Barracks plan to house asylum seekers ‘has been rejected before’ ...Middle East

Plans to move asylum seekers into military barracks on Tuesday faced a fierce backlash from the areas earmarked for new accommodation, including claims the sites had previously been rejected by ministers.

The Home Office has identified two barracks in Scotland and one in southern England – as revealed by The i Paper – to house 900 migrants by the end of the year as it looks to shut down asylum hotels.

A Home Office source said the plan would be to eventually house thousands of asylum seekers on similar sites, as well as in Portakabins, in a bid to shut down hotels that No 10 said amounted to “luxury” sites that had lost public confidence.

But the proposals were almost unanimously rejected by the areas earmarked to host new accommodation sites.

One former Home Office insider told The i Paper that the previous Conservative government rejected using the Cameron Barracks in Inverness, Scotland, due to fears of becoming mired in legal rows, including around planning laws that are under the control of Holyrood.

“We were worried it would run into massive delays and costs because the Scottish Government wouldn’t co-operate and we’d be dragged into lengthy legal disputes,” the ex-Tory aide said.

Tory MP Nus Ghani said the Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex was also “rejected outright” by the last government due to the cost and difficulty of adapting it for asylum seekers, as well as the fact that this would put it in conflict with local planning policy.

Inverness MP Angus MacDonald said using the Cameron Barracks was akin to using hotels, as it was in the centre of the town and asylum seekers would still be free to come and go.

“I’m sure it won’t be welcomed. What is the difference between a town centre migrant hotel and a town centre migrant barracks?

“It is a 10-minute walk to the high street. It is virtually an open camp.

“There is going to be no restriction on the 300 migrants from coming in and out of the camp.

The Highland Council called an emergency meeting to discuss the use of the barracks as it raised concerns about “how community cohesion will be maintained given the large number of asylum seekers planned [to be housed there] relative to the local population”.

It came as Downing Street suggested that moving asylum seekers into military barracks would be worth it, even if it costs more than using hotels, because it would help quell public discontent.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said costs “will vary site by site”, but “our priorities are security and fairness”.

The spokesman continued: “Military sites can provide proper security, health and well-being standards, and that is what we’re intent on delivering, instead of luxury sites, as we’ve seen over recent years.”

Asked if this meant the Government thought barracks were a better option even if costs were higher, the spokesman replied: “I think there’s a number of issues in play.

“The costs will vary site by site, and as I say, we are looking at these initial two sites and if they will prove the concept, and if successful, we’ll look at scaling that up.

“But this is also a core issue of public confidence. The public is very clear it does not want asylum seekers housed in hotels, and neither does the Government.”

Sir Keir Starmer confirmed in a TV clip this afternoon that his Government will attempt to move asylum seekers into disused military bases before the end of 2025 and said he had been “bearing down” on departments to move as fast as possible. The Government is not repeating the quote in The Times about ending the use of hotels within the next 12 months. But officials argue the PM is working to “accelerate that as quickly as possible”.

Refugee charity Care4Calais warned that military sites are “bad for people’s health and well-being”.

Chief executive Steve Smith said: “We’ve had Napier, Penally and Wethersfield, and hunger strikes, protests and attempted suicides have been a regular occurrence at all of them.

“Opening more camps will only serve to retraumatise more people who have already survived horrors such as war and torture.”

He added that the National Audit Office found that Wethersfield in Essex and RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire would cost more than asylum hotels when including “exorbitant set-up costs of such sites”.

Industrial sites, temporary facilities and disused accommodation are also being considered as housing for migrants, and officials have been ordered to accelerate work identifying alternatives.

As of June this year, about 32,000 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels, down from a peak of more than 56,000 in 2023 but 2,500 more than at the same point last year.

A Commons Home Affairs Committee report this week hit out at billions of pounds wasted on asylum hotel contracts, with costs for 2019-29 tripling from £4.5bn to £15.3bn, due to Home Office mismanagement.

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