Muddled thinking behind the plans to send Channel migrants to Rwanda

SIR – The plan to fly Channel migrants 5,000 miles to Rwanda (report, April 14) sounds utterly insane.

Doesn’t anyone remember Labour’s disastrous plan in 1947 to grow peanuts in Tanganyika? Undermined by poor planning and chaotic accounts, it ruined the reputation of the colonial secretary and minister of food, racked up debts of £36 million and was abandoned four years later.

Forget Partygate. This half-baked Rwandan scheme could well be the real graveyard of Boris Johnson’s Government.

Stephen Webbe

East Molesey, Surrey

SIR – I am horrified by the plan to export migrants to Rwanda.

If single males are to be targeted, all the people traffickers have to do is persuade a family to lend one of its children to a single man – for a discount, perhaps – and this terrible trade continues.

Relocating the problem to central Africa is not the answer, and I would have hoped that this Government could devise a better solution.

Teresa Ward

Caterham, Surrey

SIR – Illegal immigrants have already chosen to leave their native country and live in a country they have never been to before.

Why, then, are opposition parties, human rights activists and some in the media arguing that they should not be sent to a country they have not been to before?

Richard Tinn

Malvern, Worcestershire

SIR – When, on Friday’s BBC Breakfast, the Home Office minister Tom Pursglove was asked how many people lived in Rwanda and what the life expectancy was, he said he didn’t have the figures to hand. Such a lack of basic knowledge raises questions over competence in that department.

Mind you, he might have known but not wanted to say. Life expectancy is 69 in this country, which is about the same size as the Midlands and has a population of 13 million – making it one of the most densely populated in Africa.

Colin Streeter

Fletching, East Sussex

SIR – The Government’s plan is a step in the right direction.

However, the entire cost – including the cost to the Ministry of Defence, as well as Britain’s processing expenses – should come out of our bloated overseas aid budget.

Alan Cole

Dartmouth, Devon