It would be cheaper to send six people into space onboard a Virgin Galactic flight than send one asylum seeker to Rwanda, MPs have been told.
Rishi Sunak has said he still hopes to get a flight carrying asylum seekers to east Africa off the ground this spring as he braced for a parliamentary showdown over the scheme.
MPs are expected to reject changes made by the Lords to the Government’s Rwanda legislation, setting up a battle with peers which could delay the Bill’s passage until after Easter.
Downing Street said the Government believed it had “the right Bill” and “it remains our plan to get it through as quickly as possible”.
Officials “are identifying and have identified the cohort of people who will be the first to board flights” to Rwanda, No 10 said.
“We’re obviously continuing to work at pace on that, such that the first flights are ready to go in the weeks after the Bill passes,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.
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When the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill was in the Lords, peers rewrote it with a total of 10 changes which watered down the legislation.
With a Tory majority in the Commons, the Government will seek to reverse the defeats from the Lords, sending the Bill back to the upper chamber on Wednesday – a process known as ping-pong.
The Commons goes into its Easter recess at the close of business on March 26, with peers heading away from Westminster a day later, meaning that if the Lords maintain their resistance to the legislation it is unlikely to pass before the break.
But officials believe that will still leave just enough time for Mr Sunak to meet his pledge of getting a plane in the air this spring.
Speaking in the Commons, Labour’s Neil Coyle, the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, raised the astronomical cost of the scheme, saying:
“Is the minister aware that Virgin Galactic can send six people into space for less than this Government wants to spend sending one person to Rwanda?
“Is it not time to rethink this absurd policy and extortionate cost?
Watch the clip in full below:
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