Labour's Shadow Attorney General has confirmed that ministers would seek to negotiate a returns agreement with the EU to reduce illegal migration if the party wins the next General Election.
Emily Thornberry said during PMQs Live on GB News: “Remember that Rwanda only deals with 200 people and 236 people arrived yesterday. So it's not an answer.
“They don't say what the number is and the highest court in the land says that the Rwanda policy is only going to result in 200.
“So let's be generous, let's say you're going to send 300, given that more than 1,000 people have arrived since January, it’s not an answer. The answer is to have a proper returns policy which we would do.
“They have spent £450 million on Rwanda and just one guy is going and they had to pay him to go, on top of all the money they've already spent and they’re giving him subsidised accommodation for five years. I mean, that's where we are the day before an election.”
In response, Cabinet minister Esther McVey said: “It’s coming through, I think they’ve said in ten weeks they will be taking off. We know straight away that the deterrent is working.
“The Labour Party and the Lords and we'll call them the lefty lawyers have done everything to stop the Rwanda policy, how many times has labour voted against the policy?”
She added: “I was looking at the numbers for the Dublin [returns] agreement, I think between 2015 and 2017. I think they took back 37 people, so that wouldn’t be it.
“What we're saying is we won't be, we will keep it as it is, so we won't be doing that because there wasn't one that worked...
“You need a third safe country which is Rwanda, because people who come over here illegally have destroyed their passports and identification, so you have to have a safe third country and that's the Rwanda policy.”
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