OPINION - Government to move asylum seekers into ex-military bases

Deterrence lies at the heart of the government’s asylum policy. Now, it is not true to say that Britain offers no legal and safe routes for refugees. First, there are the three bespoke avenues for those from Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong.

Then there is the UK Resettlement Scheme, Community Sponsorship and the Mandate Scheme, all of which qualify as refugee resettlement programmes. While family reunion visas are available for immediate relatives of those granted refuge in the UK before leaving their country of origin.

But everything else the government does is about looking tough to three distinct audiences: asylum seekers, voters and Conservative MPs. It is not obviously succeeding with any of them.

Take today’s row about moving refugees out of hotels. To be clear, there is nothing intrinsically improper about seeking value for money when it comes to providing accommodation for asylum seekers. At present, the government is spending £6.8m a day to house over 50,000 people in hotels, which accounts for one-third of the UK’s foreign aid budget. These rooms, often lacking proper cooking facilities, are not designed for long-term inhabitation.

Therefore, using disused military bases, if funded and designed properly, might address that problem. That is, unless substandard conditions are supposed to form part of the deterrence. Indeed, that is how you end up suggesting ever more impractical, undeliverable and often unlawful solutions, until all of a sudden you’re briefing The Times that migrants will be sent to live on barges. Never mind the fact that there is no obvious surfeit of government-owned barges to hand. Or how you make this cost-effective. Or safe for adults, let alone children.

Furthermore, as the barrister Adam Wagner points out, the government lost a previous high court challenge on the standard of accommodation for asylum seekers at Napier Barracks.

The next problem for Rishi Sunak is that the public does not believe he is delivering on his promises. At the start of the year, the prime minister set out his five key priorities, the fifth of which related to small boats. Sunak promised to “pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed.”

But according to a recent YouGov poll, when asked how the government was performing on this pledge, 73 per cent of respondents said ‘very badly’ or ‘badly’. Only 8 per cent replied ‘very well’ or well’.

This is hardly surprising when looking at the rise in small boat crossings or the growing asylum backlog. As of December 2022, this comprised of more than 166,000 cases. While asylum seekers who received an initial decision in 2020 waited on average 449 days. The Government for its part accepts this is too high and blames the rising number of applications, case complexity and declining Home Office productivity.

So, the government’s policy of deterrence is not deterring small boats – desperate people will continue to brave the perilous journey across the English Channel. Nor is it reassuring voters, who don’t believe the prime minister’s promises are being delivered. But the problems don’t end there.

As our political reporter Rachael Burford notes, Tory MPs are also unhappy, this time with the barracks policy, given that many lie within their constituencies. Indeed, MPs today threatened to rebel over plans to house thousands of asylum seekers at former RAF airfields in Essex and Lincolnshire. Local councils meanwhile are promising imminent legal challenges – and all this is taking place seven weeks before the local elections. Has anyone thought this through?

In the comment pages, Ayesha Hazarika calls anti-social behaviour a blight, but suggests Tory plans to address it aren’t serious. Yvonne Field, founder and CEO of The Ubele Initiative, says a monument to slave trade victims must only be the start. While Homes & Property Editor Prudence Ivey states that evictions should be the last resort, not a quick fix.

And finally, from moral panic to big-screen blockbuster: the rise (and rise) of Dungeons & Dragons.

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