Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell has argued the government’s announcement over plans to process adult asylum seekers in Rwanda is “less about dealing with small boats and more about dealing with the prime minister’s own sinking boat”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning she explained: “This is quite obviously a pretty desperate attempt by the prime minister to distract from his law-breaking and I don’t think there would be many of your listeners that wouldn’t take it with a large dose of scepticism.

“It’s a plan that might sound good in a focus group and would certainly grab the headlines because it’s very controversial and contestable – but in reality, it is unworkable, expensive, and unethical.

“It will end up costing us a lot more money in the long run and it won’t deal with the issues of the very, very poor decision-making that is happening in the Home Office.

“It won’t do anything to deal with the fact that we don’t have any return agreements, which is part of the issue in the backlog in the system.

“So I do say again, I think this is less about dealing with small boats and more about dealing with the Prime Minister’s own sinking boat.”

This morning Wales secretary Simon Hart said the plans had “potential to be a really good step forward and a really humane step forward”.