Yvette Cooper has accused the government of “flailing around” in its approach to tackling backlogs in the UK asylum system after it emerged the Home Office has bought tents ready to house up to 2,000 people on disused military sites.
The shadow home secretary attacked the government for failing to process asylum claims more quickly, although she refused to say whether Labour would also use tents to deal with the migrant housing crisis.
Cooper was speaking after the Times revealed the Home Office had procured marquees to avoid having to book hotel rooms at the last minute to cope with an expected increase in people crossing the Channel to claim asylum.
She told LBC: “We’ve seen [ministers] really flailing around with the barges, the bases, the tents now. And actually all this is alongside increasing hotel use when they should be ending hotel use, because they’re simply not taking asylum decisions.”
Asked separately by Sky News whether Labour would also use tents in an emergency situation, she said: “We think we should be ending hotel use altogether, we shouldn’t need to use all of these additional things. We’ve got to get the backlog down.”
The government has struggled to accommodate thousands of asylum seekers in recent years as the backlog of undecided cases has built. With the backlog now at nearly 75,000, ministers are spending about £2bn a year on hotel rooms to house people waiting to hear if they can remain in the country.
The use of hotel rooms has caused anger among some local communities and legal challenges from human rights organisations. On Thursday, the high court ruled the government’s “routine” use of hotels to house unaccompanied children was unlawful, saying such an arrangement should be used only in emergency situations.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has procured two barges to house asylum seekers, with the first 50 people expected to board the first of these next Tuesday – despite concerns about the safety of the people who will live there.
The tents are intended to add even more capacity to the system. The Times reported that some in government had compared the solution to concentration camps.
Tim Naor Hilton, the chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “It is staggering the home secretary plans to use what a government source compared to a concentration camp to house people seeking asylum – in the same week courts ruled she broke the law three times with her inhumane treatment of refugees.”
