Rwanda costs soar as Sunak ‘hit by flurry of no confidence letters’ in Tory revolt

Jennifer Arcuri, an old friend of Boris Johnson who has a cybersecurity company in the UK, claims she can retrieve WhatsApp messages the former prime minister told the Covid inquiry had been lost.

Mr Johnson this week failed to provide the Covid inquiry with communications from February to June 2020 and denied that he had deleted them.

But  Ms Arcuri, who claimed to have an affair with Mr Johnson, which he denied, told GB News: “I have a cybersecurity company in the UK which I’ve run for many years. Most of the people running the cybersecurity industry in the UK I’ve either worked with directly or are familiar with me.

“But most importantly, they are familiar with my team’s work. So I think I need to stress a few points here that we are kind of glossing over. Information in your phone is not just stored on an app, it’s actually stored throughout the hardware and the operating system.”

She added: “There are data stores throughout both and frequently that means that when information is deleted, a person can recover this information. So we would use our team’s technical abilities to recover and re-evaluate all that data.”

Two senior lawyers warned Rishi Sunak that his draft Rwanda law “provides an easy” way for migrants to avoid deportation.

The prime minister was told the scheme would be hit by legal challenges and at risk of failing, according to the Times.

The paper reported that legal advice from a senior government lawyer warned “the scheme would be seriously impeded” if the bill did not include a so-called ­“ouster clause” that barred individual legal challenges.

Legal migration minister Tom Pursglove was unable to offer a timetable for when the Rwanda legislation would get through parliament.

Even if rushed through the Commons, it is expected to face serious opposition within the House of Lords.

The minister told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “You’ve got to have consideration in both Houses of Parliament and that does take some time.

“The whips and the leader of the house will come forward in terms of setting out a timetable by which we will seek to do this.

“I want to see this legislation delivered as quickly as possible.”

Legal migration minister Tom Pursglove signalled that ministers could be open to compromises with rebel Tory MPs over Rishi Sunak’s contested Rwanda legislation, Archie Mitchell reports.

It is an olive branch which means MPs could seek to make amendments to the bill after having voted for it, which could ease the scale of any rebellion over the plans.

Mr Pursglove told Sky News: “There will be parliamentary debates, there will be opportunities for people to bring amendments, the House will consider them in the normal way and as ministers we will engage constructively with parliamentarians around any concerns that they have and handle that in the way that we would any other piece of legislation.”

Eighteen Tories have reportedly submitted letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak as the prime minister faces a civil war over his Rwanda deal.

One rebel told the Daily Mirror they personally knew the names of 18 MPs who had already put in letters of no confidence – even before Robert Jenrick resigned as immigration minister.

Sunak published a draft bill earlier this week which he claimed would fix the Rwanda deal but it has failed to satisfy both rightwingers and more moderate Tory MPs.

Legal migration minister Tom Pursglove has defended the cost of the Rwanda plan after it emerged the cost of the scheme has already reached £240 million.

The newly appointed minister told Times Radio: “We’ve always been clear that this is an economic and migration partnership. We want to support economic development in Rwanda. And of course, there are quite understandably obligations on us to work with Rwanda to make sure that all of the right infrastructure to support the partnership is in place.

“We are going about this work in a constructive way. Part of that money is helpful in making sure that we can respond to the issues properly that the Supreme Court raised, making sure that the capacity is in place to administer the partnership at the first possible opportunity.

“And I think it’s right that we go about this in the way that we are and when you consider that we’re spending £8 million a day currently in the asylum system you have to look at those spends in that context. That is not sustainable.

“And the Rwanda partnership is a key plank in our answer to getting those costs down.”

Foreign secretary Lord David Cameron expressed his support for Rishi Sunak over the prime minister’s Rwanda plan, branding it “the right package” despite opposition from hardline Tories.

At a press conference during his trip to the US, he said: “Let me be clear, I support what the government is doing to deal with illegal migration… I think the prime minister has done a good job at coming up with the right package, a treaty with Rwanda that only a couple of weeks ago everyone thought would be impossible, it wouldn’t happen.

“It has happened and it’s a very good treaty. A bill has been published and will be introduced to the House of Commons and a pack of evidence about the true nature of what happens in Rwanda is being put together. I’ve seen that myself and I think it’s very convincing and will overcome the arguments put in the Supreme Court.”

Adam Forrest and Kate Devlin report:

Rishi Sunak is facing fresh pressure over his beleaguered Rwanda policy after it emerged the cost of the scheme has already reached £240 million, despite it never being used.

The government spent a further £100 million in the 2023-24 financial year while flights remained grounded amid a series of legal setbacks, on top of the £140 million previously paid out.

According to a letter from the Home Office to committee chairs, ministers expect a further £50 million cost in the coming year, which would bring the total to £290 million.

In a letter published on Thursday to Dame Diana Johnson, chairwoman of the Home Affairs Committee, and Dame Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee, Home Office official Matthew Rycroft wrote: “Ministers have agreed that I can disclose now the payments so far in the 2023-24 financial year. There has been one payment of £100 million, paid in April this year as part of the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund mentioned above.

“The UK government has not paid any more to the government of Rwanda thus far. This was entirely separate to the treaty – the government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a treaty to be signed, nor was any offered.”

Labour branded the revelation “incredible”, with shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper saying: “How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?

“Britain simply can’t afford more of this costly chaos from the Conservatives.”

The UK government’s immigration plans are a “real dark day” for the country, Scotland’s first minister said as he accused the prime minister of dismantling asylum processes.

Humza Yousaf, whose grandfather came to Scotland from Pakistan in the 1960s to work in a sewing machine factory in Clydebank, addressed the issue during First Minister’s Questions on Thursday.

It came as Scottish Conservative leader and Moray MP Douglas Ross told journalists in Holyrood he plans to back the UK Government’s Bill declaring Rwanda a safe destination for asylum seekers.