The Rwanda plan: How to waste £700m
The Slow Newscast
Alice Sandelson
4.6 • 894 Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The flagship policy for several Prime Ministers became the Rwanda plan. But three years, four Prime Ministers and £715 million later, the policy is dead and never really got off the ground. This is how so much money was spent on so little.
Reporter: Catherine Neilan
Producer: Ada Barume
Sound design: Dominic Delargy
Artwork: Lola Williams
Editor: Jasper Corbett
Slow Newscast Executive Producer: Matt Russell
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tautus |
| 0:05.6 | Hello, it's Claudia here and you're listening to the slow newscast from Tautus. |
| 0:14.9 | This week, how to spend £715 million. |
| 0:20.0 | My colleagues Kat Neelan and Ada Barumeme take a look at how all that money was |
| 0:24.6 | spent over three years by four prime ministers on a policy that never actually took off. The Rwanda |
| 0:31.6 | policy. Over to Kat. Hello there. my name is Susie. |
| 0:38.7 | I'm calling from the Home Office about your asylum claim. |
| 0:41.4 | It's now a good time. |
| 0:43.6 | It's April 24. |
| 0:45.8 | In defiance of a Supreme Court ruling, Parliament has just declared Rwanda a safe country. |
| 0:51.2 | We're a few months out from an election. |
| 0:53.4 | It's forecast for November, but summer is |
| 0:55.5 | small boat season and in the home office they have no time to lose. You no longer have permission |
| 1:00.5 | to remain in the UK. Your asylum claim has been denied and you have exhausted all the appeal |
| 1:06.4 | rights available to you. If you're the person on the other end of this phone call, it means that you've been |
| 1:11.7 | identified as someone who is eligible to be sent to Rwanda. You have a choice about how to leave the |
| 1:16.9 | UK. You can either do so voluntarily or you may be forced to. We are offering you a chance to leave the UK |
| 1:22.8 | voluntarily, with financial and relocation support to make it easy for you. If you do not, you may be detained and forcibly removed. |
| 1:31.7 | By this point, the Rwanda plan has been in the works and headlines for two years. |
| 1:37.0 | The policy would see people who have arrived illegally in the UK sent to Kigali for processing and resettlement. |
| 1:43.7 | But the number of people that have actually been sent? |
| 1:46.4 | That stands at zero. If you choose to leave voluntarily, we are offering you a chance to relocate to |
... |
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