Asylum seekers to be moved to barracks and pop-up cabins in plans to end hotel use
Ministers are aiming to phase out the use of hotels 'within a year' using pop-up sites and ex-military barracks
The Home Office will use pop-up cabins and former military sites to house asylum seekers in a bid to end the use of hotels as accommodation for migrants, reports claim.
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From next month, the Cameron Barracks in Inverness and the Crowborough training camp in East Sussex will be used to house migrants, according to The Times.
Small boat migrants will reportedly be housed on the sites after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer ordered a crackdown on the use of asylum hotels "within a year".
The Home Office, under new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, is hoping that as 10,000 migrants could eventually be housed on disused sites.
But the first tranche of migrants to be house in Scotland and southern England could total up to 900.
The reports come after similar stories suggested that pre-fabricated, modular units similar to Portakabins, could be used to move migrants out of hotels.
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The move is expected to bring down the cost of housing asylum seekers as Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces a difficult Budget which could see tax rises.
Labour has previously pledged to end the use of asylum hotels by 2029 - but after a damning Commons committee report accused the Home Office of wasting billions on the accommodation, the Prime Minister is reportedly urging colleagues to move faster.
On Monday, Housing Secretary Steve Reed said progress timelines for ending asylum hotel use will be announced “within weeks” and confirmed the Government was looking at “modular” forms of building to ensure sites could go up quickly.
Reed added: “We want to get it right”.
The report published by MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee said the Home Office has failed to share a long-term strategy for asylum seeker accommodation.
Committee chairwoman Dame Karen Bradley told Sky News on Monday that the Home Office “isn’t fit for purpose” and should be “split up” into two separate departments for managing borders and crime because they “need different skill sets”.
In response to the report, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accepted “mistakes had been made” in the Home Office under the previous Conservative government.
When asked whether the Tories should accept some responsibility after the findings, she said: “Well, yes.
“This is why it’s one of the first things I did when I became leader was acknowledge mistakes had been made but we had an answer to this, which was the Rwanda scheme.”