The Home Office has declined to comment on whether objections were raised by the department’s top civil servant over a multi-million-pound proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing.
It comes after the plan — unveiled by Boris Johnson and Priti Patel on Thursday — provoked a fierce response from charities and claims it could cost taxpayers between £20,000 and £30,000 for each individual sent to the central African country.
No 10’s director of policy said last night it is hoped the new scheme, which comes with an initial payment to the Rwandan government of £120 million, will be operational in “weeks, or a small number of months”.
While welcomed by some Tory MPs, two former cabinet ministers, David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, have raised concerns about the proposal, with the latter blasting it as “immoral”, “impractical”, and involving “astronomic” costs.
Questions have also been raised by ITV News over whether Ms Patel, the home secretary, instructed the department to press ahead — using a “ministerial direction” — despite an objection being raised by the permanent secretary.
According to the Institute for Government (IfG), the top civil servant in a department has a duty to seek a ministerial direction if they think a proposal breaches criteria, including on legal powers and value for money.
Research by the think-tank shows there have only been 46 ministerial directions issued, and made public, since the 2010 general election.
Asked whether any ministerial direction had been issued over the policy to process asylum seekers in Rwanda, the Home Office, however, declined to comment.
Speaking to The Independent, the senior Conservative backbencher David Davis said that while he had a “mild amount of sympathy” with the government’s position, “we all know how brilliant the home Office is at managing subtle and complex task”.
“I fear that this going to unravel quite quickly, but we’ll see,” he added.
“If you look on the government advice website as to what you should do when you go to Rwanda, there’s a whole series of stuff about Malaria… if someone catches Malaria the government will be on the end of a lawsuit. I’d be suing them for millions if they made me catch Malaria. Simple things like that.
David Davis suggests policy is ‘bonkers’
“I understand they think they don’t need the Borders Bill to do this, which is extraordinary. I think we need to hear the details. Because it strikes me as just bonkers.”
Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Mitchell, the former international development secretary suggested the proposal would fail.
“It is impractical, it is being condemned by churches and civil society, it is immoral and, above all for conservative advocates, it is incredibly expensive,” he said.
“The costs are eye-watering. You’re going to send people 6,000 miles into central Africa – it looked when it was discussed in Parliament before that it would actually be cheaper to put each asylum seeker in the Ritz hotel in London.”
Earlier, the UN high commissioner on refugees, Filippo Grandi, also accused the UK of “shifting its responsibilities to another country and undermining the practice of asylum globally” with the plan to process people in Rwanda.
But defending the scheme, Tom Pursglove, an immigration minister at the Home Office, said the aim was to allow transferred migrants to embark on “fully prosperous” lives in the central African country while simultaneously crushing the “cruel” business model of human traffickers.
The Conservative MP argued that, while the short-term costs would be “pretty equivalent” to what the UK is paying currently to accommodate those claiming asylum, the Rwandan scheme would eventually save taxpayers money.
He added: “There is this £120 million payment upfront to establish this partnership and, as we move forward, we will continue to make contributions to Rwanda as they process the cases, in a manner that is similar to the amount of money we are spending on this currently here in the United Kingdom.
“But longer term, by getting this under control, it should help us to save money. We are spending £5 million per day accommodating individuals who are crossing in hotels. That is not sustainable and is not acceptable and we have to get that under control.”
