Home Office minister defends plans to house asylum seekers on military bases

A Home Office minister has defended plans to house asylum seekers on military bases in Inverness and East Sussex as he said that the impact on communities “must be minimised”.

Asylum minister Alex Norris said the two sites are “among a number of options being looked at” as the Government seeks to drive down the use of hotels.

Mr Norris told MPs that the safety and security of those living and working near any asylum seeker accommodation is “paramount”, and that his officials have been “engaging directly and regularly” with both the Scottish Government and relevant councils.

His words come after Scottish First Minister John Swinney said the Home Office took a “poor approach” to the announcement of plans to house 309 asylum seekers at Cameron Barracks in Inverness.

The Scottish Government said there had been no prior consultation on the issue, while the Highland Council was told just the day before.

Angus MacDonald, MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, told the Commons he found out from the BBC on Tuesday morning that asylum seekers are to be housed in his constituency.

He noted that the area around Cameron Barracks is residential, with housing “very, very close” to it, and that it is “only 10 minutes from Inverness city centre”.

The Liberal Democrat MP asked: “Why was I not engaged in any sort of discussion about this? Why was the Scottish Government not engaged in conversation? And why were the Highland Council and other authorities just informed? They were not engaged, which was the word you used.”

He added: “Did the Home Office officials actually consider the fact it was a city centre before they agreed to take it on?

“Why is it okay to close town centre migrant hotels in the south of England, yet plan to house 300 migrant men in Army quarters in Inverness city centre? It’s effectively the same thing.”

The minister apologised for the way Mr MacDonald found out about the decision, but defended the use of barracks in Inverness.

He said: “I recognise the anger that (Mr MacDonald) conveys there. I am sorry that he heard in the way that he did.

“It can be difficult to sequence this correctly. We live, as all colleagues know, in an age of mis and disinformation and trying to sequence who hears what and when can be sticky. But nevertheless, he should not have heard in the way that he did.”

He also acknowledged that deputy speaker Nusrat Ghani (Sussex Weald), who was unable to speak in the debate, had voiced the opposition of her constituents to asylum seekers being housed at Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex.

Mr Norris assured MPs that the “local context” is always taken into account with regards to any site being considered to house asylum seekers.

However, he said: “I would gently say that, of course, both sites have been used recently for the Afghan resettlement scheme. So there is a clear understanding across government of the capabilities of those sites, and, of course, the locations as well.”

He added: “I want to be very clear what’s at stake here…

“We know that hotels are an exceptionally challenging issue in this country.

“Too many people come to this country being sold a dream that they will be housed in a hotel and they’ll be able to work illegally in our economy.

“Today, we have announced that we’ve had our best ever year for illegal work raids, with a thousand people deported as a result, but we have to break the model that says you’ll get to live in a hotel and work illegally, and this is a really important part of that.”

Conservative shadow Home Office minister Matt Vickers said the announcement was a sign that the Government had failed on its manifesto promise to tackle the small boats crisis.

Mr Vickers said: “Since this Government came to office, the illegal immigration crisis has got serious seriously worse on every front…

“Before the election, the number of migrants staying in hotels had fallen by 47%. It has now gone up.

“Less of those people breaking into this country illegally by small boat are now being removed.

“We’re now in a position where the Government is putting forward a proposal which, when in opposition, they’d described as an admission of failure.”

Mr Norris replied: “An optimistic effort by (Mr Vickers), who invites us to believe that a system that him and his colleagues broke over a period of 14 years, they have worked out how to fix in 14 months.”

He added: “We know that the party opposite do not oppose our plans today, because after all, they did two military sites of their own.”

Liberal Democrat Home Office spokesman Max Wilkinson said the Government’s proposal would “decant asylum seekers from one kind of unsuitable and costly accommodation to another”.

Conservative MP Dr Kieran Mullan, whose Bexhill and Battle constituency neighbours the site of the East Sussex base, said the location is “not suitable” and the Home Office had previously objected to the site.

Mr Norris responded by asking Dr Mullan whether his opposition to the military bases was an implicit acceptance of hotel use.