The Interior Ministry official said there was no evidence that the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda would act as a deterrent.
In a letter published over the weekend, Matthew Rycroft, the department’s permanent secretary, said that since there was no evidence to justify the plan, he could not be sure it would provide value for taxpayers’ money.
The release of the letter coincided with Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, using his Easter sermon to say the principle behind the plan “cannot bear God’s judgment.”
Interior Minister Priti Patel justified Rwanda’s proposal on the grounds that the number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats hoping for asylum in the UK was rising sharply and that the prospect of being sent to Rwanda would be a deterrent. by disrupting human trafficking.
She also said that the costs of the scheme would be a drop in the ocean compared to the long-term costs of allowing small boats to cross the English Channel to continue to rise.
But in his letter, Rycroft said he could not be sure the argument was correct.
He told Patel: “The value for money of a policy depends on being effective as a deterrent. Evidence of a deterrent effect is very uncertain and cannot be quantified with sufficient certainty to provide me with the necessary level of certainty about the price / quality ratio.
Rycroft writes to tell Patel that he will have to issue a ministerial instruction to continue the policy. This is a rare procedure used when civil servants cannot justify a policy on reasonable grounds for public spending and decide to express their concerns, so that ministers have to make a formal political decision to repeal them.
In his letter, Rycroft emphasized that he was not saying that politics would not work as a deterrent – it was simply impossible to know anyway.
“I do not believe that enough evidence will be obtained to demonstrate that politics will have a deterrent effect, significant enough to make politics worth the money,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then [the policy] cannot have an appropriate deterrent effect; there is simply not enough evidence to conclude that it will happen. “
Over the weekend, the Home Office also released the text of Patello’s response to Rycroft, in which she confirmed that she was issuing a ministerial order.
She said the asylum system already cost the government £ 1.5 billion a year, and while she acknowledged that it was not possible to accurately model the deterrent effect of Rwanda’s policies, “we are confident that this policy is the most our good chance of achieving that effect. “
She also said it would be “unwise” to allow a lack of quantifiable and dynamic modeling to delay the implementation of policies that we believe will reduce illegal migration, save lives and ultimately shatter the smuggling business model. “.
Britain has promised to pay Rwanda the initial £ 120 million to launch the scheme. In addition, he will pay a sum for each person resettled in the country, although these figures have not been disclosed.
The Home Office has launched a £ 100,000 social media advertising campaign, telling potential asylum seekers in their own language that a policy has already been in place that could send them to Rwanda if they cross the English Channel in a small boat.
“Opposition to the nature of God”: British archbishops criticize plan of asylum seekers in Rwanda – video
In a Sunday sermon, Welby said there were “serious ethical issues” about the proposal.
“The details are about politics and politicians. “The principle must stand up to God’s judgment and it cannot,” he said.
“It cannot bear the brunt of our national responsibility as a country shaped by Christian values, because transferring our responsibilities to subcontractors, even to a country that strives to do as well as Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God himself. took responsibility for our failures. “
In response, Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen accused Welby of “a little naivety”, telling Sky News that he did not think the archbishop’s views were “in line with the country’s views”.
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