Diana Johnson – 2022 Question on Legality of Holding Asylum Seekers for Over 24 Hours

The question asked by Diana Johnson, the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull North, in the House of Commons on 7 November 2022.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) on securing this urgent question. Tomorrow, the Home Affairs Committee will visit Manston on its second visit, as we first visited in June. Alongside looking at the overcrowding, the safety issues and the lack of basic facilities, there is a concern about the legality of the Home Secretary’s actions in authorising individuals to be detained at Manston for more than 24 hours. Weekend media reports suggested that she was repeatedly provided with the advice that detaining individuals at Manston for more than 24 hours was illegal. The Sunday Times reported that she had received papers on 4 October stating that the Home Office had no power to detain people solely for welfare reasons or for arranging onward accommodation. Can the Minister explain to the House the legal basis for detaining individuals at Manston for longer than 24 hours?

Robert Jenrick

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who chairs the Select Committee, for that question. The law is clear that we should not detain individuals at sites such as Manston for longer than 24 hours, and that is exactly the position that we want to return to as fast as we can.

There are competing legal duties on Ministers. Another legal duty that we need to pay heed to is our duty not to leave individuals destitute. It would be wrong for the Home Office to allow individuals who had only recently arrived in the United Kingdom—the vast majority of those at Manston had been saved at sea by Border Force, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and the Royal Navy—and who had been brought to the site in a condition of some destitution, to be released on to the rural lanes of Kent without great care. That is why the Home Secretary has balanced her duties and taken the required steps to procure more hotel accommodation as swiftly as we can. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) can see the work that we have already done.

In answer to the first part of the right hon. Lady’s question, the conditions at Manston were poor because there were too many people there, but a wide range of facilities are provided: individuals are clothed, they are fed three times a day, and there is an excellent medical facility. I have seen those things with my own eyes, and I hope that she sees them as well. We need to keep a sense of proportion about the state of Manston.