Rwanda plan to cost UK £1.8m for each asylum seeker, figures show

Disclosure, calculated on basis of 300 deportations, called staggering' by chair of home affairs committee

Rishi Sunak's flagship plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost taxpayers 1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali, Whitehall's official spending watchdog has disclosed.

The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released to the National Audit Office. Even if the UK sends nobody to the central African state, Sunak has signed up to pay 370m from the public purse over the five-year deal.