MP demands assurances that North Yorkshire RAF base will not be used to house asylum seekers
A Tory MP has said that he has failed to receive assurances from the Home Secretary that a former RAF base in North Yorkshire will not be used to house asylum seekers.
The Government is looking to move migrants from hotels to military bases to try and quell public dissent.
The Home Office confirmed on Monday that two barracks in Scotland and southern England would be used to house about 900 men temporarily.
Sir Keir Starmer said he wants to see asylum hotels closed “as quickly as possible” and is “bearing down on this every day of the week”.
The plans will see men housed at Cameron Barracks in Inverness and Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex.
Defence Minister Luke Pollard told LBC that further bases were being sized up for migrant accommodation beyond the two announced.
In 2022, the previous Conservative government faced local uproar when it attempted to house asylum seekers at the former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse outside of York.
It spent almost £3m trying to develop the site in the leafy village into a processing centre for migrants, where they would be held for six months before being rehoused.
The plans provoked fury from local residents and councillors who said they had not been consulted.
Wetherby and Easingwold MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke said that he wrote to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on her appointment last month seeking “assurances” that the Linton-on-Ouse plans would not be resurrected. However, he said it had not been ruled out.
Sir Alec said: “I wrote to the Home Secretary two months ago calling on her to rule out Linton-on-Ouse as a potential site for illegal immigrants.
“So far, she has failed to do so. This former base sits between two small villages, with no infrastructure and Northern PowerGrid suggests it would take a decade to increase electricity supply on site to accommodate 1,000 migrants.
“It simply won't work and the Home Office should rule it out immediately and focus instead on stopping the boats with an actual deterrent like the Rwanda plan they scrapped when they came into office.”
The Yorkshire Post has asked the Home Office whether Linton-on-Ouse and the Old Hospital Site at Catterick Garrison are being lined up to accommodate asylum seekers.
It is understood that the land at Catterick was to be used to house migrants before they were sent to Rwanda, under the previous government’s plans.
Although Mr Pollard said that asylum seekers would not be housed alongside serving military personnel as the bases selected are currently out of use.
Barracks sites will be handed over in their “entirety” to the Home Office, he told LBC.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said that the moves would be worth it even if they ended up costing more than hotels.
They said: “The costs will vary site by site, and as I say, we are looking at these initial two sites and if they will prove the concept, and if successful we’ll look at scaling that up.
“But this is also a core issue of public confidence. The public is very clear it does not want asylum seekers housed in hotels, and neither does the Government.”
Reacting to the plans, Care4Calais chief executive Steve Smith said: “How much evidence does the Government need that camps are bad for people’s health and wellbeing?
“We’ve had Napier, Penally and Wethersfield, and hunger strikes, protests and attempted suicides have been a regular occurrence at all of them.
“Opening more camps will only serve to retraumatise more people who have already survived horrors such as war and torture.”
He added that the National Audit Office found that Wethersfield in Essex and RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire would cost more than asylum hotels when including “exorbitant set-up costs of such sites”.