Taxpayers in Britain are paying an eye-watering bill to cover for the costs of flight tickets that don’t get used by failed asylum seekers set to be deported. According to the latest figures released by the Home Office, the money spent for cancelled repatriation flights during 12 months running between 2018-19 alone amounted to £2.04million. The bill is slightly lower to the one published for 2017-18, which was £2.45million, but is higher than the ones dated 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17, when it amounted to respectively £1.58m, £1.9m and £2.1m. 

The waste of taxpayers’ money has renewed calls for the system to be changed.

Conservative MP for Wellingborough Peter Bone argued there are two steps that the Home Office should take to slash these costs.

He told the MailOnline: “The Home Office has to look at two aspects of this.

“First of all, they should stop these last minute appeals which are done deliberately to stop people being flown back to their country of origin.  

“The second thing is they have got to talk to the airlines and get a proper deal.

“This idea that they are booking flights and then having to pay when they don’t go on them is ludicrous.

“It’s not how you would organise it if you were in private business.

“If I were the airline I would love to have that business.  

“That’s just wrong… Someone in the airline industry is raking in quite a lot of money unnecessarily.”

Failed asylum seekers are often allowed to remain in the country after they win last-minute legal challenges – which often take place after officials have booked seats on a flight.

There are also cases where people to be deported refuse to leave quietly but they are nevertheless put on a flight without a security escort by “poorly trained, overworked” Home Office members of the staff, according to the Guardian.

The scenario often lead to aeroplane staff and pilots refusing to have a possibly disruptive individual on board – forcing officials to “abandon” the deportation. 

One whistleblower told the Guardian in April the use of escort staff on flights was “erratic”. 

They explained: “One of the main reasons planned deportations don’t go ahead is because a poorly trained, overworked caseworker has gambled that an applicant with a history of kicking off on planes, won’t do it again, so doesn’t give them an escort.

“But then they do kick off and the deportation has to be abandoned.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “We only return those with no legal right to remain in the UK, including foreign national offenders, failed asylum seekers and those who overstay their visa. 

“We seek to minimise any losses incurred as a result of unused tickets.

“However, some losses are unavoidable due to the last minute nature of some legal challenges, disruption caused by non-compliant behaviour of the returnee or other factors outside of our control.

“We would reiterate that any steps to challenge a person’s removal from the UK should be taken at the earliest possible opportunity, by the individual or their professional advisers, to prevent unnecessary public expense.”   

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