How the Government is trying to dump asylum seeker centres on communities like Linton-on-Ouse - Andrew Vine

If this goes ahead, the usual planning processes that safeguard places large and small from inappropriate developments will be bypassed and the views of residents and councils disregarded.

Instead of consultations in which residents’ objections are taken into account, all it will take is the stroke of a minister’s pen to give a holding centre for refugees the go-ahead.

And the Government is showing every sign of hoping nobody will notice what is going on before the measure becomes law.

There is no mention of asylum seekers or holding centres for them in what is being debated.

The new powers are tucked away in a clause of the innocuous-sounding Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. Most people would assume it was solely about addressing economic inequalities.

Look closer, however, and it becomes clear that it is being used to smuggle through something entirely different.

It seeks to overhaul the planning rules to make it easier for ministers to change the use of land owned by the Crown. Currently, the Government must obtain planning permission from the local authority and consult residents about what is proposed.

Under the new measures, changes would simply be signed off by the housing secretary, currently Michael Gove, bypassing the planning authority.

The criteria for him doing so would be for the planned development being considered of “national importance” or “a matter of urgency” – naturally, the decision on whether it met them being for the Government to take.

With the Government spending £6m a day on accommodating 51,000 migrants in hotels, planning to use former military bases to house 25,000 of them and the Home Secretary talking about an “invasion” of people crossing the Channel in small boats, there can be no doubt that this piece of legislation is designed to develop new holding centres as quickly as possible.

And, of course, riding roughshod over local objections in the process.

This has particular resonance for us in Yorkshire. Today’s debate comes a little more than a year since the plan to convert the former RAF base at Linton-on-Ouse, near York, into a centre for 1,200 migrants was announced, provoking an uproar.

The sheer inappropriateness of dumping so many people onto a small rural community spoke volumes about the Government’s chaotic attempts to tackle illegal immigration.

The determined protests of residents, allied to Hambleton District Council’s refusal to grant planning permission and the objections of Thirsk and Malton MP Kevin Hollinrake, forced the Government to abandon the plan.

All that might have counted for nothing had the powers being sought by the Government been in force last year.

The plan could have been pushed through regardless, with untold consequences for the village and its people.

It is not stretching credibility to suggest that at least some in Government are determined there will be no repeat of the humiliating climbdown over Linton-on-Ouse when other former bases, or properties, are identified for holding migrants.

Legal battles are already under way over plans to convert the former Dambusters RAF base at Scampton, in Lincolnshire, a Ministry of Defence site in Essex and a former prison in Sussex, all of which echo the opposition that won the day here in Yorkshire.

That’s how it should be. Residents in places like Linton – in consultation with their councillors and MPs – know best what is right for their communities, and the notion that they should be stripped of any means to stop inappropriate developments is outrageous.

It is unacceptable that the Government is seeking to undermine the ability of councils to protect areas – and ironic that it should be happening in the midst of the Conservative campaign to persuade millions of voters that it is the party of good local government.