Top Labour minister Dan Jarvis endured a toe-curling Radio 4 interview this morning, as he was repeatedly asked where Labour plans on housing illegal migrants. The key question came after yesterday’s bombshell ruling that a migrant hotel in Epping must be closed down due to a breach of planning laws.
Labour has pledged to close all migrant hotels by the next election, though Mr Jarvis repeatedly failed to promise that his department would meet this promise in time. While insisting yesterday’s court ruling is in line with Labour’s pledge to close migrant hotels, he was asked numerous times where illegal migrants will now be housed as they arrive in Britain, and existing migrants are moved out of hotels.
Asked by Emma Barnett whether Labour will begin putting migrants in private residential homes and flats, or detention camps such as army barracks, Mr Jarvis attempted to ignore the question by talking about solving the migrant crossings crisis “at source” with European and Middle Eastern allies.
The Today host swiftly cut him off, demanding to know the answer to her question.
Mr Jarvis spluttered, hitting back: “The fundamental point is about speeding up the process of making decisions about people’s asylum status. The problem we’ve inherited is that the previous government basically stopped making decisions about people’s asylum status…
“We’ve shifted the resource that was being wasted on the Rwanda scheme… we’ve increased the number of decisions by 116%…”
Ms Barnett asked specifically about Wethersfield, the former RAF base in Essex, a site Sir Keir Starmer pledged to close in the election campaign.
However now the Tory leader of the local council has claimed he’s been told that the current number of around 800 men at the site could rise to over 1200.
Asked if the government is now moving from hotels to large bases and camps, Mr Jarvis once again refused to answer the question.
While repeating his insistence that Labour is focused on reducing the inflow of illegal migrants, Ms Barnett blasted: “I think everyone accepts that, it’s just what are we doing in the meantime? There’s some time between 2029, which is the goal you’ve set yourself as a government.”
Mr Jarvis replied: “I accept the point that you’re making, and we have to look and are looking at alternative accommodation arrangements, but we have made that clear commitment. Is it going to be easy? No it isn’t. But this government and the Home Office are absolutely committed to making sure we phase out the use of hotels.”
Asked what ‘alternative accommodation arrangements’ actually means, he merely said it would entail “other more appropriate accommodation”.
Asked for more clarity, he said: “There’s likely to be a range of different arrangements in different parts of the country.”
Asked three more times if he could answer her question, Mr Jarvis refused and said the Home Office is “working through the options”, prompting Ms Barnett to point out: “You’ve had a year! You have to do more than one thing at a time! This is a live issue. This problem’s going to get bigger, it’s a headache for your government!”
