This post relates to reports of atrocities around the army camp accommodation and hotels, and other Home Office plans to accommodate people in new sites, and has become so long that it is now continued here: https://qarn.org.uk/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks-hotels-offshoring-etc-etc-continued/
Update 16 December 2022: from RAPAR:
PRESS RELEASE from @raparuk 16th Dec. 2022: Whistleblower speaks out about safeguarding, racism and scabies at Serco’s asylum “hotel” in Warrington
and:
Please help raise money for Shay Babagar and @RAPARUK to build on Shay’s 35-day hunger strike to challenge Serco’s treatment of ‘hotel’ residents seeking asylum.
Justgiving: https://buff.ly/3BDx5dO
Campaign flyer: https://buff.ly/3j4CG6D
About campaign: https://buff.ly/3VYnZ3B
Updated 1 December 2022: Guardian: Conditions at Manston asylum centre prompt torture monitor visit
Council of Europe’s ‘rapid reaction visit’ followed reports of diphtheria outbreak and squalid condition
Conditions for small boat arrivals at the Manston reception centre in Kent have sparked international concern and triggered a “rapid reaction” visit from European torture monitors in the last few days.
A seven-strong delegation from the Council of Europe’s Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Committee carried out a the visit to Manston from 25-28 November due to concerns over conditions there.
They have presented their preliminary findings to the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, and to Donald Smith, clandestine channel command director of operations. A Council of Europe spokesperson said: “Visits in such circumstances are relatively rare.
Manston, a Ministry of Defence site in Ramsgate, has been beset by series of scandals, including a diphtheria outbreak, drug use by guards on the site and asylum seekers being removed from the site and dumped in central London.
Manston was initially intended to hold a maximum of 1,600 people, but at one point accommodated 4,000, with many staying considerably longer than the 24-hour legal time limit.
Manston was emptied last week, but is thought to be operational again after 884 people arrived on 17 boats on Tuesday.
The Guardian understands that during the week when Manston was empty a deep clean was undertaken, new flooring has been installed in marquees and mattresses have been brought to the site.
The Home Office has faced criticism from inspectors including HMIP and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, along with parliamentarians. NGOs have called for an independent investigation to examine everything that has gone wrong at Manston.
To add to the Home Office’s woes, the chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards, Anne Owers, has written to the chairs of four parliamentary select committees, including the home affairs select committee, outlining “deep concerns” over the “squalid” conditions at Manston. In her letter, Owers states that the Kent Coast Independent Monitoring Board have made monitoring visits to Manston throughout October and November.
Owers said: “The IMB has witnessed a worrying and severe decline in the conditions for those held at Manston. Among individuals spoken to by IMB there was a general lack of information provided to them about the length of their stay at Manston, how their claim would be processed and when transfers would happen.”
Concerns include:
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/30/manston-asylum-centre-torture-monitor-visit
Update 30 November 2022: RAPAR: 29th – 30th Nov. 2022: Press conference with person seeking asylum on 27th day of hunger strike sparks further coverage
‘Hasan’, who revealed in a press conference yesterday, the 29th of November, that his real name is Shay Babagar, joined a zoom with journalists to tell them first-hand about his family’s experiences at a Serco-run contingency hotel in Stockport, Greater Manchester. Mr Babagar is seeking political asylum in the UK after fleeing Pakistan where he was involved in political activity. During the hour-long conversation, held in the RAPAR offices as Mr Babagar and his wife and ‘sofa-surfing’ with friends of RAPAR, and with the help of an interpreter, Shay described the residents’ treatment and conditions at the hotel and explained why he took the drastic action of going on hunger strike.
Read more: http://www.rapar.co.uk/seeking-safety.html
Update 29 November 2022: Guardian: Charities call for Windrush-style inquiry into Manston asylum failings
Letter from 44 charities urges independent investigation into ‘appalling’ treatment of people at Kent processing centre
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is being urged by 44 leading charities to launch a Windrush-style inquiry into the crisis that engulfed Manston processing centre.
Organisations including the Refugee Council, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee have written a letter to the Guardian seeking an independent investigation into how people seeking refuge in the UK were forced to live in cramped and insanitary conditions.
The UK’s reputation has been tarnished by the “appalling” way in which people seeking asylum were treated at the Kent centre amid reports of infectious diseases not being contained, they claim.
Updated 27 November 2022: Guardian: Home Office records only one case of diphtheria at Manston despite 50 reported
Government urged to explain official data on number of people with the disease at asylum reception centre
The Home Office is being urged to explain why official health data has shown only one case of diphtheria near Manston processing centre in recent months, despite there being 50 instances of the disease linked to the site.
According to weekly figures about cases of infectious diseases in England, known as the notification of infectious diseases data (NOID), there has only been one case recorded since September that is likely to relate to Manston – in Ashford, Kent.
Only nine other cases of diphtheria have been recorded in this published data in recent months in a variety of areas including Manchester, Eastbourne and Southampton. On Saturday, the Home Office said one person at Manston may have died from diphtheria.
Small boat arrivals undergo initial Home Office checks at Manston, a Ministry of Defence site in Kent, which is understood to be currently empty after various controversies. However, new small boat arrivals are predicted for Monday and use of this site is expected to continue.
Home Office sources confirmed to the Guardian there had been 50 diphtheria cases linked to Manston that had come to light in recent weeks.
The UK health security agency (UKHSA), which publishes the data, said the figures relate to cases reported by doctors. But Home Office sources said all those screened for suspected diphtheria had been seen by Home Office medics, who are A&E doctors.
Guardian: Manston asylum centre death may have been caused by diphtheria
Home Office says follow-up PCR test was positive and they are offering vaccinations to people at the Kent facility
A man’s death at the Manston asylum centre may have been caused by a diphtheria infection, the Home Office has said.
Initial tests at a hospital near the centre in Kent, which has struggled with overcrowding and outbreaks of disease, came back negative – but a follow-up PCR test was positive.
The result indicates that “diphtheria may be the cause of the illness”, a statement said.
The man died in hospital on 19 November after being believed to have entered the UK on a small boat seven days earlier.
A coroner has yet to confirm the cause of death.
BBC: Refugees in ‘unsafe’ hotel is unacceptable, MP says
A Leicestershire MP has criticised the Home Office for putting asylum seekers in an “unsafe” hotel.
Dr Luke Evans, Conservative MP for Bosworth, said he was first made aware of the issue when constituents reported activity in the Earl Shilton property.
The building had earlier been rated as unsuitable due to health and safety concerns, especially fire.
Speaking in Parliament, Dr Evans said it was “completely unacceptable” that local authorities had not been told.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-63643392
23 November 2022: ITV: 500 rape alarms given to female asylum seekers at ‘dangerous’ Home Office-run hotels
Overflowing bins with rotting food. Rubbish piled high in hotel corridors. Mouldy, damp rooms with water constantly dripping near a child’s cot.
These are all Home Office-run hotels across the UK, where asylum seekers say they are living in dirty and at times unsafe accommodation.
The conditions are so bad at one hotel in Greater Manchester that there have been reports of a scabies outbreak. Meanwhile, in London, one charity says it is distributing 500 rape alarms after a series of sexual abuse claims from women living in these hotels.
Human rights groups have shared footage exclusively with ITV News to show the “inhumane conditions” that people are being subjected to for long periods of time, in some cases years.
Three years ago, Hope, not her real name, escaped an abusive situation in Malaysia. For the last three years, she’s been waiting for a decision on her asylum claim and shuttled between hotels and temporary housing, which she describes as substandard.
Updated 12 November 2022: BBC: Asylum seekers: Scabies and abuse at Stockport hotel, council claims
Residents at a hotel accommodating asylum seekers faced a scabies outbreak and “inhumane treatment”, a council and a charity have claimed.
Stockport Council said people were “cooped up” at an unnamed hotel in the town for a number of months, with some residents being treated for scabies.
Human rights charity Rapar said piles of rubbish were left in corridors and insects were found in food.
Serco, which runs the hotel, said there were “currently no cases of scabies”.
The firm told BBC North West Tonight that waste was removed daily, a balanced and nutritious menu was served and staff treated residents with respect.
Council leader Mark Hunter said the town had “provided warm support to asylum seekers, Afghan evacuees and Ukrainians over the past year or so”, but both hotel residents and locals were “suffering” due to conditions at the site.
“Asylum seekers have been cooped up… for months and this inhumane treatment acts as a Petri dish for mental health issues in a cohort that are already vulnerable,” he said.
“We are aware that there is an outbreak of scabies and it is because of the arrangements we have put in place that individuals are receiving treatment.”
[…] A Rapar representative said there had been “an outbreak of scabies, safeguarding fears, reported abuse from Serco staff and insufficient and inappropriate food”.
In an open letter to the council, the Manchester-based charity listed a large number of concerns about cleaning, security, staff behaviour, food, education and freedom of movement at the hotel.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-63598305
Guardian: Asylum seekers at Manston site to receive diphtheria jabs after cases rise
Health authorities working with Home Office to provide vaccinations and antibiotics at Kent facility
People at the Manston asylum centre will be vaccinated against diphtheria after dozens of cases of the highly contagious disease were confirmed in England, health authorities have said.
The minister for immigration, Robert Jenrick, said on 1 November that four cases had been identified at the site in Kent, but insisted those involved had arrived at Manston already infected.
He said reported incidents of diphtheria, MRSA and scabies at the centre had been “exaggerated”.
However, the UK Health Security Agency said it was now working with the Home Office to vaccinate people at the centre after a surge in infections.
The UKHSA revealed on Friday that as of 10 November, 39 diphtheria cases had been identified in asylum seekers in England in 2022, and said accommodation settings should be considered “high risk for infectious diseases”.
Updated 11 November 2022: Morning Star: Profiting from migration misery: meet the culprits
SOLOMON HUGHES reveals the international firms that have brought chaos and degradation to prisons and migrant centres alike
AUS firm that ran a Texas prison where inmates were kept in tents that burned to the ground in a 2015 riot are in charge of the Manston migrant detention centre in Kent, where inmates are housed in tents. It is just one of the firms profiting from migrant misery at Manston.
US outsourcing firm MTC ran several US prisons and migrant detention centres — a number have very grim records. The British government is so keen on outsourcing that it is one of several firms running the largely privatised centre, which has held up to 4,000 asylum-seekers.
At Manston, migrant families, including children, are detained in tents behind razor wire — it is a detention camp. Manston was supposed to only be a short-term processing centre for migrants, but MPs who visited this week found “families who had been sleeping on mats on the floor for weeks” inside the marquee tents.
MTC has been drafted in to run some of the security at Manston, and is about to run a recruiting fair for guards on November 17 at the nearby Holiday Inn.
MTC says in its job advertisement that it is “building on the successes of MTC in the US” and its work in the US “criminal justice system.” These successes include running the Willacy tent prison until most of the 2,800 inmates rioted and burned down the facility.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the riot was “most unsurprising” because of poor conditions. Inmates slept in 200 closely placed beds per tent. ACLU’s visitor found inmates “getting thrown into isolation cells for complaining about bad food and poor medical care, being denied both urgent and routine medical care, and being cut off from contact with their families.”
Read more: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/profiting-migration-misery-meet-culprits
9 November 2022: The Meteor: Manston refugee scandal is just the tip of the iceberg, with North West asylum accommodation dilapidated and overcrowded
Sunday 6 November saw a crowd gather in Manchester’s St Peter’s Square, calling for the shutting down of the Manston immigration centre in Kent and to demand better treatment of asylum seekers nationwide.
Speakers from various local groups including No Borders Manchester and WAST (Women Asylum Seekers Together) gave passionate speeches in the rain, criticising the government’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
Eunice, from WAST, who has been through the asylum process herself and now works with refugees, said that she had been very disappointed by the recent comments of Suella Braverman. The current Home Secretary has described the arrival of recent asylum seekers as an “invasion”.
“Manston should be shut down as asylum seekers who arrive are looking for safety. This place is not safe and the conditions are poor. The refugees are fleeing for various reasons. From war, persecution and domestic violence. Someone who has been traumatised and managed to get to a safe country should feel protected, not put in an overcrowded place with other traumatised people.”
Other speakers referred to the obligations of the UK, and other developed nations, to take responsibility for past and current actions which have contributed to the causes of migration.
According to the UK Refugee Council, 72% of the world’s refugees remain in neighbouring countries to their home country. Furthermore, the vast majority of those forcefully displaced remain in their nation of origin, so it is developing countries themselves which bear the biggest burden of the world’s refugees.
Updated 8 November 2022: Guardian: Councils in court over hotels housing asylum seekers
Lawyers for two councils have urged the High Court to block the Home Office’s contractors from using large hotels to house asylum seekers, claiming the schemes break planning laws and harm communities.
Ipswich Borough Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council say the hotels in their patches are being unlawfully converted into asylum seeker hostels, and they want them stopped by court injunctions.
But lawyers for both hotels said the councils could be causing greater harm to the public by increasing pressures elsewhere and scaring off other hotels from helping the government.
The 101-bed Novotel hotel in Ipswich, Suffolk and the Hull Humber View hotel in North Ferriby have agreed to take migrants while the Home Office assesses their applications to stay in the UK.
Around 37,000 asylum seekers are in hotels across the UK, according to the Home Office.
During Tuesday’s hearing, barrister Gethin Thomas said both local authorities wanted injunctions and argued that the hotels were undergoing an unlawful change in use.
The four-star Novotel began to receive its first asylum seekers on 24 October and is no longer open to the public.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63556895
Updated 8 November 2022: Guardian: Councils in court over hotels housing asylum seekers
Lawyers for two councils have urged the High Court to block the Home Office’s contractors from using large hotels to house asylum seekers, claiming the schemes break planning laws and harm communities.
Ipswich Borough Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council say the hotels in their patches are being unlawfully converted into asylum seeker hostels, and they want them stopped by court injunctions.
But lawyers for both hotels said the councils could be causing greater harm to the public by increasing pressures elsewhere and scaring off other hotels from helping the government.
The 101-bed Novotel hotel in Ipswich, Suffolk and the Hull Humber View hotel in North Ferriby have agreed to take migrants while the Home Office assesses their applications to stay in the UK.
Around 37,000 asylum seekers are in hotels across the UK, according to the Home Office.
During Tuesday’s hearing, barrister Gethin Thomas said both local authorities wanted injunctions and argued that the hotels were undergoing an unlawful change in use.
The four-star Novotel began to receive its first asylum seekers on 24 October and is no longer open to the public.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63556895
Guardian: Manston: Migrant centre issues improving but crisis not over, say MPs
Overcrowding at a migrant centre in Kent has eased in recent days, but the “crisis is not over”, the head of the Home Affairs Committee of MPs has said.
Dame Diana Johnson says the Manston immigration processing site is back to a safe occupancy level of 1,600 people.
It had reached highs of 4,000 last week – more than double its capacity.
But Labour’s Dame Diana said questions remain over “the legality of the home secretary’s decision to detain people at the site for longer than 24 hours”.
The government said Suella Braverman has taken “urgent decisions” to alleviate issues at Manston by sourcing alternative accommodation.
Migrants are meant to be held there for short periods of time while undergoing security and identity checks.
They are then supposed to be moved into the Home Office’s asylum accommodation system. But some people have been held for longer periods of time because of an apparent lack of alternative accommodation – and concerns have been raised over conditions.
On Tuesday the Home Affairs Committee – made up of MPs from several parties – visited Manston and praised staff for making “valiant efforts” at trying to improve conditions for detainees.
But, Dame Diana warned “the crisis is not over”.
“We encountered families who had been sleeping on mats on the floor for weeks,” she added.
“The Home Office has been running to keep up with this escalating crisis, rather than warding it off at the outset through planning and preparation.”
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63560538
Updated 7 November 2022: Guardian: ‘Staying here is intolerable’: the truth about asylum seeker hotels
Ali, who has been trapped in a hotel for nearly 500 days, tells of his frustration and his desire to contribute to society
Life in room 221 of the Berkshire hotel Ali has called home for the past 487 days is a drab affair, with an in-built guarantee that every day will be the same as the one before.
The food is repetitive, his fellow guests never leave, the streets of Reading rarely change. “There is nothing to do. Nothing happens. All I want is an actual book to read but there are none here and there is no way I can afford them.”
Ali is one of the 37,000 asylum seekers currently stranded in hotels and lives on £1 a day, a sum he says is earmarked for clothing and other essentials.
For the 34-year-old, who fled religious persecution in Iran and survived a treacherous Channel crossing on a small boat carrying double its safe capacity, life in England has proved somewhat anticlimactic.
His overloaded boat arrived in Kent on 2 July 2021, and Home Office officials put his details into the asylum system. After a brief stay in Kent, he was taken by bus to the capital, only to find that accommodation in London had run out.
The Kurdish Iranian was transferred 40 miles west to Reading, and since 7 July 2021, Ali has lived in room 221, praying for something to happen.
“One, two, three months is reasonable in a hotel, but not 17 months,” he said. “Expecting us to stay with nothing to do is intolerable.”
For a man who was a successful scientific academic in Iran – he has two university degrees, including a master’s in astrophysics, and can speak six languages, including English – not being able to work or study has evolved into a type of psychological torture.
Updated 5 November 2022: Guardian: Border Force union joins legal action over conditions at Manston asylum centre
Exclusive: PCS joins action with charity and a woman placed at Kent processing centre for boat arrivals
A trade union that represents many Home Office staff is joining a legal action against the home secretary over “horrendous, inhumane and dangerous” conditions at the Manston processing centre for people arriving in the country by small boat.
The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), the UK’s largest union for civil servants, counts among its members Border Force staff, enforcement officers and caseworkers making decisions about whether to detain small boat arrivals.
The union is joining a legal action brought by the charity Detention Action and a woman who was placed at Manston, where initial processing of small boat arrivals takes place.
Detainees are only supposed to be held at the centre for 24 hours and the site has a maximum capacity of 1,600. In recent weeks people have been held there for periods in excess of 32 days and there have been about 4,000 on the site, although the Home Office says it has now moved many people elsewhere.
On Thursday, the government conceded that the centre, near Ramsgate in Kent, was not operating legally, with the climate minister, Graham Stuart, saying: “None of us are comfortable with it.”
The announcement that the union representing some of its own workforce is embarking on a legal action against the Home Office comes after a troubled week for the department.
Updated 4 November 2022: Various reports again today: The Home Office clearly does not take the safety and welfare of detained persons in its care extremely seriously.
Guardian: Exclusive: Staff disciplined after asylum seekers understood to have complained about attempts to sell them cannabis
Home Office contractors have been disciplined after trying to sell illegal drugs to asylum seekers at the crisis-hit processing centre at Manston in Kent.
It is understood the issue came to light after asylum seekers at the site in Ramsgate complained that security staff had tried to sell them cannabis. Security guards also raised concerns that their colleagues were smoking the drug while on duty.
Guardian: Asylum-seekers: share your experience of temporary accommodation after reaching the UK
We’re interested to hear from asylum-seekers who have stayed in temporary accommodation provided by the British government after arriving in the UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/04/asylum-seekers-share-your-experience-of-temporary-accommodation-after-reaching-the-uk
Updated 3 November 2022; Guardian: Manston asylum centre not operating legally, concedes minister
Immigration minister says legal action has begun on behalf of some detainees in Kent processing centre
The government has conceded that the asylum processing centre at Manston in Kent is not operating legally, after the immigration minister said legal action had begun on behalf of some of those held there.
The centre is supposed to hold a maximum of 1,600 people, and each for just 24 hours while initial checks are made. However, up to 4,000 have been at the centre, some staying in terrible conditions for weeks.
Asked if he believed it was acceptable that asylum seekers were being detained illegally at Manston, Graham Stuart, the climate minister, told Sky News: “Obviously not. None of us are comfortable with it. We want it tackled, we want to get a grip, that’s exactly what the home secretary is focused on.”
He said the asylum system was “struggling to cope” with a wave of arrivals across the Channel in small boats. “It is not where we want it to be right now and we are simply looking to balance that out. Thousands more hotel rooms have been sorted out but it’s unacceptable to the British people and we need to do more to tackle the traffickers in what is an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration.”
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, was due to visit Dover later on Thursday. She is under pressure over repeated reports saying she ignored legal advice about the situation in Manston, and the possibility that people held there too long could take court action.
Speaking to Sky on Wednesday evening, Robert Jenrick, the Home Office minister responsible for immigration, said the government had received “initial contact for a judicial review” over events at Manston, but could not give further details for legal reasons.
Guardian: We need your help’: young girl throws note over fence at Manston
Letter in a bottle from overcrowded Kent processing centre compares facilities to prison and says sick people are held there
A note thrown over the fence by a young girl at the Manston processing centre begging for help has compared facilities to a prison and claimed that pregnant women and sick people were being held there.
Witnesses said they saw security guards at the site ushering detainees back inside when members of the press were walking by the fence. The girl was among a group of children who broke past them at the controversial Kent centre where concerns are growing over the mental health of people detained for weeks in cramped and unhygienic conditions.
The letter was addressed to “journalists, organisations, everyone”. It said 50 families had been held at Manston, a disused airfield site near Ramsgate, for 30 days.
“We are in a difficult life now … Some of us very sick,” it said, adding that some pregnant women are held there and “they don’t do anything for them. We really need your help.”
The letter also claimed there was a disabled child at the site. “He’s really bad, they don’t even care about him … It’s not easy for someone who has children. There are a lot of children, they shouldn’t be here. They should be in a school, not prison,” it said.
The letter, which was in a bottle, added that the food made them sick. “We got no phone, no money … We want to talk to you but they don’t even let us go outside.”
It comes amid an outcry at the treatment of asylum seekers at Manston. The local MP, Roger Gale, said he has been told by ministers that the total number held within the facility will be cut from 4,100 on Monday to 1,500 by the weekend. However the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, appearing on ITV’s Peston programme, said on Wednesday night there were still around 3,500 people there.
Rishi Sunak said his government was getting to grips with the problems at the Kent centre, but admitted that “not enough” asylum claims are being processed.
Guardian: Teenage boy allegedly raped at hotel housing refugees in London
Exclusive: Met investigating two alleged sexual assaults at site, amid growing fears over safety of refugee facilities
A teenage boy was allegedly raped by a man in his 30s at a hotel used to house refugees in east London, with another alleged sexual assault against a child taking place in the same facility.
The Metropolitan police confirmed they were investigating both incidents, which come amid growing fears of chronic overcrowding and unsafe facilities for refugees that have put significant pressure on the home secretary, Suella Braverman.
The other child was allegedly sexually assaulted at the same accommodation facility in Walthamstow. Another person had been charged with one count of sexual touching of a child under 13 and would appear in court next week, the Met said.
Both incidents took place within weeks of each other at a hotel where 150 children are reportedly squeezed in alongside 250 adults.
Labour’s Stella Creasy called for Braverman to resign over the revelations, saying the Home Office was failing to have adequate safeguards in place to protect refugee children. Braverman has previously described such accommodation as “nice hotels” that cost up to £150 per person a night.
The use of hotel accommodation for people seeking asylum has almost trebled in 2021, despite pledges from the Home Office to end its use. In prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak said the Home Office was having to book hotel accommodation for hundreds more refugees.
RAPAR: REFUGEES RAISE SAFEGUARDING AND HEALTH CONCERNS AT STOCKPORT HOTEL
Rubbish piled in SERCO-run hotel Refugees living in a Serco managed hotel in Stockport have raised serious safeguarding and health concerns that remain unaddressed despite numerous complaints.
RAPAR has written an open letter to Stockport council leader Mark Hunter, senior council officers and cabinet members, to draw their attention to the unsafe and unhygienic conditions at the hotel and the violation of people’s rights. The letter has also been sent to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and the four Stockport MPs.
The disclosure follows concerns about a similar Serco managed hotel in Manchester and recent hard-hitting criticism from the Chief Inspector of Prisons about escalating problems at the Manston short-term holding centre in Kent.
“This is a UK wide issue,” says RAPAR founder Dr Rhetta Moran. “Vulnerable people, for whom raising these concerns has involved great courage, have done so out of a real desire to improve things for everyone at the hotel.”
The hotel has had cases of scabies with residents living in permanent anxiety about acquiring it, and other skin complaints have been reported. Rubbish is left to pile up in stairwells and corridors and includes medical waste hazards. Residents say it is also a fire hazard but their suggestions about handling waste have been ignored.
Transport help for essential hospital appointments has been refused, including for a child with mobility challenges. Requests for interpreters have not been followed up.
Some children are not in school and this situation has not been helped by the withdrawal of school transport. Food quality is poor, unhygienic and frequently inedible. People with medical conditions are given inappropriate diets. Yet residents are banned from cooking in their rooms and the £8 per person they receive each week is not enough to cover take-outs.
Children are able to leave the building without supervision, and there have been instances of non hotel residents entering the building and posing security risks. Serco staff walk into residents’ rooms without permission and sometimes without knocking. There have been reports of Serco staff shouting at children, showing disrespect towards women, and ridiculing residents who have mental health issues.
Complaints about these violations have been made to Migrant Help, which Serco and the Home Office say is the correct procedure, but nothing has been done.
Serco manages the hotel on behalf of the Home Office. Along with similar hotels throughout the UK, it is meant to be temporary accommodation while people wait for their asylum claims to be processed. But families and individuals often end up living there for long periods of time so Safeguarding and Education are the responsibility of the local authority which covers the location of the hotels.
Dr Moran adds: “Calls are mounting for the removal of the latest Home Secretary. She is the Government representative with ultimate responsibility for the safeguarding of so many people who are being ‘looked after’ by the State, including the people seeking asylum in the UK’s processing and detention centres, dispersal hotels and houses in the communities.
“Racists love her language. It dehumanises, stokes scapegoat fires, and tries to distract our attention away from the real ‘invasion’ – by multinational capital. It isn’t the ‘refugees’ or the cost of ‘living’ that is creating our current crisis, including the gross hotel conditions described by our members. It is the cost of ‘corporate greed’ that is embodied in organisations like Serco.”
For more information, see the RAPAR updates section of the website.
New Statesman: The UK has one of the lowest rates of asylum applications in Europe
In 2021, there were just eight asylum applicants for every 10,000 people resident in Britain.
The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, this week described small boat crossings in the English Channel as an “invasion”. She is also under intensifying criticism for repeated security breaches and her department’s handling of asylum seeker accommodation. Immigration statistics compiled by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, however, suggest that a so-called invasion on Britain’s southern coastline is largely imagined.
Read more: https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/11/uk-number-asylum-seekers-rates-europe
Guardian: Home Office denies it is to blame for asylum seekers being left stranded in London – UK politics live
Sky News: Legal action launched against Home Office – as migrants from Manston ‘abandoned in London’
Robert Jenrick said he expects Manston to return to a “legally compliant site” soon after days of severe overcrowding at the former RAF airfield where migrants are meant to stay for a maximum of 24 hours while they’re processed before being sent to hotels or homes.
Updated 2 November 2022: Disgraceful: BBC: Cold, hungry migrants stranded in London after error
A group of migrants were mistakenly taken from Kent and stranded in London, cold, hungry and without accommodation, the BBC has been told.
About 40 migrants were transported out of Manston, the overcrowded processing centre, on Tuesday so they could stay with friends and family in the capital, a homeless charity volunteer said.
But 11 of them had nowhere to go after reaching Victoria railway station.
The BBC has contacted the Home Office for comment.
The government has faced criticism after reports that Manston was holding migrants, including families, for four weeks, in breach of the law. It is intended people stay for no more than 24 hours while their claim is processed.
At most, 1,600 migrants should be at the processing centre at any one time – the MP for the area said that figure was more like 4,000 on Monday.
Danial Abbas, a volunteer with Under One Sky charity, told the BBC he saw a group of confused and disorientated men trying to flag down members of the public and station staff at Victoria station on Tuesday evening.
The men, who he understood to be from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, were all wearing identity bracelets with QR codes on their wrists. They appeared to have been issued by the Home Office, Mr Abbas said.
“It was cold. Half of them didn’t even have a jacket or proper shoes on. They were wearing flip flops. All their personal belongings were in blue plastic bags,” said Mr Abbas.
They were hungry and without any money, “desperate for tea, coffee, soup”, Mr Abbas said. He arranged to buy food at McDonald’s and bought more than 80 items of clothing for the group from Primark – including gloves, shoes, hats and pants.
“They thought they were going to a hotel in London and were very happy about the prospect of leaving Manston,” said Mr Abbas.
There have been a number of cases of diphtheria – a highly contagious bacterial infection – reported at the processing centre.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63489901
Guardian: Home Office leaves asylum seekers from Manston stranded in central London
Exclusive: People who had been held at Kent centre left ‘stressed and disoriented’ at Victoria station for hours, some in flip-flops
The Home Office left asylum seekers from the Manston immigration centre in central London without accommodation or warm clothing, as officials attempted to reduce acute overcrowding, the Guardian can reveal.
A group of 11 asylum seekers from Manston were left at Victoria railway station on Tuesday evening with nowhere to stay, without winter coats, many of them in flip-flops, according to volunteers with the Under One Sky homelessness charity, who provided them with emergency supplies of food and clothes.
“They were stressed, disturbed and completely disoriented,” said Danial Abbas, a volunteer with the charity. The group, from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, some of them wrapped in blankets to keep warm, were confused about what they were meant to do, he said. “They were also very hungry.”
About 50 asylum seekers from Kent were also deposited from a bus by Victoria coach station at around 11pm on Saturday, according to a witness. “They were still on the street at midnight, trying to work out what to do, where to go. They had no money, and hadn’t even been told where they were,” said the witness, an Afghan asylum seeker, who asked not to be named. He has been housed in a nearby hostel for the past 14 months, and watched them arrive. “I was shocked. I tried to help; I showed them where to get free wifi, where to sit and get warm in the station.”
Updated 1 November 2022: Open Democracy: Priti Patel was warned of security risks before attack on asylum centre
The Home Office previously admitted it was under pressure to open new centres quickly even if locations were ‘unsafe’
The Home Office was warned about lax security and the risk of far-Right attacks at its facilities for housing asylum seekers – including the Kent centre that was firebombed this weekend.
In July, then home secretary Priti Patel was told by her own independent chief inspector, David Neal, that the Western Jet Foil facility in Dover that was attacked with petrol bombs on Sunday had a “poor level of security”.
Patel, who cancelled Neal’s six requests for meetings between March 2021 and September this year, was also warned in a separate report published in May about far-Right activity near temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.
That report reveals the Home Office was challenged over a potential far-Right threat at one hotel and responded that “they understand that [the location was unsafe], but that it had to open quickly”.
[…] On Friday, openDemocracy reported that Braverman had refused to accept the recommendations of a two-year inquiry that blamed the Home Office’s poor performance for the small boats crisis.
Guardian: Fifteen-year-old boy charged with trying to kill child asylum seeker
Accused will appear at the Old Bailey next month following stabbing near hotel in west London
A 15-year-old boy has been charged with the attempted murder of a child asylum seeker in west London. He has been remanded into secure accommodation and will appear at the Old Bailey next month.
The charges follow a stabbing incident close to a hotel in the west London area used by the Home Office to accommodate adult male asylum seekers just before midnight on 22 October.
Initially the victim had been classified as an adult by the Home Office, but he was later confirmed to be a child. He was taken to hospital following the stabbing. After being discharged, he was taken into the care of children’s social services in the borough where the hotel is situated.
The Guardian has received reports that the asylum seeker, who was being accommodated at the hotel, was found bleeding near the building after the incident.
31 October 2022: Guardian: Firm managing hotels for UK asylum seekers posts bumper profits
Three directors of Clearsprings Ready Homes share dividends of almost £28m, as profits rise sixfold
A company contracted by the UK Home Office to manage hotels and other accommodation for asylum seekers increased its profits more than sixfold last year, with its three directors sharing dividends of almost £28m.
Clearsprings Ready Homes has a 10-year contract to manage asylum seeker accommodation in England and Wales, a mix of hotel accommodation that the Home Office says is costing it more than £5m a day, and shared housing.
Clearsprings boosted its profits from £4,419,841 to £28,012,487 to the year ending 31 January 2022, with dividends jumping from £7m to £27,987,262.
It has been reported that the home secretary, Suella Braverman, allowed numbers to increase at Manston, the Home Office’s processing centre in Ramsgate, Kent, instead of moving people to hotels. However, hotel use is still high. Home Office accommodation providers get better terms on their contracts once the asylum seeker population rises above 70,000, as it has been for more than a year.
BBC: Migrant centre overcrowding piles pressure on Braverman
What we know about the Manston centre
As allegations of poor conditions at the overcrowded Manston migrant processing centre emerge, here’s a quick look at what you need to know about the facility:
- The centre in Manston, Kent is meant to hold migrants for up to 48 hours before they are transferred
- Currently, about 4,000 migrants are currently housed at the former Royal Air Force base, which was designed to process up to 1,600. This makes it the largest detention centre in Britain
- The temporary base has housed some of these people for five weeks
- There have been concerns over the health of migrants housed there – The Guardian reported on Sunday there were now at least eight cases of diphtheria and a case of MRSA at Manston
- Last week, independent border inspector David Neal told MPs he had been left speechless by the “really dangerous” situation at Manston
- Conservative MP Roger Gale says he has been assured 650 migrants would be moved out of Manston and into hotels or temporary accommodation this week
Picture from inside the Manston detention facility (see the original report for the photos)
BBC News has obtained pictures of the conditions inside the Manston migrant processing centre. In the first image, children can be seen playing on a tennis court encircled by the metal barriers, with many facility workers wearing high-vis jackets watching on. The barbed wire fencing that surrounds the facility is visible. We have blurred the children’s faces to protect their identities.
Overcrowding may have been deliberate choice – Tory MP who visited centre
The situation at a migrant processing facility in Kent is “wholly unacceptable”, a senior Tory MP has said, suggesting overcrowding may have been allowed to happen on purpose.
Roger Gale, who represents Thanet where the Manston centre is based, tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme “simply far too many people” were being housed there
He said that the situation should never have been allowed to get to this stage, adding he was “not sure that it hasn’t almost been developed deliberately.”
Gale said he was told that the Home Office was finding it very difficult to secure hotel accommodation, alleging he now understood a decision was taken by officials not to book additional hotel space.
“That’s like driving a car down a motorway, seeing the motorway clear ahead, then there’s a car crash, and then suddenly there’s a five mile tailback,” he said.
But he could not say which of the three occupants of the role we’ve had since early September – Priti Patel, Suella Braverman or Grant Shapps – made the choice not to secure more hotel rooms.
Gale also said he had put forward an urgent question on the issue to be addressed in the House of Commons, should it be selected later today.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-63455519
Updated 30 October 2022: BBC: Man found dead after incendiary devices thrown at Dover migrant centre
A man has been found dead after flammable devices were thrown at a Home Office migrant processing centre in Dover, Kent.
Two or three devices were thrown outside and into the centre by a suspect who had arrived by car, Kent Police said. No motive has been given.
The suspect was found dead at a nearby petrol station shortly afterwards.
[…] Nathalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover, said she was “absolutely shocked and appalled” by the incident.
She said “tensions have been rising” over the numbers of migrants arriving in the town. She said she had spoken to the immigration minister following the attack.
“I have expressed my concerns over security of the centre in Dover. I don’t think this is the appropriate place for a migrant-receiving centre. Dover is an extremely busy and open port.”
Speaking to LBC radio, Ms Elphicke said people at the migrant centre were being “looked after” following the “dreadful” attack.
She said the motivation of the perpetrator was so far unknown, but the centre is “a well-known facility” where small boats arrive before people are taken to the Manston asylum processing centre in Kent.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-63446683
also: Isle of Thanet News: 700 people transferred to Manston processing centre following petrol bomb attack at Dover site
Around 700 people who crossed the Channel in small boats and were at the Dover Tug Haven asylum site when petrol bombs were thrown at it today (October 30) have been transferred to Manston processing centre.
Kent Police officers were called at 11.22am to the Home Office immigration premises at The Viaduct in Dover after the attack by a lone man in a white SEAT sports vehicle who then took his life at a nearby petrol station.
A Kent Police spokesperson said: “Officers established that two to three incendiary devices had been thrown outside and into the premises by a single suspect who arrived at the scene in a car.
“Two people have reported minor injuries from inside the property. The suspect was identified, and very quickly located at a nearby petrol station, and confirme
Kent Police: Incident at The Viaduct in Dover
Kent Police was called at 11.22am on Sunday 30 October 2022 to a Home Office immigration premises at The Viaduct in Dover.
Officers established that two to three incendiary devices had been thrown outside and into the premises by a single suspect who arrived at the scene in a car. Two people have reported minor injuries from inside the property. The suspect was identified, and very quickly located at a nearby petrol station, and confirmed deceased.
The Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit attended the location to ensure there were no further threats. A further device was found and confirmed safe within the suspect’s vehicle.
The site remained open, however around 700 suspected migrants were relocated to Manston to ensure safety during the initial phase of the police investigation.
Enquiries into the incident remain ongoing by Kent detectives.
28 October 2022: Guardian: ‘I hope things get better’: asylum seekers left fearful and depressed by multiple hotel moves
Families face constant upheaval despite Home Office claims it is planning to stop housing people in hotels
Precariously perched on a sea of suitcases, Lidl carrier bags and bulging bin liners is an orange hardback bible, an image of calm amid a chaotic scene of buggies, baby baths and other flimsily bound belongings
It’s moving day at a London hotel used by the Home Office to accommodate asylum seekers, and about 50 families – up to 100 people – are due to leave.
Many – distraught and tearful about the enforced move – have not been told where they are going, while some have joined members of the community, including a local head teacher and a vicar, at a protest about the move in front of the hotel.
“We have been told we have no choice. If we don’t go today we will be left on the streets. I am settled here and am going to college. They are taking away the one good thing in my life,” sobs a woman from Afghanistan.
The Home Office says it is planning to end hotel use, which is costing the government more than £5m a day. Yet many of those told they must board the waiting coaches say that they are simply moved from one hotel to another, with some reporting four or five hotel moves within the past 18 months.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/28/asylum-seekers-uk-hotel-moves-home-office
Updated 27 October 2022: Home Affairs Committee 26 October 2022 – Channel crossings
Oral evidence session: Witnesses:
Dan O’Mahoney Clandestine Channel Threat Commander at Home Office
Abi Tierney Director General, Customer Services Capability at Home Office
Dan Hobbs Director, Asylum, Protection and Enforcement at Home Office
David Neal, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration
Transcript of the session is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/11390/pdf/
Information is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/event/14980/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/
Guardian: Borders watchdog left ‘speechless’ by failings at migrant centre in Kent
Chief inspector told MPs that Manston processing site was unsafe, understaffed and ‘wretched’
The borders watchdog said he was left speechless by “wretched conditions” during a visit to a migrant processing centre at Manston, which has already passed the point of being unsafe.
The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, was also concerned after discovering some of those guarding people on the site are not specifically qualified to do so.
He said that following his visit to the Ramsgate site on Monday he urgently raised this issue with the home secretary and the chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor.
Migrants are meant to be held at the short-term holding facility, which opened in January, for 24 hours while they undergo checks before being moved into immigration detention centres or asylum accommodation – currently hotels.
Mitie Care & Custody manages Manston and it has specially trained detention custody officers on the site who are accredited by the Home Office. However, there are also private security staff on site who do not have the same specialist training.
Neal told an evidence session of the home affairs select committee that along with his concerns about some of those staffing the site he had spoken to a family from Afghanistan living in a marquee for 32 days and two families from Iraq and Syria living in the tented accommodation for two weeks sleeping on kit mats with blankets.
“This is pretty wretched conditions,” he said.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/26/borders-watchdog-left-speechless-by-failings-at-migrants-centre-in-kent
See: ICIBI: An inspection of the initial processing of migrants arriving via small boats at Tug Haven and Western Jet Foil December 2021 – January 2022
22 October 2022: Guardian: Asylum seekers: Home Office accused of ‘catastrophic child protection failure’
Exclusive: over 220 unaccompanied children revealed as missing from hotels funded by the department
More than 220 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are missing from hotels funded by the Home Office, prompting claims that the chaos-stricken government department is presiding over a “catastrophic child protection failure”.
Ministers have admitted that the Home Office has no idea of the whereabouts of 222 vulnerable children it was meant to be protecting.
One child, it reveals, disappeared on the same day that they arrived at Home Office hotel accommodation and has since been missing for almost a year.
The immigration minister, Tom Pursglove, gave details of 142 of the missing youngsters, of whom 39 had been missing for at least 100 days.
Seventeen went missing within a day of the Home Office placing them in a hotel.
Nine were 15 years old when they disappeared and 32 were aged 16, according to the data, which includes numbers missing until last Wednesday.
The number of missing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, revealed in a parliamentary answer late on Friday, raises fresh concern over the Home Office’s decision to start housing children in hotels along the south-east coast, keeping them out of the care of local authorities.
The department began contracts with hotel owners in July 2021 to house children arriving in the UK across the Channel on small boats without parents or carers.
There was further chaos for the Home Office on Saturday when its most senior asylum chief was revealed to have resigned as “chaos and confusion” grows over the rapid turnaround of home secretaries, failures to tackle Channel crossings and the widely derided Rwanda deal.
13 October 2022: BBC Newsnight: Channel migrants: 116 children missing from UK hotels
More than 100 unaccompanied child migrants remain missing after disappearing from UK hotels over a 14-month period, data reveals.
BBC News has discovered that 116 children disappeared between July 2021 and August 2022, after temporarily being put in hotels by the Home Office.
Charities fear the children, some as young as 11, risk being exploited.
The Home Office said it had “no alternative” but to use hotels while long-term accommodation was found.
The government has been placing children who arrive in the UK in approved hotels since July last year, after local councils said there was not enough capacity to house them in suitable accommodation.
Some 1,606 children who arrived alone between July 2021 and June 2022 were placed in hotel accommodation by the Home Office, according to its own figures.
BBC Two’s Newsnight discovered that 181 children – aged 18 or less – subsequently went missing in the 14-month period covered by the data, which was released by the Home Office following Freedom of Information requests. But 65 were later found.
The charity ECPAT UK said the number of missing children was “shocking” and called on the government to stop placing them in hotels.
“They could be working away in a cannabis farm, in a factory, domestic servitude. There’s a whole range of exploitative situations that these young people could be in,” said its chief executive, Patricia Durr. “They could be being criminally exploited or sexually exploited behind closed doors.”
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63231470
Updated 10 August 2022: Morning Star: Home office forced to drop plans to move asylum-seekers to RAF base
BEN WALLACE has declared that he has “withdrawn” permission for the Home Office to dump asylum-seekers at a disused RAF base in North Yorkshire.
Plans to accommodate 1,500 men near the remote village of Linton on Ouse now look to be dead in the water after the Defence Secretary told reporters in Huddersfield today that he had told the Home Office “months ago” that the RAF base was no longer available.
“I have obligations to do something else with that site, and you know there are other sites we made available to the Home Office if it wishes to take it up,” he said.
The decision marks another blow to Home Secretary Priti Patel’s plans to expand the use of ex-military barracks to accommodate asylum-seekers.
MPs and campaigners have described the use of such sites, including the notorious Napier Barracks in Folkestone, as “quasi-detention” facilities, accusing the government of inflicting “profound harm” to the people held there.
Read more: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/plans-to-move-asylum-seekers-disused-raf-base-scrapped
Guardian: Tories abandon plans to house 1,500 asylum seekers in Yorkshire village
Desertion of RAF Linton-on-Ouse scheme is latest immigration policy climbdown after Truss and Sunak opposed plans
An advanced plan to house up to 1,500 male asylum seekers at a former RAF base in North Yorkshire has been abandoned in another immigration policy climbdown by Conservative ministers.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, confirmed he had “withdrawn the offer” to the Home Office to set up the reception centre in the small village of Linton-on-Ouse. The development comes after both candidates standing to be the next prime minister, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, ruled out sticking to the plans if they were to become leader.
The decision is another embarrassment for the home secretary, Priti Patel, who announced the proposals to ease reliance on hotel accommodation, which costs the taxpayer almost £5m a day. The proposal had faced a legal challenge and opposition by local Tory activists.
When told that Sunak had said he would oppose the site, Wallace, who is backing Liz Truss to become the next Conservative leader, told ITV News: “He didn’t oppose it when he was in government so it’s a new surprise. But because he’s not in government, he won’t know what’s been going on and I’ve withdrawn the offer to the Home office for that site. It’s been with them for a number of months.”
Updated 23 July 2022: The Mill: The Mill@ManchesterMill
We spoke to residents and ex-residents of a Serco-run asylum seeker hotel in Manchester. They’ve described bad food at the hotel and a sense that they can’t report their complaints for fear of undermining their asylum claims.
Serco told us: “We are reviewing the quality of the food being provided at this hotel to make sure it is meeting the required standards.” And they vociferously denied allegations that their staff have advised residents against filing complaints
It comes as human-rights org @raparuk published an open letter about living conditions at the hotel, addressed to Manchester City Council.
“We don’t feel like the council have challenged the Home Office enough,” says @RhettaMoran1, one of RAPAR’s founders.
Inside the Manchester hotel booked out for months to house asylum seekers
BY JACK DULHANTY
Off a tree-lined road in affluent south Manchester stands a hotel: it’s seen better days. The gardens are unkempt, the restaurant looks tired — its neon sign a dull grey outline, unlit for months.
If you attempt to book a room online, none will be available. If you try phoning the hotel chain’s national office, a polite voice will tell you that the hotel is closed. But stand outside, and a glitch in the matrix will reveal itself: people coming in and out of the hotel, catching the bus into the city, smoking cigarettes.
There’s not a nefarious purpose at work here, but a good one: the hotel houses the city’s asylum seekers. They are placed in hotels like this as part of the government’s duty to arrange accommodation for them and their families while they wait for updates on the status of their asylum applications. In this case, it seems that the entire hotel has been rented out by Serco, the giant company that has the Home Office contract for housing asylum seekers in the North West.
Read more: https://manchestermill.co.uk/p/inside-the-manchester-hotel-booked
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/life-inside-a-manchester-asylum-seekers-hotel/id1589063156
ICIBI report Inspection Report Published: A re-inspection of Napier Barracks March 2022
This re-inspection reviewed the improvements the Home Office had made to the management and operation of Napier Barracks following the ICIBI/HMIP inspection of February 2021. Publishing the report https://www.gov.uk/government/news/inspection-report-published-a-re-inspection-of-napier-barracks-march-2022, David Neal said:
I welcome the publication of this report on the ICIBI’s second inspection of Napier Barracks. This re-inspection examined the improvements to which the Home Office committed in its response to the report on the first inspection (with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons) of Napier Barracks and Penally Camp in February 2021.
The re-inspection found that the management and oversight of Napier have improved, with strong working relationships in place between the Home Office, the provider, and its subcontractors. The more positive atmosphere at the site reflects the work undertaken to improve the facilities and activities, and the introduction of a 90-day maximum duration of stay which gives residents more certainty over the time they will spend at Napier. There was also evidence of increased engagement with non-governmental organisations and community groups, all of which contribute to the positive mental and physical wellbeing of residents. This engagement is not expensive – it is largely a matter of coordination which harnesses the goodwill of the local community. The effect undoubtedly contributes to a better atmosphere in the camp and introduces humanity and kindness into what can otherwise be a dispiriting waiting game.
I was disappointed that work had not been undertaken to improve the poor condition of the shared dormitories, with those accommodated there reporting a lack of privacy, unacceptable noise levels, and disruption to sleep. I am concerned that a timescale has not been set for the completion of any improvements despite Home Office plans to increase the number of residents accommodated on the site.
This inspection observed conditions at Napier Barracks that should have been in place over a year ago. The agility of the Home Office to respond to a dynamic situation, with staff with the appropriate level of skills and experience to ensure that contractors are delivering what they are paid to deliver, is key to the welfare of residents.
I am still looking for evidence that the Home Office has introduced a template for the standing up of future sites that incorporates the lessons learned from Napier. Considering the numbers of people involved and the amount of money being spent, there should be a ‘playbook’ that captures lessons learned and best practice from tactical experience on the ground and recommendations made to improve the service. The lack of Home Office engagement with the local community prior to the establishment of an accommodation centre at Linton-on-Ouse suggests that it still has some way to go.
I made 4 recommendations in this report. The Home Office has accepted 3 of them and partially accepted 1. I am pleased that work is already under way to implement them.
A re-inspection of Napier Barracks March 2022: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-re-inspection-of-napier-barracks-march-2022
The Home Office responses to the Chief Inspector’s reports: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/responses-to-reports-by-the-independent-chief-inspector-of-borders-and-immigration
Kent Online: Home Secretary’s plan to house asylum seekers in Folkestone’s Napier Barracks until 2026 ruled unlawful by High Court
The High Court has ruled the government’s plan to house asylum seekers in Folkestone‘s Napier Barracks for another five years is unlawful.
The Home Secretary Priti Patel granted herself an extension to house refugees at the site, which has fallen into a state of disrepair, but on Friday was told this would be a breach of the Equality Act.
This is the second time Ms Patel’s plans for the barracks, which sleeps up to 14 per dorm, have been called unlawful.
In June last year, transfers there were temporarily halted after the High Court ruled the selection process was also unlawful.
Earlier this year in March she also lost a High Court challenge brought by three asylum seekers after she admitted their phones were seized under a blanket policy targeting those crossing the Channel.
The government used emergency planning laws to use Napier for 12 months.
The Catholic Church: Nuncio brings Pope’s Blessing to Asylum Seekers housed at Napier Barracks
For the second time this year, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the Pope’s representative to Great Britain, visited asylum seekers housed in a former army barracks in Kent to bring the Holy Father’s special blessing and greetings to them as they seek the prospect of a better life without persecution.
The Apostolic Nuncio saw Pope Francis’ simple Christian gesture as a sign of solidarity and hope.
You can listen to our short interview with Archbishop Gugerotti and read the transcript below.
Listen (on the link)
Transcript
I am Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain. Today we went together to Napier Barracks in Dover for the second time. The first time was some months ago.
The Pope was very eager to have an idea of how these people lived – these people who came by boat. I was speaking with them. [Some said] it took two, two-and-a-half years to arrive in Great Britain. We had very nice conversations with many of them the first time, and also with the people who take care of them.
When I came back, something very strange happened. I wrote an email to His Holiness, the Pope, explaining that I had gone to the barracks and met refugees. After two days, exactly two days, I received a picture of the Holy Father, his blessing and his handwritten signature. The Pope said, “Now go back to the barracks and just convey to these people my blessing – the special blessing that I have sent to you for them.” Which I did. So the reason for today’s trip was to go and give the picture with the blessing of the Holy Father to the residents of Napier Barracks.
Certainly the Pope is very attentive to their needs. The marginalised, the person in trouble, the person who sometimes is not well-received… well, this is Jesus Christ. This is exactly what happened to Jesus. Jesus told us that all those in that condition and all that is done or given to them, is done and given to Him. It’s simply the Gospel – nothing more, nothing less.
The group we met was mostly Christian. So the very fact that the Pope, not only decided to give this image, this picture and his greetings, but wanted to sign it personally was a sign of hope. What they need is to imagine they can live well integrated into a community and can work for the good of that community. They want to live a life that is different from the slaughters and tragedies that they have had to see – not only in their counties but also during their travels.
So you see, it’s a very simple gesture. It’s a Christian gesture. One of the most morally significant people in the world thought of them – took them into consideration, blessed them. It’s an expression of solidarity, which for them is a reason for living and continuing to wait and expect the possibility of a better life without persecution
Read more: https://www.cbcew.org.uk/nuncio-brings-popes-blessing-to-asylum-seekers-housed-at-napier-barracks/
See this post: Public Order Bill is a Threat https://statusnow4all.org/public-order-bill-is-a-threat/
Guardian: Far-right threat feared at huge base for asylum seekers in North Yorkshire village
Nicola David, chair of Ripon City of Sanctuary and a member of the Linton-on-Ouse action group, said to Home Office officials at the meeting: “You treat asylum seekers like animals, like pawns in your political game.”
A senior police chief has admitted officers are consulting with counter-terrorism experts about threats from the far right at a military base in North Yorkshire where the Home Office is planning to house 1,500 asylum seekers.
On Thursday night a meeting of residents in the small village of Linton-on-Ouse was told that the first people were due to move in in less than two weeks. The chief inspector for Hambleton and Richmondshire, David Hunter, also acknowledged at the meeting that police were being assisted with advice from Counter-Terrorism North East to prepare for the threat of far-right activity which could put the asylum seekers at risk.
Home Office officials, along with their sub-contractors Serco who will be managing the accommodation, attended the meeting of Linton Parish council to answer questions about the plans from concerned villagers and campaigners. Approximately 10 far-right protesters gathered outside but were barred from entry by police.
Home Office News Team: Repairing the broken asylum system is a moral imperative
This ‘explanation’ for sending people to Rwanda is an outrageous use of language, used to crawl into people’s minds and justify the Government’s actions – pure grooming: https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2022/05/19/repairing-the-broken-asylum-system-is-a-moral-imperative/
Updated 17 May 2022: Yorkshire Live: First asylum seekers to arrive at controversial Linton-on-Ouse centre by the end of the month
The controversial asylum reception centre in a North Yorkshire village is set to receive its first asylum seekers by the end of the month.
Sixty asylum seekers are to be moved into a disused North Yorkshire RAF base by the end of the month, Hambleton District Council has said. The council says it has asked the Government to pause the controversial proposal “immediately” amid opposition from residents in the village of Linton on Ouse.
Read more: https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/first-asylum-seekers-arrive-controversial-23986421
ICIBI: An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation
May 2021 – November 2021
Firstly, whilst relationships are now being repaired, the short notice and lack of consultation provided by the Home Office to local authorities prior to new hotels being established in their areas has damaged relations considerably.
Secondly, the Home Office needs to be realistic in setting targets and working with providers and stakeholders to agree what is achievable. At the start of this inspection we found little credible evidence that the target to end the use of hotels as asylum accommodation by May 2021 would be met; 12 months later nobody believes the revised target of March 2022 is achievable. A clear understanding of the situation which allows the creation of an effective strategy is an essential first step to tackling the huge challenges the Home Office faces.
Finally, ministers need to make timely decisions to enable senior officials to effect change quickly. No one is clear whether the establishment of reception or processing centres will be sufficient to accommodate the current hotel population. However, it is crystal clear that the Home Office must speed up the asylum decision-making process to give people some certainty and move them through the system so they can get on with their lives. Whatever the solution, it cannot come quickly enough for the large number of people who have been living in hotels for many months.
This report was sent to the Home Secretary on 16 February 2022.
David Neal
Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration
Read more: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of-contingency-asylum-accommodation
Channel 4: Former RAF base ‘unsuitable’ as asylum centre, says Tory MP
We spoke to the MP Kevin Hollinrake, and asked him how he felt about the Home Office ignoring his reservations about the planned location of an asylum seeker processing centre at a former RAF base in his constituency. Former RAF base ‘unsuitable’ as asylum centre, says Tory MP
https://www.channel4.com/news/former-raf-base-unsuitable-as-asylum-centre-says-tory-mp
Guardian: ‘Unsafe’ UK accommodation threatens asylum seekers’ health – report
Exclusive: poor healthcare and conditions at sites such as Napier worsen mental and physical illness, Doctors of the World says
Asylum seekers’ accommodation is “unsafe” due to inadequate healthcare, while poor living conditions are exacerbating or creating mental and physical health problems, according to a new report by Doctors of the World.
The charity’s research, published on Wednesday, details the barriers to medical care and medication for asylum seekers in initial accommodation across the UK.
Evidence gathered by Doctors of the World shows that a failure to meet basic human standards in hotels and former military barracks such as Napier in Folkestone has exacerbated depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health concerns among asylum seekers.
Updated 24 April 2022: Guardian: ‘Guantánamo-on-Ouse’ plans to place 1,500 asylum seekers in Yorkshire village
Decision decried as ‘morally bankrupt ploy to reduce our obligations to the most desperate people’
It has been described as Guantánamo-on-Ouse: a giant one-stop reception centre for asylum seekers due to open within weeks slap bang in the middle of a quiet, bucolic North Yorkshire village.
“When we first heard about it they said 500 people and we thought that’s just about manageable,” said 67-year-old Taff Morgan. “Then last night we heard 1,500 and that might not be the maximum. It depends on how many they can fit in.”
Morgan lives in Linton-on-Ouse and like most people in the village he is still digesting the enormity of the government’s New Plan for Immigration.
Most of the attention and controversy has been directed at the proposal to send people to Rwanda. Refugees not sent there will, the government said, go to a new reception centre at the former RAF base at Linton-on-Ouse where they will live while their claims are processed.
The base is not close to Linton, it’s part of Linton.
[…] It would, residents were told, be predominantly adult single men single from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Eritrea being sent to Linton. They might have to live in Greek-style temporary containers. They could live there for up to six months. They will be free to come and go but will be expected back at the site by 10pm.
Villagers point out they don’t have the infrastructure to cope. There are four buses a day to York, 10 miles away. There’s one shop. The village pub closed a number of years ago.
Independent: Priti Patel accused of ‘hypocrisy’ over plans to place asylum seekers on RAF site in rural village
Tory MP points out that two years ago home secretary ordered that asylum seekers be removed from hotel in her own constituency on basis that area was too rural
Priti Patel has been accused of “hypocrisy” over her department’s plan to place asylum seekers in a rural Yorkshire village two years after she claimed they should not be placed in her own constituency because it was not a “major conurbation”.
The home secretary announced plans last week to open the UK’s first bespoke asylum reception centre, set to house upwards of 500 people while their claims are considered, at a former RAF site in Linton-on-Ouse, which has a population of 1,200 and is 10 miles from the nearest town.
But charities and the village’s Tory MP have said the move is contradictory, pointing out that only two years ago the home secretary ordered that asylum seekers be removed from a hotel in her constituency on the basis that the area was too rural and not in close proximity to a town or city.
19 April 2022: Hansard: Global Migration Challenge – in the House of Commons at 3:39 pm on 19th April 2022.
Priti Patel The Secretary of State for the Home Department 3:39 pm, 19th April 2022: With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the United Kingdom’s approach to the global migration challenge.
[…] Every day, the broken asylum system costs the taxpayer almost £5 million in hotel accommodation alone. The cost of the asylum system is the highest in over two decades at over £1.5 billion.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TywHsa1CpkM?feature=oembeddo not piss on me and tell me its raining: speech from todays protests – Loraine Masiya Mponela from CARAG
Updated 8 April 2022: Refugee pupils with no school places have lessons in Manchester car parks
Volunteers run makeshift classrooms for ‘hundreds’ of children at hotels facing long waits to get into schools
The children of refugees and asylum seekers are receiving lessons in hotel car parks in Manchester because no places have been found at local schools, charity workers say.
Children thought to number in the hundreds, who have fled with their families from countries including Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and Syria, are being put up in hotels across the city by the Home Office while they await news about their asylum applications.
Dr Rhetta Moran, a founder of the Manchester-based charity Refugee and Asylum Participatory Action Research (Rapar), said volunteers were giving the children lessons in the car park of a hotel where they are living. She is calling on Manchester city council – as well as outsourcing firm Serco, the company that has the Home Office contract for provision of accommodation in this part of the UK – to address the problem urgently.
Moran said: “Many of these children have been victims of war and persecution. They have then endured traumatic journeys to get to the UK, and upon arrival they are faced with lengthy delays in our asylum and immigration system.”
A resident of one Manchester hotel, who did not wish to be identified, told the Guardian there were about 30 children residing at the same premises as her, predominantly of Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, Yemeni and Sudanese origin, and that some have faced waits of at least six months for a school place.
Updated 7 April 2022: APPG: Napier Barracks visit – report published
MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention have today published their report from a visit in February to Napier Barracks – a former military base near Folkestone where people seeking asylum are being placed by the government in detention-like conditions.
** Access the full visit report here **
An inquiry undertaken last year by the APPG found that being accommodated at Napier left many people seeking asylum feeling dehumanised and suffering a profound deterioration in their mental health, in some cases to the point of attempting suicide.
The MPs visiting in February found that little had changed at the site and said they remain “deeply concerned” for the individuals accommodated there, calling for Napier to be closed with “immediate and permanent effect”.
A ruling by the High Court in June 2021 found that Napier Barracks did not meet minimum standards for asylum accommodation. The parliamentarians’ report warns that changes introduced by the Home Office after the ruling have failed to address the fundamental problems at the site, with serious concerns continuing in relation to:
- inadequate safeguarding of vulnerable people, such as victims of torture and trafficking, with little being done to identify residents who are in need of support
- the physical environment of the site, which was run-down, isolated and bleak, with many buildings in an extremely poor state of repair
- a near total lack of privacy and private spaces at the site, with residents continuing to be accommodated in dormitories of up to 12-14 people and having to share showers, toilets, and other facilities
- noise levels in the dormitories, and the sleep deprivation and the negative impact on residents’ mental health resulting from this
- inadequate access for residents to healthcare and legal advice, and the difficulties they face in engaging with their asylum claim at the site
- the site’s prison-like nature and military features, including security checks upon entering and the presence of security guards patrolling
- the lack of autonomy, choice and control over their daily lives that residents experience at the site.
The report explains that, having seen and experienced the sites for themselves, the MPs are firmly of the view that Napier and other sites like it are fundamentally unsuitable for use as asylum accommodation, and do not allow a person to engage effectively with their asylum claim.
The MPs also confirm in the report their support for the recommendations contained in the 2021 APPG Inquiry Report, including a call to close Napier with immediate and permanent effect, and to ensure that people seeking asylum are housed in decent, safe accommodation in the community that supports their well-being and recovery from trauma, facilitates their engagement with the asylum process, and allows them to build links with their community.
The MPs that took part in the visit were: Alison Thewliss MP (SNP) – APPG Chair; Stuart C. McDonald MP (SNP); Anne McLaughlin MP (SNP); Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (Labour). The visit took place on 2 February 2022.
Read more: https://appgdetention.org.uk/napier-barracks-visit-report-published/
Updated 16 February 2022: ICIBI – COMPLETED INSPECTIONS AWAITING PUBLICATION
The use of contingency asylum accommodation (16 February 2022), which means it’s now waiting for Priti Patel …. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/work-in-progress
Updated 4 February 2022: Guardian: Home Office to stop paying for asylum seekers’ toiletries and medication
Letter to former Afghan guard at British embassy in Kabul says measures will come into effect on 11 February
Asylum seekers staying in hotels have been told by the Home Office that it will stop providing them with free access to non-basic toiletries and over-the-counter medication from next week.
According to a letter seen by the PA news agency, the measures will come into effect on 11 February.
Faiz Mohammad Seddeqi, a former guard at the British embassy in Kabul, has been staying in a hotel in Watford for almost six months after being evacuated from Afghanistan with his wife and son.
Updated 4 February 2022: Corporate Watch: REFUGEES ARE BEING HOUSED IN INFESTED HOTELS BY THE HOME OFFICE’S SLUM LANDLORDS
Corporate Watch has collaborated with The Canary on an investigation about asylum seekers housed in insect-infested hotels run by private landlord Clearsprings for the Home Office.
The investigation includes an interview with an Iraqi Kurdish family, one of 55,000 families housed in Home Office ‘contingency accommodation’, waiting for their asylum claim to get approved.
The Rodja family, whilst living in a hotel run by Clearsprings Ready Homes, have faced bed bugs, the ceiling caving in, water pouring in from the apartment on the floor above, insufficient food, lack of electricity, and dangerous electrics.
Clearsprings has cashed in £4.5 million according to the latest annual accounts. Surging profits have resulted in a seven-fold increase in dividends to its parent company.
Beyond the hotel mentioned in the investigation, Clearsprings rakes profit as the asylum accommodation contractor responsible for South England including the squalid conditions in the ex-military barracks, Napier.
Clearsprings, alongside the Home Office’s other slum landlords Serco and Mitie, profit from the privatisation of the UK’s asylum housing contracts.
Updated 15 December 2021: Asylum Matters: New Joint Report: ‘In a place like prison’: voices from institutional asylum accommodation
Today, Asylum Matters alongside Action Foundation, Birmingham Community Hosting, Birmingham Refugee and Asylum Seekers Solidarity (BRASS), Life Seeker’s Aid Charity and Stories of Hope and Home are launching a new joint report, ‘In a place like prison’: voices from institutional asylum accommodation, which looks at the experiences of people seeking asylum who have been housed in hotels, hostels, barracks and initial accommodation centres. The report demonstrates that this type of institutional accommodation causes harm, and that the UK Government’s plans to introduce new large scale ‘accommodation centres’ for people seeking asylum must be abandoned.
The organisations worked together to carry out in-depth interviews with fourteen people in the asylum system with recent experience of living in institutional asylum accommodation. Their stories shared some common themes, as highlighted in the report, including:
- People we spoke to were left in limbo, for months on end in unsuitable and often unsafe accommodation, with little to no information about their asylum claims.
- While not officially a form of detention, the people we spoke to felt that they were being deprived of fundamental liberties and that their lives were being regulated, given the restrictions on visitors, monitoring of residents’ movements and de facto ‘curfews.’
- People with experiences of detention and torture in their countries of origin felt re-traumatised after being placed in army barracks which caused their past experiences to resurface;
- Both of the pregnant women we interviewed struggled to access antenatal care and nutritious food; one of them struggled to access emergency care following an incident with her high-risk pregnancy;
- The two families with children we spoke had no support to enrol their children in school, with both erroneously being told asylum-seeking children were not allowed to go to school;
- Many of the interviewees we spoke to felt unsafe in their accommodation, particularly as they faced threats and harassment from far-right extremists present at the sites.
The findings of the report are particularly concerning given the Government’s plans, as outlined in its anti-refugee bill, to introduce new ‘accommodation centres’ where people seeking asylum will be housed. We anticipate these facilities, if allowed to come into being, risk permanently instituting the concept of large prison-like refugee camps in the UK. We are calling on the Government to immediately scrap these plans and commit to housing all people seeking asylum safely in our communities.
You can view the report here: ‘In a place like prison’: Voices from institutional asylum accommodation
and despite all the negative reports about the use of camps/barracks: Home Office: New secure site for processing illegal migrants
Manston in Kent announced as new site for secure processing of small boat arrivals.
The Home Office has confirmed that part of the Ministry of Defence site at Manston, Kent will be used as a processing site for illegal migrants by January 2022.
The new, secure site will be able to hold migrants for up to 5 days as security and identity checks are completed.
Read more: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-secure-site-for-processing-illegal-migrants
Updated 9 December 2021: APPG: Inquiry into quasi-detention – full report
Cross-party call by parliamentarians to end dehumanising quasi-detention of people seeking asylum. See our post here: https://qarn.org.uk/appg-inquiry-quasi-detention-in-camps_deadline-25-june-2021/
Updated 28 November 2021: Guardian: ‘Shocking’ that UK is moving child refugees into hotels
Children’s Society criticises practice of placing unaccompanied minors in hotels with limited care
Record numbers of unaccompanied child asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats are being accommodated in four hotels along England’s south coast, a situation that the Children’s Society has described as “shocking”.
About 250 unaccompanied children who arrived in small boats are thought to be accommodated in hotels, which Ofsted said was an unacceptable practice.
In September, Home Office officials told the home affairs select committee it was accommodating 70 unaccompanied children in hotels.
On 23 November the government announced that a scheme for this group of children to be dispersed to different local authorities was temporarily being made mandatory. But individual councils have two weeks to make representations against this new rule. London councils currently care for 1,500 of these children – a third of the total.
Kent county council officials said they were at capacity, caring for 363 unaccompanied child asylum seekers as of 23 November along with 1,071 care leavers.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/28/uk-child-refugees-hotels-unaccompanied-minors
Updated 25 October 2021: Guardian: Asylum accommodation deaths ‘twice as high’ as Home Office admitted
Government accused of downplaying toll after information requests reveal discrepancies
“The steep rise in deaths coincides with the Home Office decision in 2020 to push thousands of asylum seekers into hotels. “
[See more of this article here: https://statusnow4all.org/barriers-to-wellbeing/ and here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/24/asylum-hotel-deaths-twice-as-high-as-home-office-admitted
Updated 5 October 2021: Scottish Housing News: Asylum seekers in hotels should have been given money for phone calls, High Court rules
A decision by the Home Office not to give money to thousands of asylum seekers to make calls to friends and family during the pandemic has been declared unlawful by the High Court.
The ruling means the UK Government could be forced to roll back weekly payments for some 10,000 asylum seekers.
After an earlier hearing, the Home Office agreed to make payments and late payments of £8 a week for other essential living costs previously denied to asylum seekers living in hotels, which authorities say cost £4 million, The Guardian reports. But phone costs were not included. […]
Judge Farbey ruled that being able to communicate by telephone was essential for “interpersonal and social relationships, as well as for cultural and religious life”. […]
[StatusNow signatory] Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action in Housing, said: “We strongly welcome Mrs Justice Farbey’s, ruling in the High court that the Home Office’s decision not to give thousands of asylum seekers money to make calls to friends and family during the pandemic was unlawful. We welcome her ruling that being able to communicate by phone is essential for ‘interpersonal and social relationships as well as cultural and religious life’.
“Our staff and volunteers worked on the ground with many hundreds of asylum seekers throughout the pandemic distributing emergency supplies such as phone top ups, crisis payments, food packs and digital technology. We saw firsthand the oppressive and miserable conditions created by the Home Office and its accommodation contractors for asylum seekers in Glasgow and across the UK at a time when all human beings ought to expect compassion and support.
“Would events at the Park Inn in Glasgow in June 2020 have happened if people had a little money for phone calls or a piece of fruit? Would Adnan Walid Elbi, who was removed from his home and dumped indiscriminately into a guest house in Glasgow with zero social distancing, have still been alive? These are all burning questions that remain but there is no inclination by government towards a public inquiry to ask what happened and why? What we do know is that forcing people already living in a state of near destitution to the brink can only result in further tragedy. We fear that this government has not learnt those lessons.”
Ahmed Aydeed of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, who represented the asylum seeker in the case, said: “The Home Secretary, during the pandemic, failed to meet the basic living needs of the asylum seekers.
“She chose to ignore the advice of her public officials and again the courts forced her to do the right thing. We are happy that our customers finally have access to the essentials of everyday life and can communicate with their families again.”
Updated 1 October 2021: Financial Times: Asylum seekers housed in London hostel that was deemed ‘not safe’
Local council demands UK ministers cut numbers at facility suffering Covid outbreak
The UK government has housed “between 400 and 500” asylum seekers in a building in south London that the local authority had deemed “not safe for use to house rough sleepers” earlier in the pandemic.
The London Borough of Southwark has been raising concerns about the suitability of the hostel since July, when Clearsprings Ready Homes, a Home Office contractor, first expressed its intention to use Driscoll House.
Kieron Williams, council leader, said the building “is not suited or designed to sustain this level of occupation”, in a letter sent to the Home Office last week. He cited concerns both about potential coronavirus spread and fire safety.
The council declined on safety grounds to use the building during the “Everyone In” initiative, when homeless people were housed at the start of the pandemic.
The councillor wrote that Driscoll House “has roughly 100 rooms, only around 70 of which are self-contained”, and highlighted an “active Covid outbreak at the hotel”. He demanded to know when the number of occupants would come down to “safe levels”.
Clearsprings, a UK contractor which had been little known but has become a target of migrant rights campaigners following a High Court ruling that conditions at Napier barracks, a decommissioned military headquarters near Folkestone also managed by Clearsprings, were “squalid”.
Justice Thomas Linden found that precautions undertaken against the spread of Covid-19 within the barracks were “completely inadequate” and an outbreak of the disease in January 2021 “was inevitable”. Of the 400 residents housed at the site at the time, 197 tested positive for coronavirus.
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/bfb357e9-5717-43da-848c-4fb0cf4bdc86
21 September 2021: APPG inquiry into Quasi-detention: https://qarn.org.uk/appg-inquiry-quasi-detention-in-camps_deadline-25-june-2021/
Updated 21 September 2021: Event by Humans for Rights Network and Close The Camps UK: Demonstration 28 September 2021, London:
BBC: Napier Barracks asylum seeker site must close, charities say
Use of a former military barracks to house asylum seekers “beggars belief” and must end, charities say.
Part of Napier Barracks was branded unfit for habitation after two Covid outbreaks, with both a High Court judge and inspectors criticising conditions.
The site was loaned to the Home Office a year ago for emergency use amid rising numbers of people crossing the Channel.
The Home Office said the ex-barracks in Folkestone, Kent, is suitable for use.
Despite continued outcry from charities and refugee organisations, the government announced last month that the barracks could be used for accommodation until as late as 2025.
Tuesday marks a year on from the first asylum seekers moving on to the site. It comes as high numbers of people continue to cross the Dover Strait from France.
In the latest crossings, 41 people on a single boat reached the UK on Sunday, and a further 123 arrived on three boats on Monday.
Read more here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-58638350
Britain 1st has posted a number of videos in the last few days, including of Napier, filming it seems from the top of a car to get around the covers that have been put on the fencing. They clearly still have an intimidating presence.
Updated 18 September 2021: Humans for Rights Network ·
We believe the Home Office is breaking the law by using Napier barracks as asylum accommodation and that’s why we are taking @pritipatel to court. In light of the announcement that our Government plans on continuing to use the site to accommodate asylum seekers until 2025, we are left with no other option than to challenge this decision and call for its closure in the courts. Napier barracks is experienced by many held there as a detention camp or prison and was found by the high court to fall short of the minimum standards for asylum accommodation. People seeking safety in the UK should be provided with safe, secure, private accommodation with access to help and support within communities, not held in dilapidated army barracks. Humans for Rights will continue to advocate alongside these men, ensuring no further harm is done to others forced to live there.
#wearewitnesses#napierbarracks#closethecamps#breakingnews#hfrn#humansforrights#refugeeswelcome#humanrights#legalaction
and other reports: here: https://statusnow4all.org/intervention-by-the-courts/
Updated 17 September 2021: House of Lords SECONDARY LEGISLATION SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
Drawn to the special attention of the House: Town and Country Planning (Napier Barracks) Special Development Order 2021
Piloting new processes
Instruments drawn to the special attention of the House: Town and Country Planning (Napier Barracks) Special Development Order 2021 (SI 2021/962)
This instrument would extend the planning permission for the Napier Barracks in Folkestone to allow them to continue to be used as asylum accommodation until September 2026. We appreciate that the asylum accommodation at Napier Barracks was set up very quickly and has had some operational difficulties in consequence. However, the information that, in the opinion of several authorities including the High Court, the site was unsuitable and significant improvement was required should have been disclosed to Parliament given that the purpose of the instrument is to enable continued operation at that site for a further five years.
The date that the current planning permission expires has been known for 12 months: we found unconvincing the Home Office’s reasons for laying a potentially controversial instrument when Parliament was not sitting, particularly as the Home Office also states that the site may be used to pilot new models for “reception centres”.
8. Paragraph 7.7 of the EM states that “the Napier site may also form part of the Home Office’s longer-term plans to reform the asylum system, as set out in the New Plan for Immigration published on 24 March 2021.”6 In supplementary information the Home Office stated that: “The continued use of the Napier site may enable the new processes to be tested and piloted, and so inform the final design of how accommodation centres will operate.” It is not clear whether this piloting would happen at Napier itself or the additional capacity at Napier would allow sufficient leeway in the overall estate for piloting to happen elsewhere.
9. Nor do the responses of the Home Office make the explicit link to the potentially controversial nature of these pilot programmes. The section indicated in the New Plan refers to the intention to introduce “reception centres”:“To help speed up processing of claims and the removal of people who do not have a legitimate need to claim asylum in the UK, we plan to introduce new asylum reception centres to provide basic accommodation and process claims. We will also maintain the facility to detain people where removal is possible within a reasonable timescale. The use of hotels to accommodate new arrivals who have entered the UK illegally will end.
The reception centre model, as used in many European countries including Denmark and Switzerland, would provide basic accommodation in line with our statutory obligations, and allow for decisions and any appeals following substantive rejection of an asylum claim to be processed fairly and quickly onsite. We will set in legislation a new fast-track appeals process–with safeguards to ensure procedural fairness.”
Timing
10. Paragraph 6.3 of the EM says: “The extension of permission through a Special Development Order has been chosen because it allows permission to be secured in a timely manner, in view of the urgent need to continue to use Napier for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute when the current planning permission expires.” Since the date that the current planning permission expires has been known for 12 months, we found this reason for laying a potentially controversial instrument when Parliament was not sitting unconvincing.
11. We also asked why, given the criticisms about the suitability of the premises, the extension was being sought for five years rather than a shorter period. In their supplementary response the Home Office stated:
“An extension for a five-year period enables the Home Office certainty of occupation and will allow the Department to plan for and invest in the site. There have been significant improvements to the Napier site over the past year in response to the previous criticisms. The investment programme will allow the Home Office to refurbish the accommodation and ensure it will continue to be fit for purpose.”
Conclusion
12. We appreciate that the asylum accommodation at Napier Barracks was set up very quickly and has had some operational difficulties in consequence. However, the information that, in the opinion of several authorities, including the High Court, the site was unsuitable and significant improvement was required, should have been disclosed to Parliament given that the purpose of the instrument is to enable continued operation at the site for a further five years. The APPG Inquiry is evidence of parliamentary concern about its operation, that the EM fails to address
13. In supplementary evidence the Home Office has explained the improvements it has introduced at the site, but the House may wish to satisfy itself whether these changes are sufficient to bring Napier Barracks up to the required standard.
and the accompanying report from our signatory organisation Jesuit Refugee Service is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7349/documents/76790/default/
Updated 17 September 2021: The importance of speaking truth to power: Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration Annual Report for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021
For example, from the end of 2020, with the help of (new to ICIBI) stakeholder groups, I was able to develop a dialogue with residents and former residents of Penally Camp and Napier Barracks. Their first-hand accounts of life in the camps and of the wider asylum process were particularly powerful and instructive.
Updated 15 September 2021: Close The Camps UK @closecampsuk Our govt plans to warehouse people seeking asylum in “unlawful” disused Kent army barracks for 5 more years! To mark 1 year of #NapierBarracks we are taking to the streets to demand they EMPTY THE BARRACKS & CLOSE ASYLUM CAMPS. Join us #closethecampsuk ·
Updated 14 September 2021: thanks to John O at No Deportations/Electronic Immigration Network: More Concerns Over Use of Former Barracks as Asylum Accommodation
All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention on Monday 6th September, published an important interim report on its inquiry into the Home Office’s use of large-scale, institutional sites to house destitute asylum seekers here: https://appgdetention.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/210907-APPG-Inquiry-Interim-report-Summary-of-oral-evidence-sessions.pdf?x78463. T
Just one example:
“Other residents were now having their substantive asylum interview conducted on site, instead of in the community. There were serious concerns about this. People were being been given very little notice of their interview, in some cases just minutes or hours, affecting their ability to prepare. People were also not always able to access legal advice before the interview, or aware of the need for it. As one resident said: “I saw people who went for their interviews without speaking to a lawyer first. I thought it was normal, people were getting their interview letters the day before their interview, so they just did it. We didn’t know any different.”
This week’s interim report presents a summary of three oral evidence sessions held with key witnesses in July. A number of serious concerns were raised by witnesses, with the report noting these included “unsanitary, crowded, ‘prison-like’ conditions at the sites; chronic levels of sleep deprivation; ineffective safeguarding; inadequate access to legal advice and healthcare; problematic changes in the processing of residents’ asylum claims; and intimidation and mistreatment of both residents and NGO workers supporting them.”
The report notes that the cramped conditions and lack of privacy at the sites meant residents had to hold sensitive discussions with their lawyers within earshot of other residents and staff, which had implications for disclosure, confidentiality and the person’s mental health. Sleep deprivation caused by conditions at the sites added further problems. One resident told the APPG inquiry: “I’m mentally and physically drained all the time, and this doesn’t put me into the right mindset for engaging with my asylum claim.” Mechanisms for identifying and safeguarding vulnerable people before and during their placement at the sites were inadequate, the APPG found.
The report states: “In the absence of effective safeguarding measures, the Home Office appeared to be relying on lawyers and legal interventions to identify vulnerable people. Many vulnerable people had been, and continued to be, moved out of the sites as a result of such interventions, having experienced additional suffering during their stay. It was not acceptable to rely on such interventions as a substitute for proper safeguarding measures, not least given the barriers to effective legal support faced by residents.” On the subject of access to legal advice, the report added: “Residents needed legal advice on asylum and public law matters, but faced many barriers in terms of accessing it – and little was being done to address this.
Read more: Electronic Immigration Network, https://is.gd/t0P2Tt
Updated 20 August 2021: BBC: Sheffield hotel fall: Boy who died was Afghan refugee
‘The housing group Mears was looking after the hotel until a few months ago, but safety concerns saw it withdraw to another nearby hotel.What has happened here, therefore, raises some serious questions about what steps were taken to ensure the hotel was safe for vulnerable families and young children and about the state of accommodation being provided to asylum seekers’
Read more here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-58269533
Updated 12 August 2021: Independent: Covid outbreak at controversial camp housing hundreds of asylum seekers
Exclusive: Home Office accused of ‘once again’ putting lives of Napier Barracks residents and wider community at risk
Dozens of asylum seekers have been ordered to self-isolate at a former military barracks following a coronavirus outbreak at the site.
The Independent understands that around 100 residents in four blocks have received a letter from Clearsprings Ready Homes, the firm contracted by the Home Office to manage the camp, telling them to self-isolate after three individuals tested positive.
Updated 8 August 2021: Guardian: Home Office records 70 racist incidents by far right at asylum accommodation
Campaigners say figures for last two years underestimate the true situation at barracks and hotels
The Home Office has recorded 70 racist incidents by far-right supporters against asylum seekers in barracks and hotel accommodation, according to a freedom of information response obtained by the Guardian.
However, campaigners supporting asylum seekers in such accommodation say the figure is a significant underestimation of the true picture.
[…] Just one incident at Penally barracks was reported to the Home Office last year and none in 2021. However, witness statements from legal challenges by asylum seekers living there reveal a catalogue of disturbing episodes, including an attempt to ram a refugee with a car. Others include: stones and bottles being thrown, rape threats, attempts to start fights, fireworks shot through the gate, and eggings. According to witness statements, a farm shop in the area said some of the far-right supporters had asked to buy pigeon scarers to mimic the sound of gun fire and frighten the asylum seekers.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/08/home-office-records-70-racist-incidents-far-right-asylum-accommodation
Update 23 July 2021: ICIBI: An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation:
HMIP report on Penally Camp and Napier Barracks (November 2020 – March 2021)
On 8 March 2021 the then Chief Inspector, David Bolt, published interim high-level findings. This report is the fuller final report that was sent to the Home Office. It reflects the department’s factual accuracy checks, and includes forewords from David Bolt, the previous Chief Inspector, and David Neal, the current Chief Inspector.
There is also a copy of a letter sent in March from David Bolt to the Director General of Asylum and Protection.
Updated 1 July 2021: Independent Chief Inspector on Borders and Immigration – ICIBI:
Note, the new ICIBI – Dave Neal has published a list of reports completed etc. One of the ‘completed inspections awaiting publication’ is ‘An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation: HMIP report on Penally Camp and Napier Barracks (7 June 2021)’. Priti Patel can hold this for a while until she is ready to publish. Maybe we need to ask our MPs to ask questions about when it will be released:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/work-in-progress
1 July 2021 Shropshire Star: Napier Barracks ‘could be used to house asylum seekers for longer’
Lawyers and medical professionals gave evidence to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Immigration Detention.
The Government may be considering using military barracks to house asylum seekers for “another couple of years”, MPs and peers have heard.
Lawyers told a parliamentary inquiry that Napier Barracks in Kent could be used for asylum accommodation beyond September, after it was initially thought the measure was temporary and anticipated to last for about a year during the coronavirus pandemic.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention heard evidence on Thursday from legal and medical professionals who have worked with people staying at the barracks, after it launched an inquiry into the Home Office’s use of such sites amid concerns over living conditions.
Sue Willman, a solicitor at Deighton Pierce Glynn Law, told the politicians: “We have heard that the Government plan to extend use of the barracks beyond September, which is something we are very concerned about, that they’re continuing to use it for another couple of years.”
Read more here: https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2021/07/01/napier-barracks-could-be-used-to-house-asylum-seekers-for-longer/
Updated 28 June 2021 Guardian: Home Office proposals due on sending asylum seekers abroad
Legislation expected next week that could open way to moving asylum seekers offshore while claims pending
The home secretary, Priti Patel, will publish proposed legislation next week that will open the door to sending asylum seekers overseas as they await the outcome of their application for protection in the UK.
Ministers published the New Plan for Immigration in March, which included proposals to amend sections 77 and 78 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 so that it would be possible to move asylum seekers from the UK while their asylum claim or an appeal is pending.
Home Office sources confirmed that the legislation was expected to be published next week, but sought to play down reports that the government was in talks with Denmark over sharing a centre in Africa.
“We’re not opening talks with Denmark over the sharing of a centre,” a source told the Guardian. “Governments talk to other governments who are pursuing similar policy aims to see how they are getting on. It’s not a regular dialogue, it was a slightly long phone call [with the Danish government] to see what they were doing. We’ve both got a similar issue and believe a similar policy solution is one of the answers. But it’s a bit premature.”
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/28/home-office-proposals-due-on-send
From Oxford University Faculty of Law: The Everyday Cruelties of the UK Asylum System
[Extract below]
The cruelties of isolation
Social contact has, however, been limited even in the hotels. At times of complete lockdown, volunteer visits to the hotel were only possible to drop things off (e.g clothes, phones). Sometimes I had to distribute outside even in mid-winter. Even when lockdown eased, frequent changes in the staff of the companies managing the hotel meant constantly changing rules about what is allowed and what not. In the past eight months, I have only rarely been able to just sit and chat. Social contact between Sudanese has also been made difficult during the pandemic, as they were told they could not visit eachother in their rooms and had to adhere to social distancing rules when elsewhere in the hotel. For Sudanese to stay and eat alone, is also very undermining of their identity, culture and religion, for example during Ramadan.
Now that most of my new Sudanese friends are in Home Office managed houses in the north of England, they seem relieved because at least something has happened (and it’s not deportation). But they face new obstacles for social contact, communication, and subsistance. Everyone has been separated – some in different houses in the same city but most in different cities far apart. This separation means that most no longer have access to the few English speakers amongst them for translation. Wifi is not provided, which once again makes it difficult to communicate (no WhatsApp or Google translate), continue online English classes, get health care or contact lawyers, or register for college in the new place. While individuals do keep in touch, they have lost face-to-face contact with the friends and support network they had in London. The £39/week they receive now for subsistence does not cover the transport needed to meet up or Wifi, as well as other basic needs. And most recently, people have not even been receiving this money. The Home Office has recently changed the company providing the debit payment cards. However, when their old card stopped working on 21 May, many were left without access to cash for weeks because they had not received the new card. Some received emergency payments but others did not, thus potentially going hungry or leaving them dependent on food banks, charities or the kindness of volunteers.
The cruelties outlined here are only a fraction of those faced by asylum seekers in the UK. Much more can be written and no doubt much more is to come. It is up to all of us as volunteers, charity workers, researchers, citizens to keep resisting and protesting these cruelties until they end.
Read the whole blog here: Jaspars, S. (2021). The Everyday Cruelties of the UK Asylum System. Available at: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2021/06/everyday [28.6.2021]
Update 23 June 2021: Guardian: Transfers of asylum seekers to Napier barracks suspended
Health officials say Kent accommodation could be site of ‘enduring’ Covid transmission
The transfer of asylum seekers to the controversial Napier barracks in Kent has been suspended, the Guardian has learned, as internal documents show government health officials warned it could become a site of “reoccurring or enduring” Covid transmission.
There was a mass Covid outbreak at the barracks in January and February, with about half of all its occupants – approximately 197 people – infected.
The Home Office has insisted it is not closing the barracks and more than 200 asylum seekers are now accommodated there. But the decision not to transfer new residents there is a significant shift in government policy, which has been steadily refilling the barracks after emptying them due to the outbreak.
Updated 14 June 2021: Hansard: Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation, Volume 696: debated on Thursday 10 June 2021
Extracts: Chris Phelps: ‘The current arrangements on the site are due to run until September. No decision has been made beyond that, but I assure my hon. Friend that he will be closely engaged with at all stages as any further decision is taken.’
There are some deeply troubling aspects the this Hansard session, and also some excellent points made.
In January, there was a major covid outbreak at the Home Office centre at Napier barracks. Some 200 people got covid, both residents and staff, impacting on the local community too. Last week’s damning court judgment said:
“The ‘bottom line’ is that the arrangements at the Barracks were contrary to the advice of PHE…The precautions which were taken were completely inadequate to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infection, and…the outbreak which occurred in mid-January 2021 was inevitable.”
The Home Office put people in dormitory blocks, with shared facilities for up to 28 people, at the height of a pandemic.
When the Home Affairs Committee asked the Home Secretary about this, she said that
“the use of the accommodation was all based on Public Health England advice, and…working in line with public health guidance…so we have been following guidance in every single way.”
The permanent secretary told the Committee
“we were following the guidance at every stage”.
But the court judgment and the evidence from PHE shows the opposite is true.
An internal Home Office email from 7 September records PHE advice as
“advice is that dormitories are not suitable”.
Public Health England told the Home Affairs Committee they
“don’t know how dormitories can be COVID compliant.”
They told the Home Office to follow youth hostel guidance—single rooms only and dormitories to be closed, except for household groups. They and Public Health Wales advised that if the Home Office were going ahead, they should at least limit the number of beds to six, keep people in bubbles with clear isolation facilities and have strong cleaning regimes. None of those things happened at Napier.
Instead, the independent inspectorate and local health officials found poor ventilation in dormitories, inadequate shared washing facilities, a deficient cleaning regime and no proper arrangements for self-isolation, with those testing positive and negative all kept in the same large dormitories. The Home Office was clearly not following public health advice in every way or at every stage. The Minister has an obligation to correct the record, so will he now admit that the Home Office did not follow public health advice and apologise for the inaccurate information given?
Will the Minister tell us what is happening now? Leading local health professionals have warned that the site still cannot be considered safe, and the Home Office’s own documents show local health professionals saying that another outbreak is inevitable. Charities have told me that there are still 12 to 14 people in a room and 28 people in shared blocks. Is that true, even after a damning inspectorate report and a damning court judgment, and even after 200 people caught covid on the site? The Home Office has a responsibility to keep people safe. Why has it been ignoring public health advice in the middle of a pandemic and putting public health at risk?
Kent Live: The biggest misconceptions about Napier Barracks in Folkestone debunked
Many still believe the site is fit for purpose, even after a wave of criticism and a High Court defeat for the Home Office
A Parliamentary debate on Napier Barracks has only served to fuel the furious divide between the Home Office, vulnerable refugees and the High Court.
The debate, held yesterday (June 10), came after the High Court ruled the Home Office had acted unlawfully in housing asylum seekers at the barracks near Folkestone.
Both Home Secretary Priti Patel and Under-Secretary for the Home Office, Kevin Foster MP, did not attend, with the latter not present due to a family bereavement.
In their absence Chris Philp MP, who grew up in Orpington, represented the Home Office.
Throughout the debate, a number of familiar topics emerged: from criticisms made by Public Health England and the British Red Cross to emotive comments over whether the barracks, which were built during the First World War, were still fit for purpose.
Very few concrete answers emerged however. The High Court ruling seemed to have done little more than reinforce the Home Office’s position that it had nothing to apologise for, in spite of its recent loss.
As a result, there weren’t many material takeaways from the debate.
Instead there were a few key themes that demand further inspection.
Below we explore the four biggest misconceptions about Napier Barracks tackled in yesterday’s debate and the truth behind them.
1. ‘If the barracks were good enough for troops, then why aren’t they suitable for refugees?’
This emotionally-charged question came up a number of times.
However, ignored by many who asked this question was the point made by the Chief Inspector of Prisons following an inspection in Feburary 2021.
The independent inspectors found that the conditions at Napier were “impoverished, run-down and unsuitable for long-term accommodation.”
The High Court ruling did side with the Home Office, stating that the accommodation was not “squalid” and was closer to adequat.
However this does not mean lodgings are perfect – and they have been described as “less than pristine”.
Critically – as one MP pointed out – if it had been soldiers and not refugees living in conditions that caused “a significant risk of harm or self harm and attempted suicide” and saw a COVID outbreak with over half of the inhabitants getting infected, the issue may well have been taken more seriously by the responsible office.
There have been several occasions of Napier residents reporting they felt suicidal, had self harmed, or even attempted to end their own lives while staying at the accommodation.
Prior to use in 2020, the barracks had been unused for four to five years by the military.
It was already scheduled for redevelopment after a 2014 report indicated that the buildings “were never intended for long-term use,” and conversion of the existing blocks was “unsuitable”.
In September 2020, shortly before the use of the accommodation to house refugees, permission was granted to developer Taylor Wimpey who planned to demolish the barracks and redevelop the area.
These details indicate that, on many levels, the buildings may not have been appropriate for long-term housing of vulnerable people.
2. ‘If Napier Barracks is so bad, why do people still come to the UK to seek asylum?’
This question is commonly asked in relation to dangerous Channel crossings.
The reasons for people wanting to settle in the UK are varied, but among them include social pulls like family connections, knowing the language of the country they are headed to or a national reputation for toleranc
Though several MPs emphasised that nations like Italy, Germany and France are all safe places, many refugees may have relatives in the UK, meaning their best bet isn’t settling in mainland Europe but finding community among family or those from their country of origin.
The far-right has also been on the rise across Europe, with political parties like Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Germany’s AfD and the Italian Five Star Movement gaining momentum in recent years.
Meanwhile Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is an explicitly anti-refugee head of government.
This shift in attitude may mean that that refugees have legitimate reasons to believe the political climate in many European countries is hostile towards them.
And, as many can probably sympathise, moving to a new country is scary enough, let alone going somewhere where you don’t know the language and don’t have family by your side.
3. Home Office ‘did everything in our power to provide shelter for those in need’
This was the most often repeated line from Chris Philp MP during yesterday’s debate, emphasising that the accommodation was acquired on short notice and improvements were made as quickly as possible to make it fit for purpose.
However, there is a large amount of evidence contradicting this statement.
The Chief Inspector of Prisons’ report aside, advice from Public Health England and The British Red Cross was that the facilities could not be made COVID-safe while continuing to operate as shared dormitories.
The provisions at the time left no room for individuals to socially distance effectively, with 28 people to a single room before adjustments were made.
This number later fell to a still crowded 14.
The advice from Public Health England as disclosed in the ruling was that the maximum number of people in a dormitory should be six.
Given this, and that the lack of isolation facilities that meant site-wide lockdowns were needed in the event of an outbreak amounted to “unlawful imprisonment”, according to the judge’s ruling.
The idea that Napier was the best that could be done is questionable in the light of the ruling.
There were also warnings that the barracks was not fire-safe before a blaze erupted in January.
When pressed to comment on this, Chris Philp MP stated that the Home Office “Make[s] absolutely no apology” for its efforts.
4. On the suitability of Napier Barracks for those fleeing war and torture
Even if these details aren’t representative of Napier after adjustments have been made – which the Home Office has repeatedly insisted have taken place – one issue remains unaddressed.
Many of those living at Napier are fleeing countries such as Eritrea, Sudan or Syria, which have experienced ongoing humanitarian crises and civil wars in the last decade.
The presence of yoga sessions, footballs or a library at Napier Barracks – all of which were brought up repeatedly in the Parliamentary debate – does not erase the fact the building itself is a military facility.
This fact is troubling given the asylum seekers placed at Napier often have trauma related to conflict and war.
Bridget Chapman, of Kent Refugee Action Network has argued that Napier itself risks “retraumatising,” those who have had negative experiences in a military context and is unnecessarily reminiscent of the conditions refugees have attempted to flee.
Contrary to these suggestions from activists, debate in Parliament saw the reassessment of human rights law brought up as a means to remove the “blockage” to the Home Office’s new, desired system.
Updated 6 June 2021: Guardian: Asylum seekers in Napier barracks ‘face blacklist threat for speaking out’
Residents in the Home Office facility claim they have been told their applications will be ‘impaired’ if they talk to the media
Asylum seekers held at the Home Office’s widely criticised military barracks in Kent claim they will be “blacklisted” if they speak out after last week’s high court ruling that the decision to use the site was unlawful.
Staff employed by private Home Office contractors at the Napier barracks site at Folkestone have allegedly told residents that their asylum application will be impaired if they talk to the media about conditions at the camp.
On Thursday asylum seekers won a legal challenge against the government that ruled Napier’s “squalid” accommodation failed to meet a minimum standard. The high court ruling prompted calls for the home secretary, Priti Patel, to resign and the barracks to be closed immediately.
Maddie Harris from Humans for Rights Network, which documents violations against asylum seekers, said allegations that contracted staff were still warning asylum seekers that their claims would be compromised for shedding light on conditions was alarming.
Harris said she understood that one staff member had recently approached a group of five Napier residents and singled out two of them.
“They were specifically told that it was known they had spoken to the media and this would affect their claim,” she said.
After the high court ruling Harris said fresh allegations emerged that Napier residents were again warned not to approach the media.
5 June 2021: Guardian: Scroungers, lefty lawyers… the Tories duck scrutiny by inventing enemies
Abiding by judicial oversight is alien to a government that acts as if it’s above the law
You cannot say anything coherent without generalising, and so, and to generalise, the British will lose their rights to challenge an over-mighty and underwhelming state because they hate foreigners more than they love political accountability.
The Johnson administration knows that as long as it portrays asylum seekers as cheats arriving in the UK illegally and their solicitors as activist “lefty lawyers”, tricking the trusting public into allowing scrounging aliens to remain on our island, it can end scrutiny of its abuses of power.
Boris Johnson’s government ducks every hard issue from the abysmal state of social care to declining productivity. Instead, it proposes to put scrutiny of its actions beyond the reach of the courts by restricting judicial review of unlawful state decisions.
Updated 4 June 2021: Guardian: Home Office ordered to move torture victim out of ‘prison-like’ hotel
High court judge says Crowne Plaza near Heathrow airport is not suitable for trafficked asylum seeker
A judge in the high court has ordered the Home Office to move a torture and trafficking victim out of a “prison-like” hotel surrounded by an 8ft wall.
Judge Coe QC heard an application for urgent action known as interim relief against the Home Office after officials failed to move the man, known as AA, from the Crowne Plaza hotel near Heathrow airport to more suitable accommodation.
The order, made on Tuesday, is thought to be the first of its kind. It is hoped that it will help other trafficking victims accommodated in unsuitable hotels by the Home Office. […]
‘The court heard that the Crowne Plaza, with its intimidating high fences, bag searches and security guards, is not a suitable environment for a trafficking victim.’
Updated 3 June 2021: High Court rules Home Secretary acted unlawfully in accommodating asylum seekers in inadequate Napier barracks
Comment from StatusNow4All signatory: Care4Calais: · **Breaking news**The high court found today:
– Napier Barracks was inadequate accommodation for asylum seekers, placing them at risk of a fire and contracting COVID-19
– The Government’s process for selecting people to be accommodated at the Barracks was flawed and unlawful
– Residents of Napier Barracks were unlawfully detained under purported Covid rules
Read more here: https://statusnow4all.org/high-court-rules-home-secretary-acted-unlawfully-in-accommodating-asylum-seekers-in-inadequate-napier-barracks/
Updated 22 May 2021: Independent: Dozens of vulnerable asylum seekers wrongly placed in Napier Barracks despite watchdog warnings
Exclusive: One in five people placed in former military camp in past six weeks have been transferred out after Home Office admits they are too vulnerable to be in barracks accommodation
The Independent has learned that around one in five individuals placed in the former military camp since it reopened on 9 April have been transferred out after the department admitted they had vulnerabilities which, according to its own criteria, made them unsuitable to be in barracks accommodation. Campaigners have also raised alarm at the fact that the Home Office has started to carry out asylum interviews in the camp, reportedly sometimes giving residents just a few hours’ notice and not providing adequate means of accessing legal advice ahead of their interview.
Updated 17 May: See the petition to close Hassockfield: Please sign here: www.change.org/stop-detaining-women
Agnes Tanoh, a refugee woman and community organiser who was previously held in detention at Yarl’s Wood, has launched an online petition against the new centre. She says:
‘This is personal for me. I claimed asylum here because I was being persecuted in my country and I thought I would be killed. But I was locked up at Yarl’s Wood for 3 months. I know how detention destroys a woman. Women become depressed and suicidal in detention. I don’t want to see this happen to any of my sisters. Previously, the Home Office said it would make changes so that fewer people are locked up. I thought change was coming, I allowed myself to feel some hope. If this detention centre opens the Home Office will be going back on its promises, and will harm vulnerable women who need support.’
Guardian: Home Office plan for women’s immigration centre faces legal challenge
Campaigners and MPs express concerns at proposals for new detention facility in Durham
A charity is challenging the planned opening of a new immigration detention centre for 80 women in County Durham – the Home Office’s first new detention centre since 2014.
Women for Refugee Women, whose work includes advocating for women in immigration detention, challenges whether the Home Office is complying with equality rules in the development of the new detention centre.
It has started legal action against the Home Office over a planned centre at Hassockfield in County Durham, which is due to open in the autumn.
Alphonsine Kabagabo, director of Women for Refugee Women, said: “The majority of women seeking asylum who are locked up in immigration detention are survivors of rape, trafficking, torture and other horrific violence. Detention re-traumatises them and makes it even more difficult for them to resolve their immigration cases.”
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/17/home-office-challenged-over-planned-womens-immigration-detention-centre
APPG: Inquiry into quasi-detention, deadline 25 June 2021
All Party Parliamentary Group – APPG: Immigration has launched an Inquiry into quasi-detention
The APPG on Immigration Detention is conducting an inquiry into the UK Government’s use of large-scale institutional sites, such as former military barracks and a temporarily ‘de-designated’ Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), as asylum accommodation.
Such sites replicate many of the features found in detained settings, including isolation from the wider community, visible security measures, and reduced levels of privacy and control/agency for residents. The inquiry therefore refers to them as sites of ‘quasi-detention’.
The APPG invites individuals and organisations with relevant information to submit written evidence to the inquiry.
You must read the call for the written evidence before submitting: https://appgdetention.org.uk/inquiry-into-quasi-detention-the-use-of-large-scale-institutional-sites-as-asylum-accommodation-call-for-written-evidence/
The deadline for submitting written evidence is 5pm on Friday 25 June 2021.
10 May 2021: Close The Camps UK: We are a coalition of grass-roots groups organising against the Home Office housing of asylum seekers in Napier Barracks, an old army accommodation in Kent that has been declared unfit for purpose. Join us on 22 May for a day of solidarity at Napier Barracks!
Hello friends, comrades, chosen family and fellow workers.
Hello siblings of colour, migrants and asylum seekers, LGBT and sex workers fam, poor and working class folks, Gypsy, Roma and Travelers, feminists, trade unionists, activists and all those who stand in solidarity with us to oppose state violence.
We are here today representing a small new coalition of groups and organisations working to expose a huge injustice. We are here speaking on behalf of friends who are unable to be here themselves.
Two hours away from where we are standing now, right outside Folkestone in Kent, our government is operating a camp, where vulnerable people, who committed no crime, are ‘warehoused’ in inhumane conditions. They are doing this in our name.
The Home Office subcontractor, the infamous and disgraced Clearspring Ready Homes, is using abandoned army barracks to lock up asylum seekers. These barracks have been declared ‘unsuitable for human accommodation’ by independent inspectors and a ‘living nightmare’ by anyone who was forced to live in them.
Napier Barracks in Kent holds some of the most vulnerable people, who escaped war and persecution, torture, traffiking and exploitation. Residents are forced to live in prison-like conditions, with no release date and in complete violation of their fundamental human rights.
The situation in the camp is desperate. The residents sleep 10 to a room and use shared facilities in direct breach of covid safety rules. In January, a covid outbreak affected 200 people and a suspected new covid outbreak is now again putting lives at risk. Napier is crawling with bed bugs, scabies and even TB. Residents suffer from anxiety, depression and some are suicidal. There is no adequate healthcare in the camp and no access to mental healthcare whatsoever.
A current Napier resident told us yesterday:
I feel I’m detained! I feel they’re punishing me. I can’t sleep at night and I’m scared of getting the virus because I live with 10 ppl in a room! There is no privacy and no respect.
Napier has a lasting effect. A former resident told us:
I want to urge everyone to pay attention to the residents’ wellbeing. I used to consider myself physically and mentally healthy before going to Napier barracks. I am now dealing with insomnia and anxiety. Just imagine what the ones who are victims of torture, war and persecution are experiencing. I totally felt that we are treated as less than human beings — when no one listened to our complaints, hunger strikes and protests about the dire conditions of the camp, about it being unhygienic and about the food being raw and inadequate. We were ignored when we protested against being put with nearly 28 other people in one block, sharing 2 showers and toilets together without privacy, decency and dignity. This led half of us to become ill with Covid-19.
This brutality is, of course, not new. It is part of a wider programme of state violence directed at anyone who doesn’t conform to the Tories’ notion of a ‘productive citizen’, with its explicit racism, classism and misogyny — this is extended to all of us who dare to dissent. The UK’s violent borders and cruel immigration system are causing ongoing harm, here and abroad, continuing the barbarity of empire and colonialism. As always, it is the state that inflicts the most violence on the most vulnerable people.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and its counterpart, the New Plan for Immigration, will give the state further powers to brutalise, oppress and silence us. We must oppose this violence in all its forms and everywhere – on the streets, at our schools and universities, at our workplaces and places of worship, and where it is most present – in our police, prison system, detention centres and border enforcement.
Napier was not the only camp our government used to hold asylum seekers. A barracks camp at Penally, west Wales was closed in March after residents launched a self-organised campaign as the autonomous Camp Residents of Penally union. With support from anti-racist groups and organisations, lawyers and journalists, they fought to close down Penally Barracks – and won!
They proved that when the people who are most affected, self organise to take radical action – they can defeat the brutality of the state.
Napier is different — residents’ protests and hunger strikes in 2020 were ignored and the camp will soon be filled again with hundreds more people. Priti Patel and the Home Office are using Napier as a flagship for their new and dangerous immigration policy, a massive extension to the existing hostile environment — this new bill is a statement of intent for a new regime of violence the Home Secretary is planning to inflict. Napier residents are collateral damage in this racist and harmful political power game.
This is a call to action.
On Saturday 22 May we will travel to Kent to stand in solidarity with Napier residents. We will show them they are not alone and they are not forgotten. We will offer our care and friendship, whatever material support we can share and any experience we can lend.
We will tell them: your struggle is our struggle – against racist borders and a violent state.
We would like to end with another message from a former Napier resident: Your words matter. Your actions matter. Be alarmed by this government’s use of army camps as asylum accommodations. Let us raise our voice together and say that we do not want to see human beings used as tools for political purposes. We have to tell the government that harming and sacrificing people’s wellbeing to send a political message is immoral and shameful.
See the website for more details: https://www.closethecamps.uk/
To keep everyone safe, please make sure you wear a mask and stay in the group you arrived with. Workshops and activities will run in small numbers and with social distancing.
Supporting Organisations
Cooperation Town
Migrants Organise
Kent Refugee Action Network
LGSM (Lesbians & Gays Support the Migrants)
CROP (Camp Residents of Penally union)
Humans for Rights Network
Sisters Uncut
Refugee Community Kitchen
BLM UK
Channel Rescue
SWARM (Sex Workers Advocacy & Resistance Movement)
Women’s Strike Assembly UK
Life Seekers Aid
Antiuniversity Now
23 April 2021: Guardian: Report condemns Home Office failures at barracks used to house asylum seekers
Exclusive: documents seen by the Guardian criticises serious errors in management of Napier and Penally sitesThe full scale of Home Office failures in managing former military sites as makeshift accommodation for asylum seekers is laid bare in a raft of damning documents seen by the Guardian.
An unpublished report by prison inspectors and correspondence sent by the outgoing chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt, highlight “serious mistakes” and “fundamental failures of leadership and planning” by the Home Office in its management of the Napier barracks site in Kent and Penally camp in Pembrokeshire.
[…] Commenting on the findings, Stuart McDonald, SNP MP and member of the home affairs select committee, said: “The Home Office simply dumped hundreds of vulnerable people in totally unsuitable accommodation – and dangerous given the global health pandemic – and washed its hands of responsibility by leaving completely unequipped subcontractors to take charge.”
He added: “Shockingly, far from wanting to close the barracks, the Tories apparently see this type of ‘warehousing’ as the future for asylum accommodation. This will be a disaster for everyone, but most importantly, for the vulnerable people whose health and wellbeing will suffer drastically as a result. The Tories cannot be trusted with the asylum system – far from fixing it, they are destroying it”. […]
17 April 2021: APPGDetention @APPGDetention: Good to see coverage today of our call for @pritipatel to close Napier Barracks w/ immediate effect. Based on evidence from @IndependentCI + @HMIPrisonsnews it is clear that continuing to house people at the site puts them at very serious risk of harm. Read the full letter:
160421-Letter-from-APPG-to-Patel-re-Barracks-AccommodationDownload
Guardian: MPs and peers urge Priti Patel to shut Napier barracks asylum site
Cross-party group says people should be housed in community rather than ‘unacceptable’ camp in Kent
A cross-party group of parliamentarians has urged the home secretary to close a controversial military barracks being used to house asylum seekers with immediate effect, and instead house them in the community where they can receive appropriate support.
Members of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on immigration detention, which has more than 40 members, have written to Priti Patel to say they “entirely agree” with serious concerns aired by the then independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt, about conditions at Napier barracks in Kent.
At a meeting with APPG last month, Bolt, who has recently stepped down from his role, told the group it was a “serious error of judgment” to think military barracks could be suitable to house asylum seekers.
The parliamentarians described the conditions at Napier, where almost 200 people tested positive for coronavirus during an outbreak in January and February, as “utterly unacceptable” and said the report highlighted “serious failings on the part of the Home Office in terms of leadership, planning and accountability”.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/17/mps-peers-urge-priti-patel-shut-napier-barracks-asylum-site
Updated 16 April 2021: Kent Online: Full report issued on failings of asylum seeker accommodation at Napier Barracks, Folkestone
Asylum seeker accommodation at a Kent barracks has been slammed in a full report of failings at the camp.
The Napier Barracks in Folkestone was re-purposed as housing to cope with a rise in attempted illegal crossings.
However, that use has since ended after an outcry from MPs, Public Health England, human rights groups and the residents themselves.
Wednesday saw the beginning of a High Court case, being raised by six asylum seekers who stayed in the more than 100-year-old buildings.
As part of the body of evidence, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) issued a full report into conditions at the camp which highlighted many failings.
The High Court heard the housing was “unsafe”, with six asylum seekers who had previously stayed there describing the conditions as “appalling”.
Staff from the department “were rarely present at either site” and managers at both sites lacked “the experience and skills to run large-scale communal accommodation,” it added.
Among other findings, the report highlighted the following issues:
– The accommodation was “inadequate” and “unsuitable”.
– There were “serious safeguarding concerns”. One person who was identified as a potential victim of trafficking remained there for a further 10 weeks before being transferred. In total, 31 residents had to be moved over health and safeguarding fears.
– People at high risk of self-harm were taken to a “decrepit” isolation block which was “unfit for habitation”.
– Seven people were thought to have self-harmed there and a further seven had “threatened suicide”. One “actively suicidal resident” had remained on the site for more than a month.
– Home Office communication with asylum seekers was “poor” and the “dearth of official information gave rise to misunderstandings and rumours, which had a negative effect on individuals and the collective mood”.
– The lack of privacy, activities and limited information available for asylum seekers had a “corrosive effect on residents’ morale and mental health”.
– Some asylum seekers believed to be children were kept at the barracks for long periods of time before being placed with social services. In one instance, this was for more than two months.
– Staff – who were mainly security guards with backgrounds in nightclub, hotel and retail security or personal protection – were seen to be pleasant and respectful towards the asylum seekers but were “ill-equipped” to deal with the complex problems they faced.
Updated 15 April 2021: Independent: Vulnerable asylum seeker kept at Napier Barracks for weeks after attempting to take his life
Safeguarding failings meant suicidal individuals and potential trafficking victims remained in camp for weeks despite Home Office saying vulnerable people should not be there, previously unseen report shows.
A vulnerable asylum seeker was held at Napier Barracks for weeks after he attempted suicide at the camp, according to a previously unseen report which raises “serious concerns” about safeguarding on the site.
A damning Prison Inspectorate report into the accommodation of asylum seekers at the Ministry of Defence site in Kent, carried out in February, warns of “major weaknesses” in the way residents with serious mental health and welfare needs are cared for at the camp.
The report, which has not yet been published in full but was released to journalists after it was referenced during court proceedings, found there had been seven incidents of self-harm at the barracks – with some described as “serious” – and that seven residents had threatened suicide.
The findings were cited as evidence in a legal challenge over the use of Napier Barracks, which was repurposed into asylum accommodation in September and around 400 individuals were subsequently moved in.
The camp was emptied in April, but the Home Office has started placing a new cohort of asylum seekers there and intends to use the site until September – which the claimants’ lawyers are hoping to prevent.
Independent: Home Office accepts it placed asylum seekers at heightened risk of Covid in barracks, court hears
The Home Office has admitted that it placed asylum seekers at increased risk of contracting coronavirus when housing them in military barracks, and justified this by saying the men were “young and healthy”.
Priti Patel’s lawyers said she had “always accepted and acknowledged that transmission risk is higher in congregate settings” such as Napier Barracks in Kent, where she placed 400 asylum seekers last September.
[…] The camp was emptied in April, but the Home Office has started placing a new cohort of asylum seekers there and intends to use the site until September.
A High Court hearing is taking place this week in which lawyers acting for six former residents of the barracks argue that housing asylum seekers is unlawful and breaches their human rights.
14 April 2021: BBC: Napier Barracks: Suicide attempts at ‘unsafe’ asylum-seeker camp
A former military barracks used to house asylum seekers was “squalid, ill-equipped” and “unsafe”, the High Court heard.
Six men who were housed at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, claim the accommodation breached their human rights.
Tom Hickman QC said an independent report found seven suicide attempts and seven incidents of serious self-harm.
The Home Office argues that the use of the barracks is lawful.
The six asylum seekers, who were all said to be victims of torture or human trafficking, claim there was a lack of healthcare, with no mental health support and only one nurse on site, the court heard.
Mr Hickman said that with high fences and a nightly curfew, it had “all the hallmarks of a detention facility” and was “not adequate accommodation for vulnerable persons”.
He said it was “squalid, ill-equipped, lacking in personal privacy and unsafe”.
Independent: Home Office placed hundreds of asylum seekers at ‘serious risk’ of fire in Napier Barracks, document reveals
Home Office placed hundreds of asylum seekers at ‘serious risk’ of fire in Napier Barracks, document reveals
The Home Office placed hundreds of asylum seekers in military barracks where they were at “significant risk” of a fire breaking out, previously unseen documents show.
Six men who were housed at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, claim the accommodation breached their human rights.
Tom Hickman QC said an independent report found seven suicide attempts and seven incidents of serious self-harm.
The Home Office argues that the use of the barracks is lawful.
The six asylum seekers, who were all said to be victims of torture or human trafficking, claim there was a lack of healthcare, with no mental health support and only one nurse on site, the court heard.
Mr Hickman said that with high fences and a nightly curfew, it had “all the hallmarks of a detention facility” and was “not adequate accommodation for vulnerable persons”.
He said it was “squalid, ill-equipped, lacking in personal privacy and unsafe”.
Read more here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-56746188
Care4Calais: Volunteers welcome new Napier Barracks residents to Folkestone
It has been heartbreaking to hear our friends panic when they receive a letter saying they are moving to the infamous Napier Barracks. Just like us, they have heard the horror stories. The saving grace has been our brilliant volunteers in Folkstone who have stepped up as always. On Sunday, they went to greet around 50 new arrivals and reassure them that we will be on hand to support them going forward.
The volunteers took cakes, snacks and drinks to share with the residents. They played football, and spent time talking to people and getting to know them. Yesterday, they ran a circuits session and organised games for some fun and exercise, and there have been walks on the seafront and cliffs too.
Small improvements may have been made but It is still an army barracks and this induces fear in those fleeing conflict. People are still in shared dormitories which cannot be Covid safe. They are still cut off from communities that can help them.
Already we are seeing indications that sufficient improvements have not been made. We’ve spoken to multiple residents who have vulnerabilities that suggest they should not be in this oppressive environment, including victims of trafficking and torture and an age disputed minor. It’s incredible that the Home Office has learnt no lessons from what has gone before. Penally Camp was closed and Napier should be closed too
Until then, we will be on hand to provide friendship and support, and to show the residents that there will always be people who care about them.
To support our work visit Care4Calais.org/donate.
13 April 2021: Matthew Gold & Co: Napier Barracks: Two Day Trial Begins in High Court on 14 April
Tomorrow the High Court will begin a two day trial before the honourable Mr Justice Linden to determine whether the Home Secretary’s use of the former military Napier Barracks as asylum support accommodation was lawful.
The claim is brought by 6 Claimants in 5 joined claims, in which the Claimants argue that the accommodation provided was wholly inadequate and contrary to the Home Office’s own published policies and standards and risked breaching their Articles 2, 3 and 8 human rights. The Claimants also allege that they were falsely imprisoned during their times in the barracks.
Napier Barracks has been used to accommodate around 400 asylum seekers in dilapidated and overcrowded communal conditions since September 2020. That was despite multiple warnings from NGOs that the barracks were completely unsuitable to house so many residents, many of whom have complex needs stemming from fleeing violence, persecution, and torture.
The trial was ordered by the High Court on an expedited basis after the High Court granted permission in February for the claim to proceed. At the permission hearing the Court heard that the Home Office had ignored advice from Public Health England that Napier Barracks was unsuitable.
Clare Jennings, Director of Matthew Gold and Co who represents the Claimants XD and YZM says:
“For over 4 months our clients, and their fellow residents at Napier barracks endured what they describe as unbearable “prison-like” living conditions. They shared dormitory accommodation with up to 13 other men, and bathrooms with too few toilets and showers. In January of this year Covid-19 spread like wildfire through the barracks. An outbreak that was all but inevitable given the cramped communal living conditions within the barracks. We hope that the Court will determine that accommodating our clients in the barracks was unlawful and breached their human rights and provide justice for our clients”.
The hearing can be accessed by video link by contacting the Administrative Court.
The Claimants are all anonymised pursuant to a Court Order and cannot identified for legal reasons. The case references are: NB v SSHD CO/312/2021, M & F v SSHD CO/329/2021, OMA v SSHD CO/397/2021, XD v SSHD CO/354/2021, YZM v SSHD CO/402/2021.
Clare Jennings and Olivia Halse at Matthew Gold and Co. represent two of the Claimants (XD and YZM). Counsel instructed are Shu Shin Luh and Antonia Benfield of Doughty Street Chambers.
Emily Soothill, Sue Willman Ahmed Ali and Rosa Potter from Deighton Pierce Glynn are instructed by NB, M, F and OMA. Counsel instructed in those claims is Tom Hickman QC of Blackstone Chambers and Leonie Hirst of Doughty Street Chambers.
Liberty and Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (“JCWI”) have both been permitted to file written interventions in the proceedings. Zoë Leventhal of Matrix Chambers, Ben Amunwa and Admas Habteslasie are instructed by Liberty. Sonali Naik QC and Ali Bandegani of Garden Court Chambers are instructed by Freshfields on behalf of JCWI.
For enquiries please contact MG&Co on 020 8445 9268.
13 April 2021: Guardian: Home Office faces inquiry into use of barracks to house asylum seekers
Cross-party MPs and peers concerned about ‘quasi-detention’ of vulnerable people
An inquiry is to be carried out into the Home Office’s use of sites such as military barracks to accommodate asylum seekers, the Guardian has learned.
MPs and peers from the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on immigration detention agreed to proceed with the inquiry at a private meeting on 17 March. The cross-party group is due to publish its initial findings before the summer recess and hopes its findings can inform parliamentary discussions about the Home Office’s new plans for asylum seekers.
Members of the group have described the Home Office’s use of large-scale, institutional sites as “quasi-detention”, saying that although the likes of Napier barracks in Folkestone are not technically immigration detention the accommodation shares many features with it.
Updated 8 April 2021: Guardian: Asylum seekers told they will stay at Napier barracks for months
Home Office letter says new arrivals will reside at controversial site for at least 60 to 90 days despite legal fight
Asylum seekers being moved into the Napier barracks site in Kent have been told they will reside at the former military facility for at least two to three more months, the Guardian understands, as a number of legal challenges are poised to be heard.
Men who are being held in hotels, as well as some new arrivals in the UK, have received letters from the Home Office telling them they will be moved into the barracks on Friday and that “it is anticipated you will reside at Napier for between 60 and 90 days”.
The Home Office has previously said the former Ministry of Defence site was being used as “temporary, contingency accommodation” for asylum seekers who would eventually be moved to dispersal accommodation such as a house or flat.
The Guardian understands that among those who will be sent there this week are men who have previously stayed in the barracks, including an asylum seeker who spent two months in Napier, left in December and has stayed in a hotel since, still waiting to hear about his asylum claim.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/08/asylum-seekers-told-stay-napier-barracks-for-months
Updated 7 April 2021: Guardian: Home Office to send more asylum seekers to ‘unsuitable’ Napier barracks
Exclusive: Former military site was emptied following evidence camp is not suitable for accommodation
A new intake of asylum seekers will be sent to the controversial Napier barracks site in Kent from Friday, the Guardian understands, despite mounting evidence the camp is not suitable for accommodation.
The former military site near Folkestone was emptied of its last residents over the weekend, raising hopes that the Home Office would discontinue its use as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.
However, the Guardian has seen correspondence confirming that Clearsprings Ready Homes, the private contractor that runs the site on behalf of the Home Office, intends to bring in new arrivals from Friday.
The decision comes after a significant Covid outbreak in which 50% of the near 400 residents fell sick, multiple outstanding legal challenges, the closure of a sister site in Pembrokeshire and months of revelations over the suitability of the camp.
Joint Parliamentary Briefing on Asylum Accommodation – March 2021
This is a report from a number of organisations. The report can be accessed here: https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Joint%20Briefing%20on%20Asylum%20Accommodation%20March%202021.pdf
During the pandemic, an unprecedented number of people seeking refugee protection have been forced into unsafe and inappropriate housing, including disused military barracks.
How people are housed is about more than providing shelter. It is emblematic of the UK’s vision of providing sanctuary to people seeking refuge. We want people seeking asylum to be welcomed as our neighbours, not warehoused in camps.
This briefing, jointly authored by Asylum Matters, Freedom from Torture, Choose Love, Refugee Action, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Doctors of the World explains why the use of barracks and similar contingency accommodation is unacceptable both during and after a pandemic and offers an alternative vision for an asylum system that enables people seeking protection to rebuild their lives in safety within our communities.
Read more: https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/joint-parliamentary-briefing-on-asylum-accommodation-march-2021
Updated 19 March 2021: #CloseTheBarracks The Canary: Asylum seeker recalls ‘worst experience of my life’ living in UK barracks
An asylum seeker who fled gang violence and kidnap in his home country said being housed in military barracks in the UK was like “a really bad dream”.
Eduardo spent more than a month living at Penally camp in Wales, one of two Ministry of Defence sites the Home Office has used to house refugees.
And while Penally is now set to close, it is understood that the controversial use of Napier Barracks in Kent is set to continue.
Later on Friday (today), people across the country are to come together for a virtual day of action calling for fair treatment of people seeking asylum.
Updated 17 March 2021: Guardian: Outcry as UK asylum-seekers camp remains open as sister site shuts
Home Office says it will hand back Penally camp to MoD but second military barracks in Kent will remain in operation
The Home Office is refusing to shut a controversial camp for asylum-seekers set up within a former military barracks despite closing a sister site in Wales after months of pressure over appalling living conditions.
Napier Barracks near Folkestone in Kent will “remain in operation in accordance with current needs”, the department said, after announcing Penally camp in Pembrokeshire would be handed back to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Sunday.
Humanitarian charities and opposition politicians welcomed the closure of Penally but said the Home Office must follow by shutting down Napier.
Both sites have housed hundreds of asylum seekers since being handed over to the Home Office in September and have been dogged by allegations of cover-ups, poor access to healthcare and legal advice, and crowded conditions.
Updated 16 March 2021: In relation to the intended closure of Penally camp, Care4Calais say: · Welcome news! The only reasonable thing would be to now close Napier also. Conditions there are equally as grim as Penally, and the recent Inspector’s Report made it abundantly clear it should never have been used to house asylum seekers.
BBC: ‘Run-down’ Penally asylum camp to close on 21 March
An Army camp housing asylum seekers in Pembrokeshire is set to close within days, a UK government minister says.
It comes after inspectors said the camp at Penally and Napier Barracks in Kent were “run-down and unsuitable“.
The Home Office said it gave “safe and secure accommodation for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute”.
Welsh Secretary Simon Hart said the Home Office had agreed to return Penally to the Ministry of Defence by 21 March.
BBC Wales has been told the remaining asylum seekers will be gradually moved out before then. Read more here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56418361
Updated 12 March 2021: DuncanLewisPublicLaw@DLPublicLaw Court hearing today: HO has agreed they & their contractors have no power to impose restrictions on movement of asylum seekers living in hotels and cannot threaten residents re. non-compliance. HO to immediately inform providers & residents that no such restrictions exist.
Care4Calais Brilliant news at yesterday’s court hearing. Great work by Duncan Lewis Solicitors, Matthew Gold and our fabulous access team. No more curfews or one hour rules.
11 March 2021: Care4Calais · Today, Mohammed C, an African refugee who died in a hotel in November, was buried in North London. His body had been washed and shrouded with the appropriate Muslim practices and an Imam led mourners in prayer and recited the prayer for the dead. After the burial, friends marked his grave with a simple branch.30 friends were able to attend the funeral, in accordance with current Covid regulations. These were all refugees who had met him on his journey. All shared his experiences, knew his friendship and appreciated his value as a human being. We want to express immense gratitude to all of our supporters and volunteers who made it possible for friends to attend. To those who donated money for travel and food, who got people to trains or met them off them, donated oyster cards and phone credit, gave lifts and support – our huge thanks. It was a sombre and deeply sad occasion but made better by the fact that Mohammed was able to be laid to rest surrounded by people who knew and loved him and will keep his memory in their hearts.
Updated 8 March 2021: An inspection of the use of contingency asylum accommodation – key findings from site visits to Penally Camp and Napier Barracks
During the week of 15 February 2021 inspectors from ICIBI and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) visited Penally Camp and Napier Barracks, spending two days at each site.
During the week of 15 February 2021, as part of ICIBI’s inspection of contingency asylum accommodation, inspectors from ICIBI and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) visited Penally Camp and Napier Barracks, spending two days at each site. The Independent Chief Inspector made a follow-up visit to Napier Barracks on 4 March.
HMIP is producing a detailed written report, which the Independent Chief Inspector will append to ICIBI’s full inspection report on completion of this inspection. As well as Penally Camp and Napier Barracks, ICIBI’s report will cover hotels and any other forms of contingency asylum accommodation. ICIBI’s report and recommendations will be submitted to the Home Secretary and published in the usual way. Meanwhile, the points below, which have been shared with the Home Office, provide a high-level overview of what inspectors found during their site visits. The headings are those typically used by HMIP.
ICIBI’s inspection of contingency asylum accommodation is ongoing and inspectors are continuing to gather, analyse and test written and oral evidence from the Home Office, the contracted third parties, national and local stakeholders, and asylum seekers who are or have been in contingency accommodation. While the public ‘call for evidence’ has closed, ICIBI is still keen to receive evidence, including the latest information, about contingency asylum accommodation in general and about specific sites, including Penally Camp and Napier Barracks.
Key findings
Leadership and management
- Opening Penally Camp and Napier Barracks as contingency asylum accommodation, particularly doing so safely during a pandemic, presented substantial logistical and other challenges. Despite this, the Home Office gave its accommodation contractors less than two weeks to make each site operational.
- Local stakeholders who needed to set up essential services for residents, such as healthcare, were not consulted in advance of the Home Office taking the decision to proceed. They were given insufficient time to prepare before the first asylum seekers arrived and there seems to have been little understanding or regard on the Home Office’s part of what impact this would have at the local level.
- In September/October 2020, Public Health England had advised the Home Office that opening multi-occupancy dormitory-style accommodation at Napier was not supported by current guidance, and both they and Public Health Wales expressed concerns about the COVID-safety of the accommodation. Both sites were opened before Public Health Wales and Public Health England recommendations had been actioned.
- Public Health England further advised that if the accommodation was to be used, the ability to isolate positive cases and/or establish effective cohorting arrangements was essential to containing any COVID-19 outbreak. Given the cramped communal conditions and unworkable cohorting at Napier, once one person was infected a large-scale outbreak was virtually inevitable. In our resident survey at Napier, none of those who responded felt they had been kept safe from COVID-19. At Penally, where overall numbers were lower and cohorts smaller, the vast majority still did not feel they were being kept safe from the risk of infection.
- The Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate (CPFSI) informed us of serious concerns about fire safety at Napier that had not been fully addressed at the time of the ICIBI/HMIP inspection visit. The work recommended by CPFSI at Penally had been largely completed.
- While COVID-19 restrictions had meant that some asylum seekers had been accommodated at Penally Camp and Napier Barracks for much longer than had been originally envisaged, the Home Office had been slow to recognise the impact on residents of prolonged isolation in accommodation that was not designed or intended for long-term stays.
- The resources, skills and assurance systems required to support long-term communal accommodation were inadequate at both sites:
- On-site management structures were unclear, partly because of the multiple sub-contractors and partly because of inadequate oversight by the contracting companies.
- Managers at both sites lacked the experience and skills to run large-scale communal accommodation.
- The Home Office did not exercise adequate oversight at either site and Home Office staff were rarely present. There were fundamental failures of leadership and planning by the Home Office.
Safety
- We met many men who described feeling depressed and hopeless at their circumstances. In our resident survey, all of those who responded at Napier and the vast majority at Penally said they had felt depressed at some points. At both sites about a third of respondents said they had mental health problems; about a third of respondents at Napier said they had felt suicidal.
- We had serious safeguarding concerns in relation to Napier. There was inadequate support for people who had self-harmed. People at high risk of self-harm were located in a decrepit ‘isolation block’ which we considered unfit for habitation. Residents who may have been children were also housed in the same block pending an age assessment; in one case we were told that this had been for up to two weeks.
- Residents at both sites were normally able to come and go. The exception was during the major COVID-19 outbreak at Napier, when over a hundred people were confined to their billets for approximately four weeks and unable to go outside except to use the mobile toilets or showers. They were warned that they might be arrested if they left the camp. In at least one case, a resident was forcibly returned to the camp by the police.
- At both sites, residents described feeling trapped in poor conditions and feared that if they moved out they would jeopardise their only source of support and possibly their asylum cases.
- Residents at both camps, especially Napier, told us they had been shouted at and intimidated by protestors and members of the public who did not want them there and that this was another reason they did not want to leave the camp. While Napier was close to a town (Folkestone), Penally Camp was isolated and the nearest town (Tenby) was a long walk.
Respect
- The environment at both sites, especially Napier, was impoverished, run-down and unsuitable for long-term accommodation.
- Cleanliness at both sites was variable at best and cleaning was made difficult by the age of the buildings. Some areas were filthy.
- The accommodation contractor had made efforts to improve the facilities (for example, installing mobile shower and toilet units), and at the beginning of March 2021 work was in hand at Napier to reconfigure the interior of some blocks into smaller living units. However, the age and general condition of the buildings made the costs of more substantial refurbishment prohibitive given the uncertainty over how long they would be required as asylum accommodation.
- At Napier, the number of residents had reduced from almost 400 in mid-January 2021 to 62 in mid-February. Since December 2020, the number at Penally had reduced to c.80, having been double this at its height. The multi-occupancy billets at both sites were cramped, which made effective social distancing difficult, and inspectors heard that this had been impossible before the numbers were reduced.
- Most current residents had been in Penally or Napier for several months. They did not know how much longer they would be in the camp and this was a major cause of distress. They had been told initially that they would be there for a few weeks. Over the months, they had been told various things about their stay and about moving on and now did not trust anything they heard. Residents told inspectors they did not understand why they were still in the camp while others had been moved out, and some believed (mistakenly) that it was in some way connected to the Home Office’s view of the strength of their asylum claim, and the fact they had been in Penally or Napier would count against them.
- Most residents were awaiting a substantive asylum interview but did not have a date for this. Home Office communication with them was poor. It had only recently commenced video meetings with residents. These meetings did not provide information about individual asylum claims, which was what concerned residents most. The dearth of official information gave rise to misunderstandings and rumours, which had a negative effect on individuals and the collective mood.
- Managers did not systematically survey or consult residents.
- Most residents we spoke to said that onsite security and services staff were friendly and treated them with respect.
- All residents had a mobile phone throughout their stay and could access the internet, although WIFI at Penally had been poor until recently. They had little to do to fill their time, a lack of privacy, a lack of control over their day-to-day lives, and limited information about what would happen to them. These factors had had a corrosive effect on residents’ morale and mental health.
- While there were some restrictions regarding access to the sites, mostly COVID-related, local voluntary groups were supporting residents at both camps, including with clothing and other necessities, by organising activities and signposting and facilitating access to legal representatives. Meanwhile, to supplement its contracted telephone helpline service, Migrant Help had arranged to have someone onsite at both sites.
Preparation for leaving the accommodation
- Most residents had been in hotel accommodation before being moved to either Penally or Napier. Typically, they received little notice (a matter of hours) of the plan to move them to one of the camps and no explanation of why. The same was true of moving them from Penally or Napier. Most were moved back to a hotel. At the beginning of March 2021, Napier residents were informed that they would all be relocated by 2 April. They were not told to where. Most did not believe it would happen and feared that if there were new arrivals before they left they could again become trapped by a new COVID-19 outbreak.
- There was little focus on helping residents to prepare for next steps, but the visiting agencies and charities provided useful practical support for those who were moving on.
Penally Camp Images
- Penally Camp. 16 February 2021. (JPEG, 2.23MB)
- Wash room at Penally camp. 16 February 2021. (JPEG, 1.47MB)
- Living accommodation at Penally Camp. 16 February 2021. (JPEG, 1.27MB)
Napier Barracks Images
- Napier Barracks. 17 February 2021. (JPEG, 2.58MB)
- Living accommodation at Napier Barracks. 17 February 2021. (JPEG, 1.41MB)
- Living/sleeping area, Napier Barracks. 17 February 2021. (JPEG, 1.79MB)
- Living/sleeping area (photo 2), Napier Barracks. 17 February 2021. (JPEG, 2.21MB)
- Isolation room, Napier Barracks. 17 February 2021 (JPEG, 1.42MB)
- Isolation room (photo 2), Napier Barracks. 17 February 2021. (JPEG, 1.55MB)
Updated 24 February 2021: Home Affairs Select Committee: Home Secretary questioned on the work of the department
[Extract] Q94 Stuart C. McDonald: Good morning to our witnesses. I want to turn now to the issue of asylum accommodation, particularly contingency accommodation, including military barracks. Mr Rycroft, can I ask you first about some of the advice and research the Home Office has done? We have received a lot of evidence that the military barracks are in pretty disgraceful conditions and that there are wider problems with contingency accommodation, so I want to dig down into what the Home Office relies on when it disputes that evidence. For example, could I ask about the following documents and whether they are publicly available? There is an equality impact assessment about the use of barracks that has featured in the newspapers. Is that publicly available?
Matthew Rycroft: First of all, let me assure the Committee that the Home Office takes our statutory obligations extremely seriously. We have a statutory obligation to provide accommodation for all asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute in this country, and we do provide that. We have a variety of different ways of providing that accommodation, whether it is through what we call dispersal accommodation or some of the contingency accommodation, which includes hotels, former student accommodation and, in two cases, former military barracks. Let me say that both the two barracks in question have recently housed members of the British armed forces—
Q95 Stuart C. McDonald: Several years ago. In fairness, I think we know all this. The equality impact assessment that was done before using those two barracks—is that in the public domain?
Matthew Rycroft: We do not routinely publish equality impact assessments. That is a case-by-case decision each time. We will look again at whether we can publish this one.
Q96 Stuart C. McDonald: It would be very helpful for the Committee to see that, if we could. There is also reference in the newspapers to advice from Public Health England from 7 September that suggested that dormitory accommodation would be completely inappropriate during the pandemic. Is that advice in the public domain, or would you be willing to send it to the Committee?
Matthew Rycroft: Just to clarify, Public Health England did not say it would be completely inappropriate. In fact, they give us advice on how to make dormitory-style and other shared accommodation covid-safe. It is that advice which we have followed to the letter.
Q97 Stuart C. McDonald: Can we see that, then? Because that does not really tally with the understanding we have of it through the newspapers. The newspapers may well be wrong, but how are we supposed to do our job unless we can see that advice?
Matthew Rycroft: There is all sorts of advice that you can see. There are also court cases ongoing which it would be wrong of me to prejudice.
Q98 Stuart C. McDonald: Would you be willing to share that advice from 7 September with us?
Matthew Rycroft: We can certainly have to have a look at that, but, as I say, it would be wrong to prejudice any ongoing judicial proceedings.
Q99 Stuart C. McDonald: Okay. More broadly, there was an independent review of asylum accommodation carried out, I think, by Human Applications. Is that going to be shared with the Committee or published?
Matthew Rycroft: Again, it was private advice to help us back at the time when we were setting up this additional asylum accommodation—
Q100 Stuart C. McDonald: Okay. And the review of what happened in Glasgow—is that going to be published? That is something the Committee has asked to see previously.
Matthew Rycroft: It is the same answer, Mr McDonald. We can have a look at it case by case. We would not routinely make these things public, because they are private advice, but we can look at them case by case.
Q101 Stuart C. McDonald: You see the problem, Home Secretary, is that we have an abundance of evidence that has come from lots of reliable organisations telling us that there are huge problems in contingency accommodation, particularly in these barracks. The Home Office says, “No, it’s all fine,” but then offers nothing to us to prove that is the case, or on how it has been reassured that that is the case.
Priti Patel: First of all, Mr McDonald, I know the Chair of the Committee has been in touch with the Home Office and written to us about institutional accommodation. It is really important first of all to put this within the context of the coronavirus pandemic and how contingency accommodation has been stood up throughout the pandemic. It applies to other aspects of Government as well in terms of finding accommodation. What I can say—Matthew, our permanent secretary, has already said this—is that it is right that we work with independent organisations in the way in which we do, but also with Public Health England. That advice is not static advice. Just in terms of the maintenance of our accommodation estate, we are constantly working with Public Health England.
Now, I recognise and fully appreciate the individuals who have come to the Committee and given their views and their advice, but some of the information that has been put in the public domain is incorrect. The permanent secretary has also made it abundantly clear that we do have court cases taking place right now. So inevitably we will provide information where we can. We will certainly write back to the Chair and the Committee about our plans around contingency accommodation, exit and recovery plans, and working with local authorities, because this is not for the Home Office alone.
Q102 Stuart C. McDonald: If you could write, that would be helpful. When the permanent secretary appeared before the Public Accounts Committee in October, he confirmed that it was a goal of the Home Office to move away, again, from the use of barracks and hotels as contingency accommodation and back to the model of community dispersal. Is that the plan, Home Secretary—to get away from this as soon as possible?
Priti Patel: We do want to move out of hotel accommodation, yes.
Q103 Stuart C. McDonald: And military barracks?
Priti Patel: This is contingency accommodation that has been adapted and stood up—
Q104 Stuart C. McDonald: To be clear, your answer suggests that you have no intention of closing the military barracks.
Priti Patel: This is not about closing military barracks. I think we should look at this within the context of Government estate and Government accommodation. It is right that we look at Government estate and Government accommodation as potential contingency accommodation for asylum seekers. I think the public would expect that. This is not just about an automatic default position of putting people into hotels—
Q105 Stuart C. McDonald: I think the public will be horrified that you appear to be saying that you are going to continue using military barracks to accommodate asylum seekers, yet we are not getting any information or justification for that. No evidence is provided to us. The evidence that we have seen is horrific. I cannot believe that it is not part of the plan to close military barracks accommodation.
Priti Patel: As the permanent secretary has said already this morning, this is military accommodation that has housed our servicemen and women, and it has housed servicemen and women recently.
Q106 Stuart C. McDonald: If you were to put military personnel there now, it is you who are insulting our servicemen, not folk who criticise it.
Priti Patel: Not at all—
Stuart C. McDonald: It’s apples and oranges anyway.
Priti Patel: If I may finish and answer the question, we will continue to look at Government estate. It is right that the Government have a wide footprint in terms of estate. It is not just about barracks. Matthew has already said that there are other facilities that we will look at, and we will also adapt them. Napier and Penally have been adapted in line with and in light of Public Health England guidance. That is absolutely the right thing to do, and as I have said—
Stuart C. McDonald: If you could write. We only have another 30 seconds or so.
Priti Patel: [Inaudible] and Public Health England, absolutely to make sure that we have the right kind of accommodation in place. I will, of course, as you have already heard me say, respond to the letter from the Chair of the Committee, which was very specific about institutional accommodation.
Updated 21 February 2021: Guardian: Asylum seekers ‘subjected to sexual harassment’ in government hotels
Home Office urged to investigate allegations, including unsafe living conditions, while staff say they are paid below the legal wage
The Home Office has been urged to investigate the network of hotels holding thousands of asylum seekers following allegations of sexual harassment, intimidation and claims that staff have been paid significantly below the minimum wage.
A joint investigation by the Observer and ITV News suggests privately contracted staff at some asylum hotels have been paid little over £5.50 an hour.
Yvette Cooper, who chairs the home affairs select committee, has called on the Home Office to investigate if the private firms running the hotels are “fit for purpose”.
Among the investigation’s findings are that asylum seekers have been unlawfully threatened by private contractor staff that the police will be called if they leave their hotel.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/21/asylum-seekers-subjected-to-sexual-harassment-in-government-hote
Updated 17 February 2021: Guardian: Inside Napier: the former army barracks housing asylum seekers
The Guardian’s home affairs correspondent, Jamie Grierson, discusses the government’s decision to use two former army barracks, Napier and Penally, to house up to 600 vulnerable asylum seekers. Amid allegations of cover-ups, poor access to healthcare and legal advice, and crowded conditions, one former resident describes the impact Napier had on him
Listen here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/feb/17/inside-napier-former-army-barracks-housing-asylum-seekers-podcast
Matin (a pseudonym) tells Anushka Asthana about his stay in Napier, a former army barracks near Folkestone, Kent. Within days of getting there he contracted scabies and later Covid-19. After a fire in one of the housing blocks, there was no heating for days.
The Guardian’s home affairs correspondent, Jamie Grierson,examines why the government has decided to use two former army barracks, Napier and Penally in Wales, to house up to 600 vulnerable asylum seekers. The barracks, run by the private contractor Clearsprings, have been criticised for their crowded conditions, limited access to healthcare and legal advice and, more recently, a significant Covid-19 outbreak infecting more than one in four of the 400 residents at Napier.
Anushka also talks to Dr Jill O’Leary, the lead doctor with the Helen Bamber Foundation’s medical advisory service, who describes the enormous mental health strain that conditions at the barracks have had on the asylum seekers forced to stay there.
Updated 15 February 2021: Guardian: Napier barracks not suitable for accommodation, experts found
Seven-year-old report concluded buildings used to house asylum seekers were not for long-term use
A former army barracks used to house asylum seekers did not “meet acceptable standards of accommodation” when it was surveyed by planning and environmental experts seven years ago, it has emerged.
A report on Napier barracks, near Folkestone, Kent, filed by CgMs Consulting, now part of the RPS Group, concluded that “the buildings were never intended for long-term use” and converting the housing blocks on the site was an “unsuitable approach”.
The report was submitted to Folkestone and Hythe district council in 2014 as part of a planning application by the housebuilder Taylor Wimpey, which in September 2020 was granted planning permission to demolish Napier barracks and build 355 houses.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/15/napier-barracks-not-suitable-for-accommodation-experts-found
Updated 11 February 2021: Church leaders call for Government to stop housing asylum seekers in barracks
Church leaders from across different denominations have written an an open-letter to the Home Secretary about asylum seekers housing.
The Bishop of Durham was joined by several Anglican bishops and Christian leaders from across the country.
Full text below.
Dear Secretary of State,
We have watched with growing concern events unfold at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent and are extremely concerned about the welfare of asylum seekers housed across Ministry of Defence sites.
As you know, in the absence of safe and legal routes to apply for refugee status outside the UK, many have no choice but to make a dangerous and perilous journey to seek safety from conflict, persecution, and violence. After such a traumatic journey, having had to often spend time behind wire fences in refugee camps, it is simply insensitive to house people in such environments. In a global pandemic it is nothing short of irresponsible and risks the lives of residents and staff alike. Even as a temporary measure, ex-military barracks are unfit for purpose and entirely inappropriate. Requiring members from different households to use and live in shared facilities greatly increases the risk of infection and residents cannot be held responsible for virus transmission rates when social distancing is not possible.
We are therefore calling for an immediate end to the use of military barracks as accommodation for those seeking sanctuary in the UK. It is not a fair or justified response to your legal duty to house asylum seekers who would otherwise become destitute. We understand it is the Government’s intention to move all individuals in contingency accommodation into suitable dispersed accommodation as soon as reasonably practical. Can you therefore confirm that the Home Office will not expand the use of military barracks for contingency accommodation and whether the Government will set out a timeline for their closure.
We do appreciate the unprecedented pressures the Government is facing to provide accommodation to those who are awaiting a determination of their status, following the welcome decision not to evict people from asylum accommodation through a period of the pandemic. However, a long term sustainable action plan has to be put in place to secure suitable, dignified dispersal accommodation. Steps to speed up accurate processing of asylum applications will also reduce pressure on the system.
Our shared faith as signatories to this letter, leads us to view all human beings as equal and deserving of respect, dignity and welcome. We have witnessed at first hand, the generous welcome provided by civic and faith groups to those seeking protection. When asylum seekers are housed within communities, it allows for better integration and access to support services. Asylum seekers are often no longer seen as “other” but as neighbours and friends. It is in this environment that asylum seekers physical and mental wellbeing can be protected, and they are also able to better engage with their asylum application.
We ask that the Government continue to work constructively with local authorities, devolved administrations and support organisations to secure sufficient and appropriate dispersal accommodation in local communities and to end the use of barracks as a matter of urgency. We look forward to hearing your response to the issues raised.
Yours sincerely,
The Bishop of Durham, The Rt Revd Paul Butler
Cardinal Vincent Nichols Archbishop of Westminster and President of Churches Together in England
Rt Revd Paul McAleenan Lead Bishop for Migrants and Refugees, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
The Bishop of London, The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London
Hugh Osgood Free Churches President of Churches Together in England
Revd Dr Paul Goodliff BA MTh General Secretary, Churches Together in England
The Bishop of Loughborough, The Rt Revd Dr Gulnar (Guli) Francis-Dehqani BA MA PhD
The Bishop Rt of Dover and the Bishop in Canterbury, The Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin
The Bishop of Bradwell, The Rt Revd Dr John Perumbalath Chair of Churches Refugee Network in Britain and Ireland
The Bishop of Bristol, The Rt Revd Vivienne Faull
The Bishop of Reading, The Rt Revd Olivia Graham
The Bishop of Croydon, The Rt Revd Jonathan Clark
The Bishop of Oxford, The Rt Revd Steven Croft
The Bishop of Worcester, The Rt Revd Dr John Inge
The Bishop of Southwark, The Rt Revd Christopher Chessun
The Bishop of Gloucester, The Rt Revd Rachel Treweek
The Bishop of Leeds, The Rt Revd Nicholas Baines Pastor Agu Irukwu, Redeemed Christian Church of God, and Pastor Jesus House President of Churches Together in England
Most Revd Father Oluwole A Abiola, OBE President, Council of African and Caribbean Churches UK
The Revd Clare Downing Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church
The Revd Richard Teal President of the Methodist Conference 2020/2021
Mrs Carolyn Lawrence Vice-President of the Methodist Conference 2020/2021
Dorothy Kendrick President, Independent Methodist Connexion of Churches Commissioner Anthony Cotterill Territorial Leader for The Salvation Army in the UK and Republic of Ireland
Revd Judith Morris General Secretary, Baptist Union of Wales
Revd Meirion Morris General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Wales
Revd Dan Yarnell The Fellowship of Churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland
Roberta Hoey Chair of the Provincial Board for the Moravian Church in Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Rev Trevor Howard BA(Hons), QTS, MA (Urban Ed), MTh. Executive Vice-Chair of the Board of Churches in Communities International
Mr David Lockett Chair of Trustees, on behalf of the Trustees of the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion.
Rev Luke Larner Chaplain of the Red Letter Christians UK network
Domenica Pecoraro Kent Refugee Projects Officer, Diocese of Canterbury
The Revd Gareth Jones Diocesan Refugee Coordinator, Diocese of Chelmsford
Revd Simeon Oladokun Superintendent of Christ Apostolic Church, UK and Regional Secretary of CAC Europe
Updated 10 February 2021: An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation – visits to Penally Camp and Napier Barracks
Inspectors from ICIBI and HMI Prisons are visiting both sites during the week beginning 15 February.Published 10 February 2021From:Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration
In line with S.52(2) of the UK Borders Act 2007, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) has sought the assistance of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) with ICIBI’s inspection of contingency asylum accommodation, specifically Penally Camp and Napier Barracks, Folkestone.
HMIP’s involvement will enable ICIBI’s inspection to progress at pace, without having to divert resources from other ‘live’ inspections, and it will also mean that ICIBI can benefit from HMIP’s knowledge and experience of inspecting large institutional settings, particularly during the current pandemic.
Inspectors from ICIBI and HMIP are planning to visit both sites during the week of 15 February.
The inspection visits will comprise:
- interviews with accommodation service provider staff and any other persons providing onsite services to the residents
- interviews with residents
- a review of relevant locally-held documentary evidence (e.g. local rules, information, risk assessments, complaints logs, etc.)
- an assessment of the premises and onsite facilities
- separate short surveys of staff and residents (distributed in advance of the visits).
Following the site visits, HMIP will produce a written report of its findings which will be appended to ICIBI’s inspection report for publication by the Home Secretary in due course. As with all ICIBI inspections, the Independent Chief Inspector will raise any matters requiring urgent attention with the Home Office, or directly with ministers, in advance of submitting his full inspection report.
The ‘call for evidence’ for this inspection closes on Friday 19 February 2021.
Updated 9 February 2021: HM Inspectorate of Prisons: Asylum accommodation inspection
In the week beginning 15 February 2021, HMI Prisons inspectors will visit Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent and Penally Camp in Pembrokeshire. These sites are currently being used as asylum accommodation.
HMI Prisons is assisting the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), who is currently conducting an inspection of contingency asylum accommodation. A statement outlining key findings from the visits will be published on our website in the weeks following the inspection. HMI Prisons will send a full report to the ICIBI, to be appended to his full report when it is published.
Read more about the ICIBI’s request for evidence.
David Bolt, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration is not tasked to inspect detention centres, but the Prison Inspector is – so working together, they will be more effective in finding out what has been happening.
Updated 9 February 2021: Guardian: Home Office drops plan to house asylum seekers in ‘prison-style’ camp
Temporary accommodation at Yarl’s Wood removal centre will not be used after criticism:
The Home Office has abandoned controversial plans to house nearly 200 asylum seekers in what campaigners have described as a “prison-style” camp on the site of an immigration removal centre.
Government officials originally planned to move the asylum seekers into portable buildings adjacent to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire at the end of last year. Tents were to be erected for preparing and serving food. But in a significant U-turn, the Home Office is no longer proceeding with the plans.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/home-office-abandons-plans-for-camp-at-yarls-wood-immigration-removal-centre
[See report from the Guardian on 16 January 2021 that a ‘letter before action’ was sent]
In complete contrast to the media reports about conditions in Napier camp. This is a shameless displacement of any responsibility for their discarding of the duty of care by forcing people into a situation where Covid-19 could run riot, and where a build-up of tensions within the camp cannot be surprising in the circumstances described elsewhere in this post. In contrast, the Home Office ignored advice from Public Health England that housing asylum seekers in dormitories in army barracks was inappropriate in a pandemic, months before an outbreak of 120 Covid cases. https://qarn.org.uk/home-office-ignored-covid-advice-not-to-put-asylum-seekers-in-barracks:
Updated 8 February 2021: Independent: Immigration minister denies asylum barracks ‘public health disaster’ despite over 100 Covid cases at site
Chris Philp claims military camps housing refugees ‘appropriate and suitable’ and ‘good value for money’
The immigration minister has denied that using former army barracks to house asylum seekers has been a “public health disaster” despite more than 100 residents contracting coronavirus.
Challenged by opposition MPs about the conditions in Napier Barracks, a disused Ministry of Defence (MoD) site in Folkestone, Kent which was repurposed to house hundreds of asylum seekers in September, Chris Philp claimed the facility was “appropriate and suitable”. Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-seekers-barracks-coronavirus-home-office-b1799263.html
Updated 5 February 2021: Guardian: Another asylum seeker relocated from Napier barracks after court order
‘Abject failure’ to protect men from Covid-19 at Kent site truly shocking, say lawyers
An asylum seeker and victim of torture held in a controversial army barracks has been urgently rehoused following a high court ruling, lawyers have said.
In the second such move this week, a high court judge ordered the relocation of the man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, from Napier barracks near Folkestone, Kent, into hotel accommodation.
The privately run barracks has been used to accommodate about 400 asylum seekers since September and last month experienced a significant Covid-19 outbreak, affecting at least a quarter of the men inside.
The legal team representing the rehoused claimant argued in written submissions to the court that he had been forced to sleep in the “overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsuitable” former army barracks and had been subjected to “prison-like conditions”.
4 February 2021: Gov.Wales: CABINET STATEMENT: Written Statement: Penally asylum accommodation February update by Jane Hutt, Deputy Minister and Chief Whip
On 18 November, the Senedd debated and agreed a motion that the Home Office’s decision to accommodate asylum seekers at the Penally army camp should be reconsidered because it is an unsuitable place without access to appropriate support networks. I wrote to the Minister for Immigration Compliance and the Courts, Chris Philp MP, on 25 November to alert him to our debate and repeat our call for the UK Government to close the Penally camp and move asylum seekers to alternative accommodation which can properly cater for their needs, respect their dignity, and help them to progress their asylum applications.
I had the opportunity to discuss this matter with the UK Government Minister on 1 December but he did not accept my view that the use of the camp for this purpose is inhumane.
Nevertheless, I continue to raise significant concerns about the safety and appropriateness of the camp as asylum accommodation. We have seen footage, photographs and safety reports from within the camp which support our concerns. We believe the Penally site has inherent risks due to the operational model being implemented.
Read more: https://gov.wales/written-statement-penally-asylum-accommodation-february-update
Updated 3 February 2021: Guardian: Asylum seeker cannot remain at Kent army barracks, court says
High court ruling opens door for more people to be transferred out of ‘wholly unsuitable’ Napier barracks
“A former military chief, Nicholas Mercer, now a rector and previously the army’s top legal officer, has condemned the use of military barracks to accommodate asylum seekers.
“As the home secretary well knows, refugees are entitled to special protection under international law,” said Mercer. “It is wholly inappropriate therefore to house them in disused army barracks which have been described by the Red Cross as “unsafe and unsanitary” and which violate the UN convention on refugees. Refuge is about seeking sanctuary in a place of safety but this treatment is nothing more than naked hostility to very vulnerable people.” “
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/03/asylum-seeker-cannot-remain-at-kent-army-barracks-court-says
Canary: ‘Please get us out of these barracks’ say residents of the Home Office’s refugee camp in Wales
Refugees are still being housed at a disused army barracks near Tenby, despite repeated complaints that the accommodation is not suitable.
The Home Office has stated its intention to move people out of the Penally barracks. But residents say it’s not happening fast enough. Residents told The Canary that only 11 people have been moved out of the barracks, and 5 more will leave later this week since the Home Office announcement in January, and that around 100 people remain there in appalling conditions.
Saif (not his real name), who has been kept at Penally since September 2020, said:
The way they are moving people is too slow, last week they moved around 5 people. Its not enough, its really a small number.
I have been here since the end of September, and that’s too long.
The situation is getting worse. To live here during the winter is not easy because it’s an old military camp. The conditions are not correct to keep people here in winter. Its really really bad.
Updated 2 February 2021: Guardian: Former immigration minister criticises use of barracks to house asylum seekers
The Conservative former immigration minister Caroline Nokes has accused the Home Office of using barracks accommodation for asylum seekers to make the country appear to them “as difficult and inhospitable as possible”.
She said asylum seekers should not be “segregated into a ghetto” in barracks accommodation, but instead placed in supported accommodation where they have access to a range of facilities.
Nokes is among a group of backbench Conservative MPs with barracks in their constituencies who have raised concerns about their use to house asylum seekers. Others include Damian Collins, whose Folkestone and Hythe constituency includes Napier barracks, and Richard Fuller, the MP for North East Bedfordshire, where there is a new barracks-style development close to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.
Updated 31 January 2021: Independent: Home Office put refugees in barracks after fears better housing would ‘undermine confidence’ in system
Exclusive: Internal documents reveal ministers justified placing hundreds of asylum seekers in military camps because more ‘generous’ accommodation would damage public perception of asylum system
The Home Office placed hundreds of asylum seekers in controversial military barracks following fears that better accommodation would “undermine confidence” in the system, internal documents reveal.
Concerns have been mounting about conditions in two Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites – known as Napier Barracks, in Folkestone, Kent, and Penally Barracks, in Pembrokeshire – since they were were repurposed for housing asylum seekers last September. Campaigners, lawyers and humanitarian groups have reported poor access to healthcare and legal advice, as well as concerns over coronavirus safety.
The barracks burst into flames on Friday and asylum seekers say they have suffered electricity and hot water outages since the fire, with Kent Police saying five men have been arrested after a disturbance at the camp.
It has now emerged that the Home Office, in its equality impact assessment of the plans to use MoD sites to house asylum seekers, justified the move by stating that housing these individuals in more “generous” accommodation would “undermine public confidence in the asylum system”.
Critics say the document shows ministers “pandering to prejudice” and jeopardising health for “political ends”.
26 January 2021: Independent: Home Office urged to publish review into ‘desperate’ asylum camps amid concerns about Covid outbreak
Ministers come under pressure as hundreds remain in camp where coronavirus outbreak has taken hold, with one asylum seeker saying he is sleeping outdoors to protect himself
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-camps-home-office-covid-b1792422.html
Updated 23 January 2021: Guardian: UK asylum seekers told claims at risk if they ‘misbehave’
Call for Home Office to act after private contractors tell people their applications will be jeopardised for speaking out, going on hunger strikes or complaining about food
People held at temporary Home Office refugee camps are being threatened that their asylum claims will be harmed if they “misbehave”, according to testimony from site residents.
A series of statements from asylum seekers inside the camps, anonymised to protect them from possible reprisals, allege they have been told by staff employed by private contractors that their asylum application will be jeopardised for speaking out about conditions or going on hunger strike.
One alleged he was told that if he complained about the food his name would be added to a “blacklist” that contractors shared with the Home Office and would “affect his claim”.
Others said they were told their asylum claim would be impaired if they did not return to their accommodation – a disused military training camp – by 10pm.
Asylum is a human right backed by the UN Refugee Convention and assessed in the UK using agreed screening processes and Home Office immigration caseworkers.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/23/uk-asylum-seekers-told-claims-at-risk-if-they-misbehave
Updated 18 January 2021: How will people in the asylum system, and those who are undocumented, access track and trace, testing, or the vaccine?
Guardian: Kent refugee site locked down after scores test positive for Covid
Police officers enforce move at Napier barracks after warnings from humanitarian organisations. [Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/19/kent-refugee-napier-barracks-locked-down-covid]
16 January 2021: Guardian: Legal action launched against plan to house asylum seekers at Yarl’s Wood
Home Office criticised for plans to accommodate 200 people seeking asylum at ‘prison-style’ camp.
Pressure is mounting on the Home Office over its plans to house nearly 200 asylum seekers in what campaigners have described as a “prison-style” camp on the site of an immigration jail.
The construction of prefab-style accommodation at the privately run Yarl’s Wood centre in Bedfordshire follow a series of damning reports on conditions at two former army barracks sites in Kent and Pembrokeshire being used to hold up to 600 asylum-seeking men.
Campaigners have started legal action against the expansion of Yarl’s Wood, which is set to house its first asylum seekers imminently, while councillors in Bedford have spoken out against the new development.
The Home Office has invoked emergency powers under town and country planning legislation to speedily construct the cabin-style accommodation without seeking planning permission through conventional channels. Images of the new site have been leaked to the Guardian. Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/16/legal-action-launched-against-plan-to-house-asylum-seekers-at-yarls-wood
15 January 2021: BBC: Napier arracks: MP wants asylum seeker accommodation shut
An MP has called for an emergency asylum seeker accommodation centre in his constituency to be shut.
The first of several hundred people seeking asylum arrived at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, in September.
People being housed there recently staged protests at “unbearable” conditions at the ex-military base.
Now local MP Damian Collins has called for its closure. The Home Office has been approached for comment.
Mr Collins said he had raised concerns about the suitability of using the barracks to accommodate so many people at the start of the process.
“The best solution would be for the asylum seekers to have their claims processed and for this facility to be closed down,” he said.
In protest, residents have staged a sleep out and hunger strikes, and police were called on Tuesday when about 100 people walked out for about an hour.
The campaign group Care4Calais says three people are still refusing to sleep inside.
The group’s founder Clare Moseley said: “The asylum seekers at Napier already face cramped, stressful, distressing conditions, and now they are terrified of catching Covid as well.”
14 January 2021 BBC: Covid: Asylum seeker camp conditions prompt inspection calls
Asylum seekers housed in a military training camp have claimed the “very bad” conditions are making them feel increasingly desperate.
The Home Office decided to house up to 250 asylum seekers at the site in Penally, Pembrokeshire, from September.
But some housed at the camp claim the conditions are unsafe and putting them at risk of coronavirus.
Plaid Cymru has called for an urgent inspection, but the Home Office said it was safe and “Covid-compliant”.
On Thursday afternoon, the independent chief inspector for borders and immigration David Bolt said he hoped an inspection can begin “within a few weeks” and was awaiting further details he requested from the Home Office.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55650508
14 January 2021: Guardian: Asylum seeker housing conditions under scrutiny at third ex-military site
Allegations of poor conditions, poor food quality and mental health crises at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk.
A third former military site being used as temporary housing for asylum seekers is facing allegations of poor conditions, poor food quality and mental health crises, it has emerged.
The Home Office has been housing asylum seekers in a former officers’ mess at RAF Coltishall, north of Norwich, since April last year. The Norfolk site has not received as much scrutiny as two similar facilities, Napier Barracks in Kent and Penally Barracks in Pembrokeshire, which have been dogged by allegations of cover-ups, poor access to healthcare and legal advice, and crowded conditions.
But it has emerged that there have been similar concerns over the set-up at RAF Coltishall, with people familiar with the site claiming there have been issues with lack of information, food quality, access to medical care including dentistry, as well as suicide attempts and hunger strikes. Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/14/asylum-seeker-housing-conditions-under-scrutiny-third-uk-military-site-raf-coltishall-norfolk-
14 January 2021 Morning Star: Asylum-seekers march into Tenby demanding their human rights
ASYLUM-SEEKERS at an army barracks in Wales marched into the local town on Wednesday night with banners reading: “Close the camp” and “We want normal life, no prison.”
Around 250 men have been held in Penally Camp since September, when the Home Office decided to use the disused army base as temporary accommodation for asylum-seekers.
Residents claim conditions at the site are not safe, and have repeatedly raised concerns about a lack of access to medical care and legal support.
Today a group of 40 men from the camp took to the streets to voice their frustration and demand it be shut down.
Walking from the camp to the nearby town of Tenby, protesters, chanting: “We are civilians,” held pieces of carboard asking: “Where are [our] human rights?”
14 January 2021: Northern Echo: Plans revealed to build prison-style immigration camp on site of former Hassockfield Detention Centre
GOVERNMENT plans to scrap a residential development in favour of creating an immigration detention centre on the site of a notorious facility have been described as “madness”.
Durham county councillors are demanding answers after Ministry of Justice plans emerged, proposing to turn the former Hassockfield Detention Centre, in Medomsley, into a Category 3-style prison to detain around 80 people who have had applications for UK residency denied.
The council had approved a planning application from Homes England for 127 new homes on the site, over a year ago. [Read more here: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19009076.plans-immigration-detention-centre-notorious-medomsley-site/ ]
8 December 2020: Barton Stacey asylum seeker cabin site ‘would be open prison’
Plans to accommodate up to 500 asylum seekers in cabins near a village have been condemned by both the local MP and council leader.
Test Valley Borough Council leader Phil North said the “substandard” homes near Barton Stacey, Hampshire, would be like an “open prison”.
Fellow Conservative Caroline Nokes MP said the site would infringe rules on development.
… But good news: 29th April: Barton Stacey: Plans to build asylum seeker camp dropped
Plans to hold up to 500 asylum seekers on a piece of land off the A303 have been dropped by the Home Office.
The government department has withdrawn its plans to build a temporary holding facility on Ministry of Defence land near Barton Stacey, after scores of objections from politicians, residents and human rights groups.
The plans were labelled “akin to an open prison” by Cllr Phil North, leader of Test Valley Borough Council when they were first revealed in December, with almost 3,500 people since signing a petition against it. [Read more: https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/19268679.barton-stacey-plans-build-asylum-seeker-camp-dropped ]
15 December 2020: Guidance COVID-19: guidance for providers of accommodation for asylum seekers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-providers-of-accommodation-for-asylum-seekers/covid-19-guidance-for-providers-of-accommodation-for-asylum-seekers
30 November 2021: ECRE:
Country Report: Types of accommodationLast updated: 30/11/20
Author
Refugee CouncilVisit Website
Initial accommodation centres
Reception centres, called initial accommodation, each accommodate around 200 people – fewer in Glasgow and Northern Ireland. These centres are the usual first accommodation for any asylum seeker who asks for support and is not immediately detained, apart from unaccompanied children. If a place cannot be found on the first night after claim, asylum seekers may be accommodated in an interim hostel in Croydon while accommodation is found, or in hotels in any region where the initial accommodation is full. Accommodation in the initial accommodation centres is usually full board with no cash provided.
The short-term use of bed and breakfast accommodation has tended to rise in times of an increase in applications, although in its response to the Home Affairs Select Committee the government stated that the accommodation providers had taken measures to lessen the need for this. The drawback is that people accommodated in a hotel, even if only for one or two nights, have limited or no access to many of the reception-related rights granted to asylum seekers, with reported cases of persons having only restricted access to accommodation. The consequence of such temporary ‘emergency’ accommodation is that it additionally delays their access to the support system and other welfare services to which they are entitled, as it may take a couple of days before they access advice and complete an application for asylum support.[1]
Asylum seekers should not stay in initial accommodation for any longer than 19 days, but there can be dispersal backlogs and it is common to find asylum seekers stuck in initial accommodation for over 3 weeks due to a lack of dispersal accommodation.[2] The consequences of such backlogs are varied, but the January 2017 accommodation report from the Home Affairs Select Committee highlighted its inadequacy for women, particularly pregnant women and new mothers. The lack of appropriately nutritious food was one example of this inadequacy. The report also commented on the lack of women only spaces and the government responded that it will work with providers to provide these where it may be possible. Similar findings were reported in an inspection of asylum support accommodation by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration in 2018.[3] A UK charity has written a guide to the 2019 contracts and has details about all types of accommodation and services covered.[4]
This is a briefing given for MPs in November 2020: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8990/
A guide for people in the asylum system: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/821324/Pack_A_-English-_Web.pdf
3 July: Factsheet – Asylum Accommodation, Applications and Interviews https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/07/03/factsheet-asylum-accommodation-and-applications/
29 June 2020: TFN: Refugee charities slam hotel policy for asylum seekers
Charities previously warned about moving vulnerable asylum seekers
Refugee charities have hit out at the lack of proper procedures when moving asylum seekers into temporary accommodation.
It comes after a Sudanese man attacked a number of people with a knife at a hotel in Glasgow on Friday injusring six before he was shot dead by police marksmen.
Organisations had been warning about the situation concerning temporary accommodation up to the day before the attack, it has been revealed.
Since lockdown was imposed many, who formerly lived in flats in the city, were moved into hotels closed because of the covid-19 restrictions.
Read more: https://tfn.scot/news/refugee-charities-slam-hotel-policy-for-asylum-seekers
12 May 2020: TFN: 400 asylum seekers forced into shared accommodation despite lockdown
Charity demands answers from Home Office and Mears Group after death of Syrian refugee.
Campaigners are demanding answers after the death of a Syrian asylum seeker in a Scottish hotel.
Adnan Olbeh, who was 30, was found dead in his room at the 81-room McLays Guest House in Glasgow on Tuesday 5 May.
Mr Olbeh was one of around 400 refugees and asylum seekers who were relocated into vacant hotels from self-contained flats around the city by housing and social care provider Mears Group in the early weeks of the coronavirus lockdown.
Mears is said to have given asylum seekers just minutes notice of the move before taking them in groups of four or five to the hotels in vans, ignoring rules around social distancing.
Those in the hotels have told charities they now fear for their safety, with many staying in their rooms to avoid coming into close contact with others.
Meanwhile, their regular weekly allowance of £35.50 has been cut to zero, meaning they can no longer buy sanitary products, top up phones for essential calls, or use public transport to travel to food banks.
Read more: https://tfn.scot/news/400-asylum-seekers-forced-into-shared-accommodation-despite-lockdown
20 November 2018: Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration: Chief Inspector publishes his report on the Home Office’s management of asylum accommodation provision
Inspectors examined resources, policies, processes and performance in respect of the provision, by the Home Office, of asylum accommodation.
The provision of asylum accommodation, in line with the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, was examined by the National Audit Office in 2014 and by the Home Affairs Committee (HAC) in 2017. While I did not set out to re-examine every finding or recommendation made by the NAO or HAC, I took note of the Home Office’s responses to the latter in particular and looked to see what actions had been completed and what improvements had been made.
For several reasons, not least the difficulty of extracting evidence from the Home Office, this inspection proved more challenging than most. My report is likely to please no-one. It was clear from the Home Office’s response to the draft report that this topic touched a nerve. It considered my criticisms unfair and believed its efforts had not been fully recognised.
Meanwhile, I suspect that the many non-government organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders engaged with asylum accommodation, and those living in it, will feel that the report has not gone far enough in challenging the standards of accommodation and support provided.
Discussions with the Home Office, the commercial providers, NGOs and asylum seekers about particular properties showed just how difficult it was to agree on what constituted “an acceptable standard” of accommodation, and how equally difficult it was for the parties to remain objective and to trust each other’s intentions and actions.
The overriding impression from this inspection was of many individuals – from the Home Office, the Providers, NGOs and voluntary groups, statutory services and local authorities – up and down the UK, working hard to do their best for those in asylum accommodation, but often with quite different perspectives and priorities.
The system will always rely on collaboration, but it is the Home Office that holds most of the keys – to easing demand on asylum accommodation through more efficient management of asylum claims; to standardising data capture and improving information flows; to ensuring policies and practices support and protect the most vulnerable; to driving a UK-wide dispersal strategy for asylum seekers and refugees that engages more local authorities.
For all its efforts, this inspection found the Home Office too accepting of the limitations of the current COMPASS contracts and how things are, and too optimistic that the work it has in hand and the new contracts would bring about improvements.
In reality, there is much more that it can and should be doing now, before September 2019 when the new contracts start. Otherwise, the same underlying issues with asylum accommodation are likely to persist, whatever benefits the new contracts may deliver.
I have made 9 recommendations, some of them time-sensitive. My report was sent to the Home Secretary on 9 July 2018. While it has accepted all of my recommendations, the Home Office’s formal response (published with this report) looks to underplay the evidence of poor accommodation standards. This is unhelpful when it comes to building trust.
- An inspection of the Home Office’s management of asylum accommodation provision
- The Home Office response to the asylum accommodation inspection
David Bolt
Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration