UK interior ministry; spent £715M on the unlawful Rwanda scheme, lost track of 470+ child asylum seekers housed in hotels
Agency · United Kingdom · Organization
The Home Office is the United Kingdom's interior ministry, formed on 27 March 1782 and headquartered at 2 Marsham Street, Westminster; it oversees national security, border control and immigration, passports, and policing and criminal justice in England and Wales. Shabana Mahmood MP is the Home Secretary. The Home Office published a breakdown on 4 December 2024 showing about £715 million of spending on the Rwanda scheme and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 from April 2022 to June 2024, including £290 million paid to Rwanda; the UK Supreme Court ruled the Rwanda scheme unlawful on 15 November 2023 and the government that took office in 2024 scrapped it. In 2023 it housed unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels, which the High Court confirmed in March 2024 was unlawful; per Department for Education evidence in June 2026, 472 children went missing from the hotels and 40 had not been located. It also published Baroness Casey's audit on group-based child sexual exploitation on 16 June 2025.
● confirmed by a primary document · ○ reported
The UK's highest court ruled on November 15, 2023, that the government's plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful.