Factsheets released on Ministry of Defence sites and a vessel in Portland Port
With accommodation for asylum seekers hitting the national headlines in recent days, the Home Office yesterday published a number of factsheets detailing its plans for using surplus military and other sites as asylum accommodation.
Image credit: WikipediaThe factsheets, available from here, are for Northeye Residential and Training Establishment on the outskirts of Bexhill, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Wethersfield site in Braintree, the Royal Air Force (RAF) Scampton site in Lincolnshire, and a barge in Portland Port off the coast of Dorset.
A further general factsheet is available here on the Home Office media blog. It notes that another accommodation site at the MoD's Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire will be brought forward in due course.
The Home Office said: "These large-scale sites will house asylum seekers in basic and functional accommodation whilst they await a decision on their claim. People whose claims are refused and have exhausted their appeal rights will be removed from the UK. Government-owned former military sites will deliver better value for the taxpayer, while managing asylum seekers in a more orderly and effective way without placing an extra burden on housing."
According to the Home Office, the MoD sites at Wethersfield and Scampton are due to accommodate about 200 people initially, with capacity increasing over a three-month period to up to 1,700 at Wethersfield and 2,000 at Scampton. Northeye in Bexhill will accommodate up to 800 people when opened and will increase to 1,200 by the end of 2023.
Particular attention was attracted by the Government's announcement to use a barge in Dorset for asylum accommodation. The Home Office said in a press release that it would be the first time that a berthed vessel will accommodate asylum seekers in the UK.
"The barge, called the Bibby Stockholm, will be berthed in Portland Port and will accommodate about 500 single adult males whilst their asylum claims are processed. It will provide basic and functional accommodation, and healthcare provision, catering facilities and 24/7 security will be in place on board, to minimise the disruption to local communities. People whose claims are refused and have exhausted their appeal rights will be removed from the UK," the Home Office explained.
The vessel will be used for at least 18 months.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK's Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, said in response: "Confining hundreds of people in isolation on a barge is just more of the political theatre that the Government has created to obscure its gross mismanagement of the asylum system … Instead of more ministerial cruelty, we need sweeping asylum reforms, with an emphasis on deciding claims fairly and efficiently, acting on those decisions, eliminating wasteful repeat reconsiderations of decisions that people are entitled to asylum, and making a real effort to reduce huge backlogs and unreasonable Home Office workloads."
According to The Independent, the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, said today that the Government's accommodation plans were "absolutely evidence of failure".
Starmer added: "The Government has caused a situation where they've broken the asylum system, got thousands upon thousands of claims that haven't been processed. The answer isn't more expense for the taxpayer, the answer is to fix the problem, stop the boats with effective action and process the claims. I think anybody listening to this will be absolutely astonished to learn that of all those that arrived via small boats last year, only 1% have had their asylum claims processed."
Asylum Matters together with 170 other organisations wrote to the Prime Minister today warning that the plans for asylum camps at the MoD sites, as well as on ferries and barges, risks creating "an entirely preventable humanitarian catastrophe".
The organisations say the proposed sites are deeply unsuitable and will see asylum seekers isolated in prison-like conditions without adequate advice, healthcare, or support.
As we reported last week on EIN, immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the House of Commons that the Government wants to "suffuse our entire [asylum] system with deterrence, and this must include how we house illegal migrants."
A relevant new report released this week by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford takes a broad look at the UK's policies to deter people from claiming asylum.
The report, available here, explains: "Over the years, the UK has introduced numerous policies to make seeking asylum in the UK less attractive. Most recently, 2021 to 2023 has seen the UK government propose measures designed explicitly to deter people from seeking asylum in the UK. This briefing note brings together statistics and research evidence to inform discussion about these policy measures."