Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the official categorisation is of the temporary accommodation sites for asylum seekers at (a) Penally training camp in Pembrokeshire and (b) Napier barracks in Kent.

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to provide support including accommodation to destitute asylum seekers whilst their claims are being considered.

In recent months, the asylum system has faced significant pressures and it has become necessary to source, and use, additional temporary accommodation, such as hotels, to ensure the Home Office can continue to meet its statutory obligations towards destitute asylum seekers.

Following an urgent scoping exercise, we identified further suitable and available accommodation and put it to use quickly. This now includes the use of two MOD sites in Kent and Pembrokeshire. The sites are being run by Clearsprings Ready Homes, one of the Home Office’s Accommodation Providers under our Asylum Accommodation and Support contracts.

The number of asylum applicants transferred out of Napier barracks and Penally training camp are not available in a reportable format and to provide the information could only be done at disproportionate cost.

However, the latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area, which includes those in hotel and wider government facilities. These statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support.