n British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has denied reports that he had doubts in the past over the deterrent effect of the country’s Rwanda scheme, which will see illegal migrants deported to the East African nation while their asylum applications are processed.

A BBC report based on papers it has seen from two years ago claimed last week that Sunak was concerned about the cost of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda and wanted to limit the numbers initially in his role as chancellor under Boris Johnson’s premiership.

On Sunday, he was questioned by the news channel about these documents when he admitted pushing back to ensure the value of taxpayer money but denied he had doubts over its deterrent effect.

“Just because someone’s asking tough questions doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in the proposal,” said Sunak.

“My job is to ask probing questions of every proposal that crosses my desk as chancellor.

Whether you have doubts about it or not, you shouldn’t come to it with a preconceived notion that everything is fine when you’re spending taxpayers’ money… But to infer from that that I don’t believe in the scheme or the principle of deterrence is wrong. I was doing my job to get good value for money for taxpayers,” he said. “I went through that process, funded this scheme with the (then) prime minister and as Prime Minister myself, as you can see, I’ve made sure that we have a similar deterrence working with Albania,” he added, about an illegal migrant returns agreement with the south-east European country. The No. 10 documents referenced by the BBC were prepared in March 2022 as former prime minister Boris Johnson was trying to persuade Sunak – his chancellor – to sign off on more funding for the plan. This was shortly before the agreement with the Rwandan government to process migrants in the African country was signed.

“The documents describe a significant difference of view between No. 10 and 11 Downing Street on the effectiveness of the proposed scheme saying the chancellor believes the ‘deterrent won’t work’,” the BBC report claimed.

The controversial Safety of Rwanda Bill, being championed by Sunak as Prime Minister, will go through its parliamentary process in the coming weeks after it cleared the first hurdle in the House of Commons last month. With around 38 MPs of Sunak’s own Conservative Party recorded as not taking part in the vote, it is widely expected that the issue will reignite the deep Tory divisions over the policy as it progresses through further stages in the House of Commons.

The bill is central to Sunak’s pledge to take decisive action to curtail illegal migration before he faces the electorate in a general election, expected in the second half of the year.