Andrew Matthews/PA
The Conservative Party looked to be up to its old tricks again after it was revealed that Covid-style crony contracts were being handed out to well-connected donors.
According to reports in The Mirror, two wealthy former Tory donors are set to profit from a £6.4 million Home Office contract to practice forcing asylum seekers onto planes to Rwanda.
A film studio at the disused Cardington airfield has been taken over for deportation training, with security firm Mitie working with elite prison “riot squad” officers to train up escorts in the former hanger building containing three airplane fuselages.
Details of the contract, which seeks to provide ” facilities for Use of Force training”, have since come to light, and it looks like a strange case of deja vu as more government money gets handed to people with links to the government.
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The contract was signed with HCP LR Cardington LP, a property partnership with complex ownership but linked to a pair of super-rich Tory donors, The Mirror notes.
Billionaire brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone gave nearly £150,000 to the Tories between 2005 and 2018, including a £10,000 donation to Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron’s 2005 leadership campaign.
As well as the £6.4 million in rent, the Home Office is spending £670,000 on hiring three aircraft fuselages. Another £315,000 bill is for catering but it is not known how much will be paid to Mitie for the training.
These costs are on top of the £240 million the UK government has already paid to Rwanda so far before a single asylum seeker has been deported to the African country.
A further payment of £50 million is likely to be made this year.
Cabinet minister Mark Harper has declined to guarantee that migrant flights to Rwanda will take off before the general election, while Labour attacked the Government’s flagship asylum policy as a “gimmick”.
Parliament is currently considering the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which seeks to compel judges to regard the east African country as safe in a bid to clear the way to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats on a one-way flight there.
The Government will on Monday (18/3) seek to overturn in the Commons changes made to the Bill in the House of Lords earlier this month.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Since 2015, the government has had training facilities to ensure escorts can respond professionally to the challenges of removing people with no right to be in the UK.
“This includes practical sessions so escorts have the skills they need to deal with different scenarios. In the 12-month period ending September 2023, there were 3,577 Foreign National Offenders returned from the UK.”
Mitie declined to comment.
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