James Cleverly (Image: Getty)
Labour has been accused of handing an "amnesty" to tens of thousands of asylum seekers after scrapping the Rwanda scheme.
James Cleverly hit out as Yvette Cooper, his successor as Home Secretary, announced the deterrent had been ditched.
Ms Cooper told MPs she would reverse part of former prime minister Rishi Sunak's Illegal Migration Act.
The legislation has barred anyone arriving in the UK illegally since March 2023 from being granted asylum, with these people earmarked for removal to the east African nation.
The Refugee Council estimates that between 60,000 and 90,000 people will be granted asylum despite entering the country illegally.
Writing in the Daily Express, Mr Cleverly warned that Britain is “sleepwalking into a nightmare of small boats crossings this summer”.
The crisis has already got worse since Labour came to power, Mr Cleverly says, with official figures showing nearly 1,500 migrants arrived in the UK on small boats across the Channel in the last week.
“Labour has started the long march back to the European Union, with a migration deal the first thing on the table,” he warns.
“The last thing hardworking Brits need is more migrants.”
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Lee Anderson told Yvette Cooper to 'grow a political backbone' (Image: Getty)
Labour’s approach to illegal migration was ridiculed as “whack-a-mole” in the Commons on Monday, while Ms Cooper was urged to show some “backbone” over tackling the problem.
But the Home Secretary told MPs the Rwanda scheme had been a “costly con” that had cost British taxpayers ￡700million, with a total of just four volunteers sent there.
She accused the previous Conservative government of creating an “asylum Hotel California”, where people arrived in the system but never left.
In a statement to MPs, Ms Cooper claimed the Tories had planned to spend more than ￡10billion over six years on the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP).
And she warned that high levels of small boat journeys in the English Channel are likely to persist over the summer, blaming weak border control she said Labour had “inherited” from the previous administration.
“Two-and-a-half years after the previous government launched it, I can report [the MEDP] has already cost the British taxpayer ￡700million in order to send just four volunteers,” Ms Cooper said.
“Over the six years of the [MEDP] forecast, the previous government had planned to spend over ￡10billion of taxpayers’ money on the scheme. They did not tell Parliament that.”
Those costs include ￡290million paid to Rwanda, “chartering flights that never took off” and “detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them”, she said.
Ms Cooper warned that co-operation with European police forces was “too limited” and more needed to be done to tackle people-smuggling “upstream” long before the boats reached the French coast.
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Yvette Cooper defended Labour's scrapping of the Rwanda scheme (Image: Getty)
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“I’m extremely concerned that high levels of dangerous crossings we have inherited are likely to persist through the summer,” she said.
Mr Cleverly accused her of using “made-up numbers” and blasted the UK Government for already making the problem worse.
He told MPs: “The reality is everybody knows, including the people smugglers, that the small boat problem is going to get worse, indeed has already got worse under Labour because they have no deterrent.”
He added: “The fact there is now no safe third country to return people who cannot be returned home means that we ask, where is she going to send the people who come here from countries like Afghanistan or Iraq, in Syria?
“Has she started negotiations on returns agreements with the Taliban, or the ayatollahs of Iran, or Assad in Syria? And if she’s not going to send those that arrived here on small boats to Rwanda, which local authorities will she be sending people to?
"We were closing hotels when I was in government and I wonder which local authorities will be receiving those asylum seekers if not Rwanda, will it be Rochdale or Romford or Richmond?”
Speaking in the Commons, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice warned: “If you smash one gang, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole - another one’ll appear.”
He added: “Here’s the point – how long will you give your policy, Home Secretary, before realising the only policy [that] will work is the policy that you actually started last week, which is to pick up and take back to France, which we’re entitled to do under international maritime law?”
Fellow Reform UK MP Lee Anderson urged Ms Cooper to “grow a political backbone and order the Border Force to send the boats back the same day”.
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It comes as Home Office figures showed nearly 1,500 migrants had arrived in the UK on small boats across the Channel in one week.
Some 1,499 people made the journey in 27 boats from July 15-21, while the French coastguard confirmed two people died amid rescue operations off the northern French coast.
The maritime prefecture also said on Sunday that a further 71 migrants were saved in the Channel, but that some travellers on the boat who were not requesting assistance were allowed to continue the journey.