Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what comparative assessment she has made of the safety of (a) military barracks and other such temporary alternative asylum accommodation sites, (b) existing immigration detention centres and (c) hotels and other such asylum accommodation under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 during the covid-19 outbreak.

Two former Ministry of Defence sites, Napier Barracks and Penally Training Camp are currently in use. We continue to explore further options to ensure that we continue meet our statutory obligations to support and accommodate destitute asylum seekers at all times.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we have taken decisive action to ensure that those seeking asylum in the United Kingdom have the support they need.

We have provided accommodation and support for everyone in the asylum system, including those whose applications have been rejected and new applicants who have claimed.

Given the unique challenges over recent months, it has been necessary to use additional hotel accommodation and two former Ministry of Defence sites in Napier and Penally, on a temporary, contingency basis to ensure there is always sufficient capacity to deliver our statutory obligations to destitute asylum seekers. We continue to examine further options to ensure we maintain the robustness of our contingency planning and take full account of all relevant factors in doing so, engaging with partner organisations as necessary.

Multi-agency forums including public health partners and emergency services were established when the Minister of Defence sites were stood up and these continue to meet regularly.

The safety and health of people in the detention estate is of the utmost importance. The Home Office has robust contingency plans in place and continues to follow national guidance issued by Public Health England (PHE), Health Protection Scotland and the National Health Service (NHS).

All immigration removal centres (IRCs) have communicable disease contingency plans, based on PHE advice, and dedicated health facilities run by doctors and nurses which are managed by the NHS or appropriate providers. Detained individuals arriving at IRCs are medically assessed by a nurse within two hours of their arrival, are offered an appointment with a doctor within 24 hours and have access to medical assistance throughout their detention. In addition, we are in the process of rolling out COVID 19 testing on reception in all IRCs.

Increased asylum intake, alongside measures taken to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, has meant that the Home Office has had to deal with growing demand for asylum support and accommodation services.

In recent months we have faced additional challenges which have required us in some instances to use contingency accommodation, including hotels, to fulfil or statutory obligations to house destitute asylum seekers whilst their claims are examined.

Even with the use of hotels, there has remained the need to increase capacity further to ensure statutory obligations are met at all times. Following a review of available government property, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) agreed to temporarily hand over two of their sites: the Penally Training Camp in Pembrokeshire and the Napier Barracks in Kent.

These sites were immediately available to be used to house asylum seekers and are safe, secure, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped in line with existing contractual requirements for asylum accommodation.

In order to reduce the use of such contingency accommodation we have been working closely with local authorities and devolved administrations to identify opportunities to increase the amount of dispersal accommodation available and to assist those that are no longer eligible for asylum support to ‘move-on’ from asylum accommodation.

It remains our intention to move all individuals in contingency accommodation into suitable dispersed accommodation as soon as reasonably practical; however, our immediate priority is to ensure that we continue to meet our legal duty to house destitute asylum seekers and ensure their safety and well-being.

The Home Office does not detain anyone in temporary asylum accommodation. Our accommodation providers do not have enforcement powers and those we are accommodating are free to come and go as they please.

We do not publish the information requested, although the number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support