Mel Stride has claimed the only reason the previous Tory government’s Rwanda scheme failed to work was because it was scrapped by the Labour Party in their first week in office.
He comments came despite the scheme being bound up in legal challenges and failing to get a single flight off the ground in more than two years after it was announced by then-prime minister Boris Johnson.
While the shadow chancellor claimed a small number of people were sent to Rwanda, the only people that left the UK for the East African nation went voluntarily as part of a scheme separate to the forced deportation plan.
It comes just days after a cost breakdown of the plan revealed that a total of £715m was spent on the failed scheme.
Speaking at the press gallery lunch in Westminster, Mr Stride said: “On illegal migration, there needs to be a clear deterrent with regards to small boats coming over here and that is the bit I believe this government is missing.
“Of course, Keir Starmer is very quick to say you’ve spent X million pounds and you only got a small number of people over.
“The reality is, the reason why there were only a small number of people going to Rwanda was because the policy was scrapped.”
The report, published on Wednesday, showed that the previous government paid £290m to Rwanda’s government, in addition to spending £50m on flights, escorting, airfield preparations and police force costs.
They also spent £95m on detention and reception centres over a period between 2022 and June 2024.
Other spending, including on setting up new IT systems, legal costs, and staffing, added up to £280m.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper revealed the government would publish the detailed costs of the plan to date as she made a statement in the House of Commons.
“In the two years the partnership was in place, just four volunteers were sent to Rwanda at a cost of £700m,” she told MPs.
“The result of that massive commitment of time and money was 84,000 crossed the Channel from the day the deal was signed to the day it was scrapped.
“This so-called deterrent did not result in a single deportation or stop a single boat crossing the Channel.”
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that more than 20,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel since Sir Keir became prime minister in July.
Home Office data published on Monday shows 122 people made the journey on Sunday in two boats. This suggests an average of 61 people per boat.
There were 50,637 arrivals during Rishi Sunak’s 20-month premiership, which began on October 25 2022.
He saw 11,309 migrants arrive within his first 150 days of being in charge of the country.