BIRMINGHAM, England

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament on Monday that the Conservative government led by Rushi Sunak has paid £700M ($900M) to the East African country of Rwanda to accept migrants from the UK. 

Cooper said only four volunteering migrants had been sent to Rwanda under the controversial scheme that the Labour government is planning to abolish.

Rwanda and the previous UK Conservative government signed an agreement in April 2022 to facilitate the transfer of some migrants who arrive in the UK across the English Channel to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed.

The newly elected Labour government has declared that the plan is "dead and buried," and that it will take a new approach to addressing the issue of migration.

Cooper told the House of Commons that the previous government had planned to spend "over £10B ($12.9B)" on its Rwanda deportation scheme.

She branded it the "most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen."

In response, Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly accused Cooper of using “made up numbers.”

Cleverly, who was home secretary before the election, criticized the new Labour government for scraping the Rwanda policy on purely "ideological grounds."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled his plan to overhaul training in England in order to decrease the need for firms to hire foreign workers. The Labour leader emphasized that a lack of workplace skills has made the UK increasingly dependent on immigration.

With Brexit prompting calls to reduce legal migration, Labour is facing pressure to address the issue. While the party does not have a specific migration target, it aims to reduce the demand for overseas hires by better aligning training with migration policies.

The proposed establishment of a new government body, Skills England, is set to collaborate with other advisors to address skills shortages in key sectors. However, the implementation of this agency is expected to take up to a year.

Acknowledging that his approach will not offer an immediate solution, Starmer outlined plans for Skills England to work closely with migration advisors to develop training programs for industries that currently rely on immigrant workers.