Asylum Accommodation

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Alex Norris

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I thank my hon. Friend for his questions. To answer your question from the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will of course be very happy to meet you, as I always am—indeed, I am often summoned to do so. You are in the inimical position of not being able to clearly state on the record just how opposed to Crowborough you are, but I am in no doubt about that, given that you tell me basically every single day via the telephone or face to face, or through whatever tortures in this Chamber you can imagine. I may have more of that to come.

The points made by my hon. Friend are very important. I appreciate that local communities will want to do one of two things, and I encourage them to do both of them at the same time. I understand that many if not most people in my hon. Friend’s community, like others, will oppose the Government doing this, which is a perfectly noble endeavour in a democracy. There are also questions about how this can be done best—how do we limit the impact, be it on health services, the police or local amenities? I believe we can pass that test clearly, and I hope communities will also engage with those questions.

As for planning, my hon. Friend knows that we have previously used a number of different planning devices for different sites. We have not made final determinations for Barnham or for the other sites—we will be doing that over the course of this work.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Linton-on-Ouse, in the heart of my constituency, is a small rural community and is very much isolated. Four years ago, this plan was rejected on technical grounds. Three times the local population would be put into the area, with no means to secure people within that site. They could roam into the village, which has no amenities and does not have a village shop. The area would be overwhelmed.

I wanted to question the Minister on Thursday, but it was not possible. I have had many constituents ask some of these questions over the weekend, and I would like the Minister to answer them now. Northern Powergrid previously indicated that the system would not be able to cope and that the electrical upgrade needed for supply was not possible. Does that mean that industrial generators will have to be brought in, creating noise pollution in this quiet rural village? Yorkshire Water spent millions of pounds upgrading the sewage works to ensure that it correctly met effluent discharge requirements, based on a threefold increase in the area’s population under the proposal, so will there have to be effluent trucks, or would the water drains be polluted? On that note, people who closed down the Linton-on-Ouse base tell me that the drains were concreted in at the time.

The Minister has said that some of these sites have already been vetted, but I find that hard to believe, when the issues on the base have not changed. The highway network has bridges limited to seven and a half tonnes, so site traffic will have to go through limited road routes. On healthcare, the local NHS says that it has no spare capacity. What is perhaps more worrying is that I have been told on good authority that local companies have been asked to tender for the work that would be needed at this site. I ask the Minister directly: have local companies been contacted to tender for work? If they have, I wonder whether it is a feasibility study. On that note, who will make the planning decisions? Will that be for North Yorkshire council, or will it be overridden?

To call it a plan is too grand. The Government do not know what they are doing. They have not thought it through, and they have not had the decency to consult local people about it. In the words of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) in 2022, this

“tells you just about everything you need to know about the state of chaos they are in.”

This is happening under his watch, so what has changed? This is still an inappropriate site, given those technical issues.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that series of questions. I gently say that there is a slight unfairness in the right hon. Gentleman’s saying that he and his community want a greater say in the details, while at the same time saying that we do not have a plan. The whole point is that rather than inviting providers or contractors to tender for services and to be around on sites and our saying, “Nothing to see here”, we are being honest that we are looking seriously at this site. The final decision is not made yet, but we are looking. That is a better way to do it, but I appreciate that there may be differences of view.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about roaming. That is in no one’s interest, and what we have managed to do at Wethersfield and Crowborough is to ensure that people do not just come off-site and roam. They are non-detained, as he said. Nevertheless, by the provision of activities and of transport, we can ensure the lightest local impact possible. That would be our commitment for these sites, too.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions electricity and sewage. Those are important parts of the process that we are in now. We are well aware of the history, which transcends this Government—it goes back to the previous Government—but we would not be taking forward this site if we did not think we had viable answers. Nevertheless, it is only when we get on site and start turning over the rocks, as it were, that we can get to a final point on viability. That is the process we are doing here.

It is not our intention that the site would impact on the right hon. Gentleman’s local healthcare services, outside emergency services perhaps. What we have been able to do elsewhere is to have ordinary healthcare provided for on-site to ensure that there is not an impact on the local community. Those are the types of models—[Interruption.] An hon. Member asks if I will give way. I am trying to answer questions fully. Perhaps I cannot win either way.