THERESA MAY has become the latest senior Tory to speak out against Priti Patel’s asylum deal with Rwanda. 

Speaking in the Commons today, the architect of Britain’s hostile environment policy told her successor as home secretary that she did not support the plan to send asylum-seekers 4,000 miles to the central African country on the grounds of “legality, practicality and efficacy.” 

The former prime minister urged Ms Patel to disclose the criteria for sending people to Rwanda and provide evidence that the widely condemned proposals will not lead to an increase in the trafficking of women and children.

But the Home Secretary refused to offer further details, claiming that this information could be used by smuggling gangs to “exploit various loopholes in our existing laws.” 

She also refused to divulge further information on the costs of the scheme, while being grilled by MPs after giving a statement on the Rwanda deal to the Commons. 

She reiterated that the agreement would initially last for five years, with Rwanda receiving an upfront payment of £120 million to cover the cost of housing and integration for asylum-seekers. 

In a fiery exchange, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper challenged Ms Patel to admit that the upfront costs did not include the funding for the transfer of the people involved. 

“She hasn’t actually got an agreement on the price for each person,” she said. “In fact, the £120m is the eye-watering price the Home Office is paying just for a press release. So what’s the rest of the costs?”

Ms Patel earlier insisted that the deal would alleviate “unsustainable pressures on our public services and local communities” caused by irregular crossings, which she claimed had cost the taxpayer almost £5m a day for hotel accommodation alone. 

But her Labour shadow said that those costs were due to the “collapse” of Home Office decision-making on asylum claims, leaving people languishing in hotels for months or years for a decision. 

“The cost to the UK taxpayer has soared by hundreds of millions of pounds because she isn’t capable of taking those decisions.

“She is trying to pay Rwanda to take those decisions instead — whether people are refugees or not, whether they are victims of modern-day slavery or not, whether they have family in the UK, whether they come from Afghanistan, Syria or even Ukraine.”

Ms Patel said earlier that anyone considered for relocation to Rwanda would be screened and interviewed, including to assess their age, and have access to legal services. 

She also disputed recent reports that Home Office permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft opposed the agreement, while adding that it was the job of ministers to take “tough decisions in the interest of our country.”