Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish details of the scoping exercise which identified the Penally training camp in Pembrokeshire as a suitable site for temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.

Work to explore further options to accommodate asylum seekers in line with the Government’s statutory obligations included examining the potential to utilise MOD sites at short notice. This scoping process identified Penally Training Camp and Napier Barracks.

The basic requirements for the Home Office were that the sites were capable of housing, safely and securely, on a temporary basis, large numbers of single adult male asylum seekers, that the sites were either available or could be vacated by the MOD at short notice, and that the accommodation provider, Clearsprings Ready Homes, could operate the sites safely and securely, providing for asylum seeker needs.

There are no plans to publish the scoping exercise.