Government yet to find airline to send migrants to Rwanda, Braverman suggests
The Home Secretary was questioned about the plan by a Lords committee on Wednesday.

Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The Home Secretary has suggested she has yet to find a new airline to deport migrants to Rwanda.
Suella Braverman said there were āongoing discussions with several airlinesā after Privilege Style pulled out in October amid pressure from campaigners.
The Government used a plane run by the Spanish charter airline for first flight in June, which was abandoned at the last minute due to legal challenges.
We are returning people almost every week to various countries around the world. We do that through scheduled flights, we charter flightsā¦ so weāre in a variety of discussions with several airlines for lots of different destinations
Asked if she had since found another airline to operate flights to Rwanda, Ms Braverman told the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday: āWe have a lot of ongoing discussions with several airlines.
āWe are returning people almost every week to various countries around the world. We do that through scheduled flights, we charter flightsā¦ so weāre in a variety of discussions with several airlines for lots of different destinations.ā
The ādeliveryā of the Rwanda deal was āon pause, itās on hold while weāre going through litigationā, she added.
Earlier this week Ms Braverman said she was committed to sending migrants to Rwanda as soon as possible after High Court judges ruled the Governmentās multi-million pound plan to give migrants who cross the Channel to the UK a one-way ticket to the east African nation was lawful.
But Downing Street admitted it was impossible to say when flights could take off while the threat of further legal action remained.
The Government will spend Ā£3.5billion on accommodation and support for asylum seekers in 2022/23, of which Ā£2.3billion will go towards paying for hotels, Ms Braverman told peers as she hinted that migrants could be housed on disused cruise ships.
āWe are accommodating 117,000 people overall who are in our asylum processā, she said.
āWe are due to spend Ā£3.5billion in the 2022/23 financial year on accommodation and supporting that population of people. That includes Ā£2.7billion on accommodating asylum seekers ā thatās Ā£2.3billion on hotels and Ā£400million elsewhere is on other types of accommodation.
āSo there is a huge amount of money that is going into accommodating a very large number of asylum seekers.ā
Describing how āeverything is still on the table and nothing is excludedā, Ms Braverman confirmed the Home Office was considering housing asylum seekers on disused cruise ships and suggested officials were in talks with ship companies.
She also discussed the āincredibly difficultā challenge of hitting the ambition of getting 100,000 asylum seekers into local authority accommodation ā as opposed to resorting to hotels ā with that figure currently at 57,000.
āYou then asked about cruise ships, we want to end the use of hotels as quickly as possible because itās an unacceptable cost to the taxpayer, itās over Ā£5 million a day on hotel use alone,ā she said.
āWe will bring forward a range of alternative sites, they will include disused holiday parks, former student halls ā I should say we are looking at those sites ā I wouldnāt say anything is confirmed yet.
āBut we need to bring forward thousands of places, and when you talk about vessels all I can say is ā because we are in discussion with a wide variety of providers ā that everything is still on the table and nothing is excluded.ā
Alistair Carmichael, home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, branded the asylum costs āastronomicalā and warned that the āludicrous proposalsā to house asylum seekers on cruise ships will be āineffective and incredibly expensiveā.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UKās refugee and migrant rights director, said: āOn top of the clear unsuitability, Suella Bravermanās talk of housing people seeking asylum in old cruise ships, disused holiday camps and student halls is just more distraction from the urgent task of reforming an asylum system that she and her predecessor have effectively broken.ā