Policing Minister Chris Philp
(Picture: PA Wire)A Home Office minister claimed on Friday it was “a bit of a cheek” for people who have entered Britain illegally to complain — amid criticism of the conditions at an overcrowded refugee centre.
Policing Minister Chris Philp was speaking after Home Secretary Suella Braverman had visited the Manston centre in Kent. He said the Government was working to lower numbers of migrants being kept there with 4,000 people at one stage being housed in a complex designed for 1,600.
There have been outbreaks of diptheria, scabies and MRSA at the former airport site, while a nine-year-old girl said in a letter thrown over the perimeter fence that the centre felt “like a prison”.
Mr Philp told Times Radio: “If people choose to enter a country illegally, and unnecessarily, it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions. They don’t even have to come here, they were in France already and previously often passed through Belgium, Germany, and many other countries on the way.
“So, we’re doing our best, but the numbers are just overwhelming.”
Mr Philp insisted that the UK was a “generous country” in accommodating asylum seekers. He said: “We’re spending something like two or three billion pounds a year looking after people who have entered the country illegally and unnecessarily. I think, frankly, that is pretty generous, actually ... our asylum accommodation is better than most European countries. In terms of people who are genuinely in need of protection, we are a generous country... that looks after people in genuine need.”
But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael hit back, saying: “Chris Philp’s comments betray a shocking and callous complacency over the disaster unfolding at Manston. It is unbelievable that as we hear reports of sexual assaults, disease and chronic overcrowding, his response is to accuse those who complain of ‘cheek’.”
Westminster city council Labour leader Adam Hug said the “chaos” of the situation meant some migrants bussed from Manston to Victoria station in central London probably had to sleep rough.
Asked what may have caused the breakdown in communication after the Home Office claimed the migrants told officials they had accommodation, Mr Hug told BBC Radio: “Could be language, could be just the sheer push of people. To be fair to the Home Office, it could be people who are just desperately wanting to get out of a horrible situation that is on the ground in Manston”.
He added: “It was confused, there were problems with language barriers — that is what they’re telling us and we have no reason not to believe them. But, ultimately, you have got a group of people who were dumped on the street in Westminster on Wednesday and had to sleep rough overnight and then were being picked up by our homeless services, and we have housed several of them last night as a council waiting for the Home Office to provide them with permanent accommodation.”
He said local services and charities “are having to pick up the slack.”
Ms Braverman toured immigration centres in Kent yesterday as she saw first hand the pressure on the coast where migrants, many in small boats, have been landing. Two charities have threatened legal action against her over conditions at Manston.
