7 September 2025, 15:07 | Updated: 7 September 2025, 15:15
7 September 2025, 15:07 | Updated: 7 September 2025, 15:15
The defence secretary has told LBC News plans are being drawn up to use former military bases to house asylum seekers.
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Alamy
The Defence Secretary has told LBC News plans are being drawn up to use former military bases to house asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats.
John Healey said he is working with the home office and looking at sites owned by the Ministry of Defence.
It’s among the policies expected after Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle – as he tries to win back support from Reform.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has previously said that he wants to deport women asylum seekers back to the Taliban in Afghanistan if he becomes prime minister.
Speaking to broadcasters on Sunday, John Healey said military planners were being drafted into border command, while ministers were considering using defence sites to house asylum seekers.
“I think you’ll start to see Keir Starmer insist that dealing with the small boats, solving the illegal immigration crisis, is part of the jobs of the whole of Government, not just the Home Office,” the Defence Secretary told Sky.
He said part of this would involve looking at moving asylum seekers into “temporary” accommodation on military sites, but did not confirm a date for when such transfers might take place.
The scale of the challenge facing new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was illustrated on Saturday, when an estimated 1,000 people arrived by small boat in Britain, and French authorities said 24 people were rescued while trying to cross the Channel.
Two former military sites, Napier Barracks in Kent and RAF Wethersfield in Essex, are already being used as asylum accommodation after being opened under the previous Tory government.
The Napier site in Folkestone is slated to be returned to the Ministry of Defence in September, although its use by the Home Office was previously extended amid increased small boat crossings.
BRITAIN-MIGRATION-PROTEST.
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Getty