Over the past four years, a total of £53 million (€63 million) of public funds was spent on getting migrants to leave the UK.
Home Office data released on Tuesday, June 10th, reveals the high financial cost of the government’s voluntary return scheme, which has operated under successive Tory and Labour administrations.
The headline figure reflects the amount trousered by Prepaid Payment Solutions Ltd for administering the scheme between 2021 and February 2025 (including flight expenses and incentive payments at either end of their ‘one-way’ journey),
Migrants are offered up to £3,000 (€3,550) in exchange for returning to their home countries. Some 13,637 people were granted ‘assisted returns’ between 2021 and 2024, with Brazil, India, and Honduras being the major destinations.
PM Keir Starmer praised his own record on deportations—removing “more than 24,000 people with no right to be here”—in March, but was mocked when it was revealed this included a high proportion of voluntary returns, who are subject to limited-time UK re-entry bans after touching down in their home countries.
The costly farce echoes the ‘Rwanda Plan’ of Starmer’s hapless predecessor Rishi Sunak, which could only manage to send a handful of volunteers to live in the East African state.
