Taxpayers are paying £1.5million a day for 10,000 empty beds after Rishi Sunak overruled plans to shut down surplus migrant accommodation, it’s been claimed.
The Home Office in October drew up proposals to shut 100 hotels by January, but the Prime Minister ordered the target to be reduced to 50 because of concerns a spike in crossings in the summer could force them to reopen, reports say.
An insider at the department said that the move ‘exposed’ Mr Sunak’s ‘lack of faith’ in the Rwanda policy getting off the ground.
‘No 10 had a low expectation of Rwanda working so they wanted to maintain hotel space and held us back from closing more,’ the source told The Times.
But his official spokesman denied the claims today, saying: ‘Those claims are not true, hotel numbers have always been determined exclusively by Home Office need.
‘The Prime Minister has not intervened in those decisions. It is right that we’re making progress in closing hotels. The first 50 are due to be closed by the end of this month and there will be more in the coming months.’
Rishi Sunak is reported to have overruled plans to close thousands of rooms worth of surplus migrant accommodation
Asylum seekers queue up at the Atrium Hotel in Feltham next to London Heathrow
The Times reported being informed that there are 10,000 hotel beds going unused, costing taxpayers about £1.5m a day.
That is in addition to 3,500 beds that the Home Office keeps empty at the Manston processing centre in Kent to avoid the system being overwhelmed by a sudden surge in crossings.
Mr Sunak faces a showdown with MPs over his Rwanda Bill when it returns to the Commons next week.
Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt today announced the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’s committee stage will take place on January 16 and 17.
The Prime Minister is under pressure from both sides of his party over the legislation, which is aimed at overcoming the Supreme Court’s objections to the stalled plan to deport some migrants to the African country.
Those on the right want the controversial legislation to be tightened, while more centrist Tories have threated to oppose the Bill if it risks breaching international law.
Mr Sunak has said he would welcome ‘bright ideas’ on how to improve the Bill, but has previously insisted it strikes the right balance with only an ‘inch’ between his rescue plan and more radical measures that would risk Kigali pulling out of the scheme.
The legislation seeks to enable Parliament to deem Rwanda ‘safe’ generally but makes limited allowances for personal claims against being sent to the east African nation under a clause disliked by Conservative hardliners.
The Manston migrant centre in Kent (pictured), where Channel boat arrivals are brought and ‘processed’
Centrist former deputy prime minister Damian Green said the Prime Minister had assured him the Bill would not be strengthened.
‘The Prime Minister’s looked me in the eye and said that he doesn’t want to go any further’ and potentially break international law by ignoring its human rights obligations, he told the New Statesman.
Mr Sunak won a key Commons vote on his emergency draft law in December despite speculation about a major rebellion by Tory MPs.
But it faces further dissent during the upcoming parliamentary stages and heavy scrutiny in the Lords.
Meanwhile, Labour was set to table a vote in Parliament on Tuesday calling for the release of documents relating to the scheme.
The vote, which will be part of a Humble Address on the Opposition Day debate in the Commons, will ask for any documents that show the cost of relocating each individual asylum seeker to Rwanda as well as a list of all payments made or scheduled to be made to Rwanda’s government.
Mr Sunak speaking with director of Small Boats Operational Command (SBOC) Duncan Capps
The Opposition party has warned that the cost of sending asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Kigali could rise to as much as £400 million.
It will also ask for the Government’s internal breakdown of the more than 35,000 asylum decisions made last year and an unredacted copy of the confidential memorandum of understanding ministers reached with the East African country.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government’s refusal to ‘come clean’ on the cost of the Rwanda scheme was ‘totally unacceptable’.
The Prime Minister has made the policy central to his premiership since entering Downing Street and key to his pledge to prevent Channel crossings.
But reports have suggested that he had doubts about the policy when he was chancellor and during his campaign for the Tory leadership.
The stalled scheme comes with a £290 million bill but no asylum seekers have been relocated so far as it was mired in legal challenges.