The first Rwanda flight was grounded at the 11th hour (Image: Getty)
Channel migrants must be barred from automatically claiming benefits and receiving free housing, Yvette Cooper has been told.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said a “nation that cannot control who comes in does not have a future”.
And Mr Philp said Labour had made a “huge mistake” by scrapping the Rwanda “deterrent before it had even started”.
He added that migrants shouldn’t be given handouts until they have “made a meaningful financial contribution” to British society.
Home Secretary Ms Cooper on Monday published a breakdown of the much-contested claim that the deportation deal had cost taxpayers more than £700 million.
The Labour frontbencher said London paid Kigali £290million, splurged £280m on IT, legal and staffing costs, £50m on the flights and preparing the airfields and £95m on expanding migration detention centres.
She claimed the ’ flagship policy to end the small boats crisis had failed to stop a “single” boat.
More than 20,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel since Sir became Prime Minister, Home Office data has confirmed.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told ConservativeHome this: “This simply has to stop.
“A nation that cannot control who comes in does not have a future. Labour made a huge mistake when they scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it even started.
“As a consequence, small boat crossings are up 23 per cent since the election compared to the same period last year and they have added 6,000 illegal immigrants to expensive hotel accommodation.
“We will need an effective deterrent, equivalent to Rwanda. If anyone coming here illegally knows that they will be near-immediately removed, then they won’t bother to try in the first place.
“And we will need to make sure that the legal architecture is right. People coming here should not be entitled to benefits, including housing, until they have themselves made a meaningful financial contribution to our society.
“The ability of our democratically elected Government to control our borders and decide who stays here is fundamental, and is not up for debate. We cannot allow supranational obligations to fetter that essential sovereign right.
“We know Labour can’t be trusted to control our borders. Besides scrapping Rwanda before it started and putting 6,000 extra illegal immigrants in hotels in a matter of weeks, Starmer himself once said he thinks immigration law is ‘racist’.“He believes in open borders.”
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.
It means 20,110 crossings have been recorded since the Labour leader walked into Number 10 in July after his party won the general election.
Ms Cooper claimed the ‘ Rwanda plan did not stop a single boat.
She said of the deal: “The result of that massive commitment of time and money was 84,000 people 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. For the British taxpayer, it was a grotesque waste of money.
“Since the election, we swiftly deployed many of the people who were working on fantasy planning for the Rwanda scheme into working on to actual flights instead, for those who have no right to stay in the UK, helping to deliver nearly 10,000 returns since the election.
“Enforced returns are up by 19%, voluntary returns are up by 14%, illegal working visits are up approximately 34%, and arrests from those visits are up approximately 25%, and I can tell the House this new programme to tackle exploitation and ensure the rules are enforced will continue and accelerate next year.”
Replying to Mr Philp’s response to her statement, the Home Secretary said: “So much do they know that this was a total failure, that their leader, their newly elected leader won’t even promise to reinstate it. Because she knows the whole thing was a con”
The Rwanda flights were grounded by successive legal challenges.
After the Supreme Court ruled that the scheme was unlawful in November 2023, ’s Government introduced emergency legislation to make clear in UK law that Rwanda is a safe country.
The Safety of Rwanda Bill – which was finally approved after intense political wrangling – ordered courts to ignore key sections of the Human Rights Act.
It also compelled the courts to disregard other British laws or international rules – such as the international Refugee Convention – which would block deportations to Rwanda.
The UK government also signed a new migration treaty with Rwanda, which former Home Secretary said guarantees that anyone sent there would not risk being returned to their home country.
Other European nations were watching how the scheme worked, with the intention of then replicating them, sources have told the Daily Express.
There were 50,637 arrivals during ‘s 20-month premiership, which began on October 25 2022.
It took around eight-and-a-half months for migrant crossings to top 20,000 after Mr Sunak became prime minister.
Ms Cooper claimed the previous Conservative government allowed “an entire criminal smuggler industry built around boat crossings” to develop.
The Home Office splurged £5.38bn on accommodation and support for asylum seekers in the year to June 2024 – up £1.43bn from the year before.
Ministers were on Thursday under intense pressure to “end the madness”, with pensioners set to be clobbered this Winter by the axing of the winter fuel payments and farmers facing financial ruin due to tax hikes.
Home Office spending on asylum rose by £1.43 billion, up 36% from £3.95 billion in 2022/23 to £5.38 billion in 2023/24.
It is more than four times the equivalent figure for 2020/21 (£1.34 billion) and nearly 12 times the total a decade ago in 2013/14 (£0.45 billion).
Ms Cooper also revealed she has ordered a review into an increase in “in-country” asylum claims.
She said: “There are also issues with the increases we have seen around in-country asylum applications and we have instigated a review into the increase in in-country asylum applications.
“There were two areas where we found that the previous Government’s decision to remove visa requirements for visitors had led to a significant increase in asylum applications from people who are coming as visitors.
“We have reversed those changes.”
The total covers all Home Office asylum costs, including direct cash support and accommodation, plus wider staffing and other related migration and border activity.
New figures, published by the Home Office, also revealed the number of migrants living in hotels has increased since Labour came to power.
Some 29,585 asylum seekers were staying in taxpayer-funded hotel rooms, as of June 30.
But this has increased to 35,651, it has emerged.
A total of 133,409 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of September 2024.
This is up 12% from 118,882 at the end of June 2024, but down year on year by 19% from 165,411 at the end of September 2023.
The number peaked at 175,457 at the end of June 2023, which was the highest figure since current records began in 2010.
The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision stood at 83,888 at the end of September, up from 76,268 at the end of June, but down year-on-year by 33% from 124,461.