I thank the hon. Member for Stockton West for his creative statement. The chaos in our asylum system and the dangerous rise in illegal small boat crossings is, of course, one of the greatest challenges facing our country, and for years the British public have been promised solutions. They were told that the previous Government’s Rwanda policy would fix the problem, but instead it proved a costly failure. It got stuck in legal battles, was riddled with operational flaws and was utterly ineffective. I will go into detail about that soon.
In 2018, 299 people crossed the channel on small boats. By 2022, the number had surged to 30,000—a hundredfold increase on the Conservatives’ watch. Despite their grand claims that the Rwanda scheme would act as a deterrent, more than 80,000 people crossed the channel after the scheme was announced, and not a single asylum seeker has been successfully removed under it—not one. It is clear that this policy failed.
Let us start with the legal reality. The Rwanda asylum scheme was not just controversial but unlawful. In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court struck it down, ruling that Rwanda was not a safe country to send asylum seekers. The reason for that was systematic defects in Rwanda’s asylum system: almost no claims from Afghans, Syrians or Yemenis were ever approved. The Court found a serious risk that genuine refugees could be sent back to danger, in direct breach of international law. Let us not forget that Rwanda has a track record here: a previous deal with Israel, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, led to refugees being secretly deported back to their home countries, in clear violation of human rights protections. This policy depends on breaking the law, and that is no policy at all. It is a legal and moral dead end.
That is why the Bill repeals the Rwanda scheme and replaces it with a system that upholds the rule of law. It will focus toughness where it belongs: not on desperate people, but on the criminal gangs who exploit them. Instead of wasting years in court, we will implement a legally sound system that actually works.
Further, the Rwanda scheme was not just unlawful; it was an economic disaster. As of mid-2024, at least £318 million had already been spent on this failing policy. What did taxpayers get in return? Nothing—no removals or deterrent effect, just an ever-growing backlog of cases and ever-rising hotel bills, which we have inherited. Even if the scheme had gone ahead, it would have been staggeringly expensive. The National Audit Office estimated that removing just a few hundred people could cost up to £2 million per person, yet we are expected to believe that this was a serious solution to the problem of tens of thousands arriving each year on the Conservatives’ watch.
This Government are putting an end to that waste. Instead of throwing money at a scheme that does not work, we are investing in practical measures. This approach is already delivering results: since taking office, the new Government have increased enforced removals by 24%. That shows that when we have a working system, we do not need gimmicks like the Rwanda plan; we just need competence.
This is not just about law or economics. It is also about how we treat people. A core British value is strength, but another is decency. Strength without decency is weakness, as the previous Government demonstrated. The Rwanda scheme was not just ineffective; it was cruel. It was based on the idea that people fleeing war and persecution should be someone else’s problem, no matter the risk to their safety.
Let us be clear that many of those crossing the channel are genuine refugees—they include people fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, dictatorship in Iran and war in Syria—but the Rwanda policy, and, it would seem, the Conservatives, did not care. The policy made no distinction, lumped everyone together and treated them as a problem to be shipped off 4,000 miles away, out of sight and out of mind—although of course it did not work.
That is not the British way. This country has a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need, and we do not abandon our humanitarian duties for the sake of a headline and a gimmick. Of course, those who should not be here will be deported, as we are already seeing, and those who genuinely need help will receive it under this Government. A true deterrent is taking out the smuggling gangs and deporting those who should not be here. The truth is that we do not stop the boats by shouting slogans; we stop the boats by giving people an alternative.
Finally—I thank hon. Members for their patience—the Rwanda plan was never operationally viable. Even if it had survived the legal challenges, the logistics were impossible. To make it work, the Government would have had to detain nearly every small boat arrival indefinitely—a task for which we simply do not have the detention space, the staff or the legal authority. Rwanda itself had agreed to take only a few hundred people a year, which is a drop in the ocean—excuse the pun—compared with the scale of the problem. Meanwhile the real criminals—the smuggling gangs—continued to operate freely. The Rwanda plan did nothing to target them. It was an illusion of control, rather than a real solution.
This Government take a serious, workable approach. That is how we secure the border: not through wishful thinking, but through real enforcement. The Conservatives have tried gimmicks. They tried grandstanding; they tried expensive, legally dubious, headline-chasing policies, and they failed. It is time to move forward. We will uphold the rule of law, protect those in genuine need and take real action against the criminals exploiting them.