Pictured: Rishi Sunak's Rwanda deportation bill by numbers

The passing of Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill through Parliament comes more than two years after the plan was first announced.

Nearly 80,000 migrants have arrived across the Channel since Boris Johnson unveiled the scheme in April 2022 – with its total cost soaring past £500,000million.

But with the policy finally approved, an emboldened Mr Sunak has vowed to get the first planes into the air within 10 to 12 weeks – citing a string of numbers as evidence of the preparatory work that has already been done.

These include getting 200 caseworkers ready to identify asylum seekers who will be served with ‘removal directions’ in the coming days, and increasing spaces in detention centres to 2,200 in order to hold the deportees until they can leave.

Some 150 judges have been earmarked to deal with last-minute legal appeals in 25 courtrooms, while an airfield has also been put on standby – with 500 escorts already trained and another 300 ready in the next few weeks.

The scheme will allow the Government to send asylum seekers ‘entering the UK illegally’ to Rwanda for their asylum claims to be processed there.

Only 1,850 small boat migrants were removed from the UK last year – a tiny fraction of the overall numbers.

Refugee charities oppose the policy as unethical and unworkable, and multiple legal challenges have both delayed it from being enacted and dramatically increased the cost for taxpayers.

READ MORE – Tragedy as five migrants die crossing Channel trying to reach Britain

Its overall cost stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released to the National Audit Office. The spending watchdog also found it will cost £1.8m for each of the first 300 people ministers deport to Kigali.

Home Office estimates suggest the cost per individual of the relocations would be roughly £169,000 ‘over the multiyear lifetime of the scheme’.

Motivating the government is a desperation to reduce the flow of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, with more than 120,000 people arriving since 2018.

Five people – including a child – died while attempting the perilous journey this morning, prompting Mr Sunak to warn that the tragedy underlined the need for the deterrent of the Rwanda scheme.

The Prime Minister said criminal gangs were exploiting the vulnerable and ‘packing more and more people into these unseaworthy dinghies’.

Also in the background is the Government’s desire to cut the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels in Britain while their claims are processed.

The Home Office previously spent around £8m a day on hotel bills but claims to be on track to clear 150 hotels by May.

The House of Lords had been engaged in an extended tussle over the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill on Monday, sending it back to the Commons five times in a bid to secure changes.

But they relented just after midnight, paving the way for it to become law and allow delayed flights to start in July, in a move Tories hope will boost the party’s hopes of being re-elected later this year.

READ MORE – The £19-a-night Rwanda hotel where migrants will be sent under Rishi Sunak’s crackdown

But the news did not appear to have filtered across the Channel, with more migrants boats filmed leaving the French coast near Dunkirk this morning heading for Britain.

The unelected chamber ended the deadlock after MPs rejected a requirement that Rwanda could not be treated as safe until the secretary of state, having consulted an independent monitoring body, made a statement to Parliament to that effect.

The Government said the Lords amendment was ‘almost identical’ to the previous ones overturned by MPs.

Mr Sunak said: ‘The passing of this landmark legislation is not just a step forward but a fundamental change in the global equation on migration.

‘We introduced the Rwanda Bill to deter vulnerable migrants from making perilous crossings and break the business model of the criminal gangs who exploit them.’

Illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson said the Government was prepared for ‘inevitable’ legal challenges to the Rwanda scheme.

Hundreds of migrants set off for the UK from France early this morning, taking advantage of calm weather the day after Parliament finally approved a new law to send arrivals to East Africa

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