Ministers 'face backlash over flights to Rwanda'

THE Home Office was today warned it would face a public backlash of "sheer horror" if it begins to send women and children to Rwanda as its top civil servants admitted that families could be on board future flights.

- Martin Bentham

Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office permanent secretary, told the Commons Home Affairs select committee that although the "vast majority" of migrants who would be flown to Kigali would be single men, ministers had not ruled out putting women on board.

His Home Office colleague, second permanent secretary Tricia Hayes, said the main reason for failing to state that women and families would not be sent to Rwanda was to avoid creating a "new business model" for people smugglers.