of Tory mismanagement; it’s gone up faster than mortgages, energy bills, it’s even gone up faster than the price of cheese.”
The Home Office estimates that continuing on with the current system of processing and housing asylum seekers will cost the taxpayer “in excess of £32 million per day by the end of 2026.’
“If the level of illegal migration to the UK continues to rise, costs and the size of the supported population could increase further,” the report said.
“If recent trends from 2020 onwards were to continue, the average per person per night support cost would rise to £126 in 2024, £152 in 2025, and £178 in 2026 (whole year averages).
“The size of the supported population would increase to 185,000 people by the end of 2026.”
Albanian Arrivals
It noted that academic consensus is that there is “little to no evidence” that policy changes deter people leaving their home countries and seeking refuge.Instead, shared language, culture and family ties were accepted to be “strong factors” influencing choice of final destination. The document said evidence from a variety of countries such as Australia gives a “stronger basis” to think a policy change in the UK could have an impact.
But it acknowledged asylum seekers may not be aware of UK law when making their journeys and may push on regardless because they consider the benefits to be larger than the risks.
The assessment process does not consider the potential cost of making further agreements to expand the scheme beyond Rwanda, while noting that its estimates for the cost of third-party schemes were based on a National Audit Office study of the cost of the UK’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Programme.
“It should not be considered to represent the actual cost of any current or future relocation agreement with a third country,” the assessment notes.
The assessment also cited recently enacted policy measures between the UK and Albanian governments for successfully dealing with illegal immigration.
In the year ending March 2023, more than a quarter of small boat arrivals were Albanian nationals. The report said that prior to May 2022, Albanians were “rarely detected” arriving in the UK on small boats crossing the Channel.
However, in 2022 they were the “top small boat nationality” most prominent from July to September 2022, accounting for 45 percent of small boat arrivals—over 9,000 people—in that period.
The report states that so far this year, Albanian small boat arrivals have fallen by almost 90 percent and in the winter months of January to March 2023, only 28 Albanians arrived on small boats.
4 Years in System
Home Secretary Suella Braverman previously called for Parliament to support her legislation, arguing that the assessment “shows that doing nothing is not an option.”“We cannot allow a system to continue which incentivises people to risk their lives and pay people smugglers to come to this country illegally, while placing an unacceptable strain on the UK taxpayer,” she said.
“I urge MPs and Peers to back the bill to stop the boats, so we can crack down on people smuggling gangs while bringing our asylum system back into balance.”
The document said that the asylum system could cost £32 million a day by the end of 2026 if recent trends continue without the reduction of hotel usage.
The assessment said that it is “not possible to estimate with precision the level of deterrence” the bill will have. The Refugee Council, which criticised the assessment, pointed in particular to the assumption that individuals will spend on average four years in the asylum system.
Chief executive Enver Solomon said the document “fails to evaluate the true costs and consequences of the bill.”
He added: “It does very little to predict the actual cost of implementing the bill, and offers no estimates of the number of arrivals after the bill becomes law. The Home Office admits in this assessment that it does not know how much of a deterrent effect the bill will actually have, yet it still relies on this assumption to claim financial savings will be made.
“The assessment’s predictions of future costs if the bill is not implemented assume no improvements to decision-making efficiency, accommodation costs, or broader system enhancements.
Barge Plans ‘Unworkable’
The release of the Illegal Migration Bill impact assessment came as Braverman’s plan to house asylum seekers on barges was branded “unworkable” as she missed her own target for the first vessel to be in place.The Bibby Stockholm accommodation vessel, which will house around 500 people, is not yet in Portland Port, Dorset, despite Braverman promising MPs it would be in the dock a week ago.
The barge is currently in Falmouth, Cornwall, for checks, maintenance and refurbishment work.
On Monday, June 5, the Home Secretary told the Commons “we will see an accommodation barge arrive in Portland within the next fortnight.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “This seems to be another case of Home Office policy by press release that is failing to materialise.
“Braverman’s plan for a barge on the Dorset coast is an unworkable plan that is wasting time and money, much like all of this Government’s asylum policy.”
The Home Secretary wants to use barges and sites including converted military bases to house asylum seekers and reduce the £6 million daily cost of hotel accommodation while people await a decision on their status.
The Bibby Stockholm was the first barge secured under the plan, but its journey to Portland will now take place in the coming weeks, according to the Home Office.
