James Cleverly, the home secretary, spent £165,561 chartering a private jet for a one-day round trip to Rwanda to sign Rishi Sunak’s deportation deal in Kigali.
The trip took place on 4 December to sign the new deal with the east African state after the supreme court’s finding that Rwanda was an “unsafe country”.
Cleverly travelled to Kigali with officials and a TV crew and signed the new legally binding treaty alongside Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, Vincent Biruta.
The disclosure comes just weeks after the government was heavily criticised for planning to spend £1.8m on each of the first 300 asylum seekers it plans to send to Rwanda.
Cleverly was the third home secretary to make his way to Rwanda to sign an agreement, following in the steps of his predecessors Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.
The cost of charting a private jet was disclosed in a transparency document on Thursday.
The treaty signed by Cleverly established a new appeal body, to be made up of judges with asylum expertise from a range of countries, to hear individual cases.
The government said Rwanda’s asylum system would be monitored by an independent committee, whose powers to enforce the treaty would be beefed up. The committee would develop a system which will enable relocated people and their lawyers to lodge complaints.
At a press conference in Kigali, Cleverly insisted Rwanda was a safe country and said “we feel very strongly this treaty addresses all of the issues of their lordships in the supreme court”. He added this would be “reflected in domestic legislation soon”.
A spokesperson for the Rwandan government said at the time it had a “proven record” of offering a home to refugees, and the new treaty would “re-emphasise, in a binding manner, already existing commitments” on asylum seeker protection.
It is understood that the flight took Cleverly, members of his private office, a small team of civil servants, a photographer and a BBC TV crew to Kigali.
Asked about the flight, a Home Office spokesperson said: “Stopping the boats is one of our top priorities. The cost of the asylum system could reach up to £11bn a year by 2026, and we make no apologies for pursuing bold solutions like our partnership with Rwanda to stop the boats and save lives.
“All government spend goes through thorough due diligence to ensure best value for money.”
The House of Lords inflicted seven defeats on the government over its safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill on Wednesday, including a bid to restore the power of the courts to intervene in removals to Rwanda.
On Thursday, former Conservative Cabinet minister Lord Forsyth responded to claims the Lords are responsible for “unnecessary” delay in the legislation.
In the chamber, he asked: “Has the minister seen the reports in the Times and Telegraph, and other newspapers, suggesting that this house has delayed the passage of the Rwanda bill unnecessarily, resulting in people being exposed to the dangers of the Channel?
“Will he take this opportunity to point out that this house was well prepared to pass the legislation back for consideration in the House of Commons before Easter and it is no fault of this house that the legislation has been delayed?
“And that this House has just been doing its job, which is asking the Commons to think again, and is not responsible for delaying the legislation?”
Vocal support was heard from across the chamber as peers shouted “hear hear”.
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Home Office minister Lord Sharpe said: “I’m happy to reassure him that I have seen those reports and I can also reassure him that I passed that very message back before those newspapers published those reports.”
Forsyth’s comments follow repeated questions from Labour’s Lord Coaker on Wednesday asking why the government is delaying until after Easter.
He said during the Rwanda debate: “We are accused of trying to block and delay the Bill.
“How on earth is this chamber delaying and blocking the bill? The Commons was supposed to be discussing anything we pass – if we indeed do pass anything today – next Monday, 25 March.
“I know for a fact that members in this chamber, from all across the house, were being prepared for us to deal next Tuesday, 26 March with anything that had been discussed in the Commons.
“Those two dates have gone; they have disappeared. Conservative Lords have had emails apologising that they were asked to come on 26 March when they no longer need to. What is going on? It is chaos, a shambles; we have no idea.”
He added: “We are now told that it is coming back after Easter. That is not our fault.”
Commenting on Cleverly’s flight, Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said: “Having clearly decided that committing £600m of taxpayers money to the Rwandan Government for just 300 refugees wasn’t insulting enough, the Home Secretary decided to blow £165,000 on a flight to sign off on the hare-brained scheme.
“This government’s enthusiasm for wasting taxpayers’ money knows no bounds.”
The flights alone of Cleverly’s 24-hour trip cost more than four times the total cost of Braverman’s visit in March 2023.
Braverman’s trip cost just over £40,000, with flights at £35,041, hotels £4,301, transport £248 and “engagement” £2,056, the Mirror reported last year.
Cleverly has been criticised before for extravagant spending with taxpayers’ money. The Guardian disclosed in May that an Embraer Lineage 1000E – lauded as “the crème de la crème of private business jets” – was the then foreign secretary’s expensive choice of plane on an eight-day tour of the Caribbean and Latin America.