Britain’s new interior minister has accused the Conservative administration of hiding the cost of an abandoned proposal to deport thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was estimated to cost 10 billion pounds ($13 billion).

After winning a comfortable election this month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new government ended the plan. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament that taxpayers had spent 700 million pounds on charter flights that never took off, Rwandan government payments, and public workers’ hours.

Two weeks after becoming home secretary, she evaluated the “policies, programmes and legislation that we have inherited”. She declared, “It is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen.”

For many Britons, leaving the EU in 2016 meant reclaiming control of Britain’s borders and curbing immigration, but reports suggest the issue persists. Already this year, 6,265 persons have been found, about 25% more than last year.

Former PM Boris Johnson approved the plan in April 2022. Illegal immigrants to Britain after January 1, 2022, are sent to Rwanda, 4,000 miles (6,400 km).

The former Conservative government declared in 2022 that it would send undocumented asylum seekers to Rwanda. In 2022, the Conservative administration declared it would send undocumented asylum seekers to Rwanda.

However, legal issues stopped anyone from being transferred to East Africa except for four voluntary migrants.

In March, Parliament’s budget inspector estimated that deporting 300 migrants to Rwanda would cost at least 600 million pounds, a small fraction of the 15,000 asylum seekers who have arrived on England’s southern coast this year.

Former Conservative home secretary James Cleverly accused Cooper of using “made-up numbers” in parliament without evidence or alternative costings.

Cooper also said that tens of thousands of asylum seekers at risk of deportation will have their petitions processed.

She added the government would also lift an Illegal Migration Act ban on asylum for illegal immigrants since March 2018.

Instead, the administration promised to halt asylum seekers’ pricey hotel stays and clear the claims backlog.

Cooper believed the reforms would save taxpayers 7 billion pounds over 10 years.

The election campaign focused on stopping French asylum seekers from crossing the Channel.

The former Conservative administration said this proposal would eliminate human traffickers, but detractors called it immoral and unworkable.

After the UK Supreme Court ruled last November that Rwanda was not a safe third country, the government passed another bill to overturn the ruling.