Theresa May and Tory backbenchers line up to savage Priti Patel’s scheme to send migrants to Rwanda

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Former Prime Minister Theresa May today lambasted the Government’s plan to remove migrants to Rwanda as she questioned whether the £120m scheme was legal.

The ex-premier, who before entering Downing Street was the longest-serving home secretary of modern times, led a House of Commons backlash against the policy.  

Taking her successor Priti Patel to task, Mrs May told MPs: ‘From what I have heard and seen so far of this policy, I do not support the removal to Rwanda policy on the grounds of legality, practical and efficacy.’

The former Tory leader also quizzed Ms Patel on whether young men only would be subject to removal from Britain to Rwanda.

She asked: ‘I understand that those who will be removed will only be young men… but if it is the case that families will not be broken up… does she not believe, and where is her evidence, that this will not simply lead in an increase in the trafficking of women and children?’

In response, Ms Patel stressed the Rwanda plan ‘is legal’ but declined to comment on who or who wouldn’t be eligible for removal from the UK.

She said Mrs May ‘would know very well that it’s that type of criteria that is used by the smuggling gangs to then effectively exploit various loopholes’.

During her own time in charge of the Home Office, Mrs May pursued a ‘hostile environment’ approach to illegal immigration.

But this policy was blamed for immigration problems suffered by Caribbean migrants who did have a right to live in Britain, which became known as the Windrush scandal.

Mrs May’s ‘hostile environment’ was subsequently ditched in favour of a ‘compliant environment’ policy.

During fiery Commons exchanges today:

Other Tory former Cabinet ministers also questioned whether Ms Patel’s scheme would workIt was claimed the Government would be hit with ‘compensation claims’ by asylum seekers sent to AfricaLabour’s Yvette Cooper said the Rwanda scheme is ‘unworkable, unethical and extortionate in the cost for the British taxpayer’Ms Patel insisted that ‘change is needed because people are dying’ in their attempts to come to the UK

In the Commons today, Mrs May’s fellow former Cabinet minister, Andrew Mitchell, also questioned whether Ms Patel’s plan would prove effective.

He said the Home Secretary deserved ‘great personal credit’ for seeking to tackle the migration crisis in the Channel.

But Mr Mitchell added: ‘Will she accept that many of us have grave concerns that the policy she has announced simply will not work?’

A third Tory former Cabinet minister, David Davis, also told Ms Patel her plan was likely to suffer pitfalls.

He suggested ‘compensation claims’ from asylum seekers sent to Rwanda could leave taxpayers footing an even greater bill.

The former Brexit secretary said: ‘The World Bank has said that Rwanda has one of the highest incidences of malaria in the world.

‘Our own Government website warns travellers about hepatitis A and B, tetanus, typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis, not to mention rabies and dengue fever which can’t be vaccinated against.

‘So what is the Government going to do both from an ethical and moral point of view and to protect the British taxpayer against compensation claims to protect the asylum seekers who go to Rwanda?’ 

Ms Patel replied: ‘The work that we’ve undertaken and the partnership with the Rwandan government is based upon support directly to them but also technical expertise in terms of resettlement, education, training but also… providing care in terms of the health and resettlement needs of those individuals.’

The Home Secretary had earlier told MPs that ‘innnovative’ action was needed due to the profiteering of ‘evil’ people traffickers operating in the Channel.

‘Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers,’ Ms Patel told the House of Commons in a statement.

‘Change is needed because people are dying attempting to come to the UK on illegal and dangerous routes.’

Ms Patel dismissed claims that Home Office officials had failed to back her plans or ruled the scheme did not represent value for money.

She declared that ministers were required to take ‘tough decisions in the interests of our country’ and that the ‘global migration crisis’ required ‘innovative and international solutions’. 

The £120million, five-year programme to send thousands of illegal economic migrants who arrive in the UK to the east African nation was announced last week.

It has faced strong pushback from civil and religious leaders, and today Boris Johnson was castigated by a hardline Brexiteer today for using the EU split to justify it.  

Unveiling the agreement with Kigali last week, Mr Johnson invoked the referendum pledge of ‘taking back control’ of the UK’s borders, saying it was an ‘innovative approach made possible by Brexit freedoms’.

But writing in the Times today, former Brexit minister David Davis said ‘we are better than this’, adding: ‘The plan is fraught with practical problems, beset by moral dilemmas and hamstrung by extortionate costs. 

‘And outsourcing our international obligations are certainly not the freedoms that Brexit was about winning.’

He said that while it was ‘laudable’ to try to cut down on cross-Channel migrants, ‘there is little evidence that outsourcing our obligations under the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees is going to break the people smugglers’ business model’.

It came as the Church of England opposition to the plan grew with Priti Patel’s local bishop joining the chorus of disapproval.

After church leaders including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York became embroiled in a row with ministers at the weekend, The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani said it was ‘cruel and inhumane’.

Dr Francis-Dehqani, who arrived in the UK as a refugee from Iran in the 1970s, said: ‘Those who find their way to this country, often through treacherous means, deserve to have their cases considered and processed here.’ 

Former immigration minister Brandon Lewis defended the Rwanda immigration plan as the ‘humanitarian thing to do’.

The Northern Ireland Secretary told BBC Breakfast this morning: ‘I’ve been immigration minister, this is a really difficult area.

‘There are horrible scenes and stories of what these people smugglers put these people through.

‘We’ve got to break this business model and doing something like this with Rwanda, which has such a strong track record, is right for the people of the UK, who can be rightly proud of our humanitarian support because this is a humanitarian thing to do.

‘It is ensuring that we are deterring people from taking a treacherous as well as illegal journey to the UK.’

Asked about civil servants reportedly having raised objections to the scheme over its possible cost, Mr Lewis said: ‘I do think it will work.’

Former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams yesterday became the latest high-profile ecclesiastical leader to attack the £120million programme that would see economic migrants arriving in the Uk illegally sent to Africa.

He joined his successor and the incumbent Archbishop Justin Welby, and Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell in questioning the morality of the plan, labelling it ‘sinful’.

However ministers have hit back at the church leaders, accusing them of throwing criticism without suggesting a viable alternative to halt the small boats carrying thousands of people across the Straits of Dover. 

Dr Williams was today asked about the scheme in a Times Radio interview. ‘Is the policy sinful? I think, in a word, yes,’ he told the broadcaster.

‘I think that without commenting on the motivation, or moral standing, of any individual involved, the policy itself seems to me to be not in accord with, with what I understand about God.’

Archbishop Justin yesterday used his Easter Sunday sermon to launch a scathing criticism of Home Secretary Priti Patel‘s deal, signed in Kigali last week. 

On Sunday morning, the Archbishop told his Canterbury congregation that the UK has a duty as a ‘Christian country’ to not ‘sub-contract our responsibilities’ after anyone who arrived in Britain illegally since January 1 could be relocated to Rwanda under a new deal.

But it sparked a hardline response from Ms Patel and other ministers, who invited him to come up with with a better idea or stop carping from the sidelines. Ms Patel resurrected the row on Easter Monday, using an opinion piece in the Times to attack her critics. 

Without naming the head of the Church of England in a joint article with Rwandan foreign minister Vincent Biruta, she wrote: ‘We are taking bold and innovative steps and it’s surprising that those institutions that criticise the plans fail to offer their own solutions.’

Minister Greg Hands was even more direct on a round of interviews today. Asked about Welby’s intervention he told Sky News: ”I think what others, the critics of this plan, need to do is to show what their solution would be.’

The Government has  said the £120million, five-year plan would help to break people-smuggling networks and stem the flow of migrants across the Channel, which has faced immediate and heavy criticism from politicians and charities.

It would see economic migrants who arrive in the Uk illegally handed a one-way ticket to Rwanda to start a new life there .

Mr Welby said the ‘serious’ ethical questions’ over sending asylum seekers abroad cannot ‘stand the judgment of god’.