Recommendation 10

The Home Office has estimated that it would cost £11,000 to fly each relocated individual to Rwanda. Witnesses told us that this was an internal estimate and actual costs would depend on a number of variables. The Home Office will also need to pay additional costs to escort people to Rwanda but did not provide an estimate of these as they will depend on the number of flights and the risk assessment of the individual. It expects to incur costs of £12.6 million in 2024–25 for training escorts and then £1 million per year thereafter to scale up its operations to run regular flights.15 The Home Office contracts Mitie to provide escorts for its existing removals. We therefore asked why the Home Office needed to pay additional money if its contract with Mitie was to provide trained escorts. However, at the evidence session, the Home Office was not able to explain its contractor’s—Mitie—contractual obligations and why it was paying such large sums to train escorts when Mitie already provided these.16 It subsequently wrote to us to explain that these costs relate to the recruitment and training of new staff. The Home Office told us this was necessary to ensure there is the right number of trained escorts to run the scheme and that these were additional costs.17