Government’s migrant plan could cost £9bn in first three years, refugee charity claims
The cost of the government’s plan to clamp down on Channel migrant crossings could amount to more than £9billion in the first three years, according to a refugee charity.
The estimates, from the Refugee Council, are based on up to 250,000 people having their asylum claims deemed inadmissible in the first three years under the Illegal Migration Bill.
The charity, which has publicly opposed the legislation, also estimates 10,000 people per year being sent to Rwanda.
“In total, between £8.7 billion and £9.6 billion will have been spent on detaining and accommodating people impacted by the Bill in the first three years of its operation,” the charity said.
However, the government says it “does not recognise” the figures used in the Refugee Council’s report.
The Home Office also says the current asylum system costs £3billion a year, including around £6million a day on hotel accommodation.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We are being forced’ into Rwanda plan
The Refugee Council’s policy experts came up with the estimates as part of an impact assessment of the consequences of the first three years of the Illegal Migration Bill.
“In the first three years of the legislation coming into effect, between 225,347 and 257,101 people will have their asylum claims deemed inadmissible. This includes between 39,500 and 45,066 children,” it said in its assessment.
“At the end of the third year, between 161,147 and 192,670 people will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible but not have been removed.
“They will be unable to have their asylum claims processed, unable to work and will be reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely.”
‘We do not recognise these figures’
The charity estimates the Home Office being able to remove 10,000 people to Rwanda in each of the three years, detaining people for an average of 28 days and accommodating those who are not detained.
The charity said it used available data and some assumptions to come up with the cost figure.
Among the assumptions are that 88% of people who cross the Channel in a small boat each year will subsequently apply for asylum and it costs £120.42 to detain someone each day.
However, it said its cost estimates are likely to still be conservative “based on our experience at the Refugee Council of working with people who arrive in the UK”.
Responding to the Refugee Council’s analysis, a Home Office spokesman said: “We do not recognise the figures used in this report.
“The aim of the Illegal Migration Bill is to act as a deterrent and significantly reduce illegal migration when it comes into force.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Why do migrants cross the Channel?
The Home Office currently has a backlog of more than 160,000 immigration cases and only a small number of countries available to which the government can send failed asylum seekers.
The Illegal Migration Bill grants the government the power to deny asylum applications from those who have entered the UK illegally, most notably by arriving in small boats.
The home secretary’s outline of the bill states that if you arrive illegally in the UK “you will be detained with no recourse to immigration bail or judicial review within the first 28 days”.
It adds: “We can maintain detention thereafter so long as we have a reasonable prospect of removal.”
Read more:
Asylum seekers are going ‘underground’ in fear of being deported to Rwanda
Is the government’s new Illegal Migration Bill legal?
People in immigration detention in the UK are housed at immigration removal centres, residential short-term holding facilities or holding rooms at ports and airports.
The government also routinely houses refugees in hotels and hostels but the prime minister said in December this will stop and “disused holiday parks, surplus military sites and university halls” will be used instead.
Rwanda flights ‘by the summer’
It comes after a government source told Sky News that it hoped to start getting deportation flights to Rwanda “by the summer”.
The home secretary signed an update to the government’s migrants agreement with the central African country last weekend, expanding its scope to “all categories of people who pass through safe countries and make illegal and dangerous journeys to the UK”.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
A Home Office statement said it would allow the government to deliver on its new Illegal Migration Bill as it would mean those coming to the UK illegally, who “cannot be returned to their home country”, will be “in scope to be relocated to Rwanda”.
No one has made the journey yet.
A flight was stopped at the eleventh hour in June last year after an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Earlier this month, the prime minister announced a package that will see a new detention centre established in France as well as the deployment of more French personnel and enhanced technology to patrol beaches in a shared effort to drive down illegal migration.
Throughout 2022, some 45,728 people crossed to the UK via the Channel – up 60% on the previous year.
World
US blocks Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials from United Nations’ annual meeting in New York
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials have been blocked from attending September’s annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has revoked the US visas of delegates from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and denied others from applying for one.
It is the latest step by Donald Trump’s administration to target Palestinians with visa restrictions, and follows the suspension of a programme to allow injured children from Gaza to receive treatment in the US.
Mahmoud Abbas addressed the general assembly in 2024, but is barred from next month’s meeting. Pic: Reuters
“It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” a statement from the US State Department said.
It added that, to be considered partners for peace, both groups “must consistently repudiate terrorism, and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by US law and as promised by the PLO”.
Offensive will cause ‘intolerable deaths’
Several US allies, including France, Malta, and Australia have announced plans to recognise Palestine as a state at September’s United Nations General Assembly. Canada and the UK will too, unless Israel meets certain conditions.
Israel declared Gaza’s largest city a dangerous combat zone on Friday.
The army launched a planned offensive that has drawn international condemnation.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Thick smoke rises from Gaza City after Israeli strikes
Foreign ministers from Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia and Spain released a joint statement saying the military operations in Gaza City will cause “intolerable deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians”.
Gaza latest: Israel’s Gaza City offensive condemned
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in Gaza City while enduring famine.
An Israeli armoured vehicle in northern Gaza on Friday. Pic: AP
Palestinians ride a truck carrying humanitarian aid in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Riyad Mansour, said Mr Abbas had planned to lead the delegation to the UN meetings and was expected to address the general assembly at the general debate, which begins on 23 September.
He was also expected to attend a high-level meeting co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on 22 September about a two-state solution, a broad idea involving Israel coexisting with an independent Palestinian state.
The State of Palestine is an observer member of the UN, meaning it can speak at meetings but not vote on resolutions.
The State of Palestine cannot vote on UN resolutions. Pic: AP
US decision ‘contravenes international law’
The Palestinian Authority “expressed its deep regret and astonishment” at the visa decision, calling it “a violation of US commitments” as the host of the UN, and claiming it “contravenes international law”.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body would be seeking clarification in the “hope that this will be resolved”.
Hundreds of diplomats left when Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu began speaking at the general assembly in 2024. Pic: Reuters
The State Department said that the Palestinian Authority’s mission to the UN, comprising officials who are permanently based there, would not be included in the restrictions.
Under a 1947 UN agreement, the US is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York.
But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.
Read more from Sky News:
Analysis: Israel is killing a lot of journalists
Hospitals ‘overwhelmed’ by malnutrition cases
Tony Blair meets Trump over Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The death toll in Gaza has now risen to 63,025, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
It also reported five more malnutrition-related deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number during the war to 322, with 121 of them children.
World
Brazil implores businesses to attend major climate summit, despite ‘second thoughts’ amid Trump backlash
The Brazilian hosts of the biggest climate meeting of the year have implored businesses to attend in November, amid concerns some are backing away from the climate agenda into the shadow of Donald Trump.
In an interview with Sky News, Ana Toni, chief executive of the COP30 climate summit in November, admitted some companies were having “second thoughts” about the global switch to green economies because policymakers were creating uncertainty.
The US President Donald Trump has been attacking wind farms and waging tariff wars that could slow the transition to green energy.
Banks including HSBC and Barclays have ditched a net zero alliance set up just four years ago by Mark Carney, now the Canadian Prime Minister.
Ana Toni, Brazil’s climate secretary, is chief executive of the COP30 climate talks. Pic: Reuters
But even before Trump took office, tech companies were quietly dropping climate targets to prioritise energy-hungry AI, and other businesses were “greenhushing” their climate initiatives for fear of backlash.
In this environment, there are fears fewer business leaders will attend the annual talks, which are also being hosted in a city on the edge of the Amazon that hasn’t enough hotel rooms.
On Friday, the COP30 team wrote to business leaders urging them to “step forward, not back” and travel to Belem, despite “logistical challenges” and the “background of systemic uncertainty”.
Ana Toni told Sky News: “We are very concerned that the enabling conditions must be there so that the private sector can also deliver where they do best, which is bringing in technology, bringing innovation and accelerating the process of decarbonisation.”
In August the share price of Danish wind farm developer plummeted after the US halted its Rhode Island wind farm, while the British Tories and Reform parties are also attacking net zero.
Ana Toni met with King Charles and leaders of other COP summits at Clarence House last year. Pic: Reuters
But Ms Toni there is “nothing to panic [about], because we can see that the transition is inevitable,” citing major progress in China, India and Europe and Brazil.
Referring to the US’s withdrawal from the COP process, she said: “198 countries minus one is not zero. And we will put all our efforts of working with the 197 countries that want to go forward and want to protect their population.”
“Climate action is not only [still] cool, it is necessary,” Ms Toni said.
“We all need to face reality. We are going through a huge climate crisis… If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Companies understand that.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024