GB News host Mark White has brutally shut down a Labour minister who claimed that the Government’s “priority” is to house asylum seekers in military bases.
Speaking to the People’s Channel, Home Office Minister Anna Turley detailed the closure of 13 asylum hotels across the UK today, meaning a total of 44 hotels have been closed since the start of the year.
Pressed by host Ellie Costello on where the Government plans to move the asylum seekers to once they have left the hotels, Ms Turley told GB News that their “priority” is to move them to military bases.
She said: “Our priority is to move them to military bases, so I’m really pleased that we’ve closed those 13 hotels today, that’s 44 that we’ve closed since the start of the year, and we’re now down to less than 160 hotels from the peak of 400 under the last Government.
“The public asked us to close hotels, and rightly so, because they were expensive, they were not safe, and it was not an appropriate way to place asylum seekers, particularly in many communities.”
Ms Turley made clear: “So it’s right that we’re continuing to close these hotels across the country, release the burden on some communities that have really had to feel the strain.
“And our priority, as I said, is looking at military bases which are secure and which can contain people safely and not put burden on local communities.”
Interjecting the Labour MP, Mark hit back at the “disingenuous” claim that the Government’s “priority” accommodation is military bases.
Anna Turley has been grilled by GB News host Mark White on the housing of asylum seekers in the UK
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GB NEWS
Mark told Ms Turley: “That’s disingenuous, I’m sorry. You’ve got a few thousand people in military bases, and you’ve got close to 100,000 people who are in the community, many of them in HMOs. That’s the truth of it, isn’t it?”
The Labour minister responded: “Well, we’ve got two military bases up and running already, and we’re looking at a further three in the pipeline.”
Mark interjected a second time, pressing Ms Turley: “How many people are in those sites? So how many people are in those military bases?”
She told GB News: “Well, at the moment we’ve got probably around 1,500, and we’re moving, as I said, to put three more online when we go through the due process, consulting with local communities, consulting, ensuring we’ve got planning permission and so on.
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GB NEWS“We’re also looking at a number of medium sized accommodations, so for example, I was dealing with an office block yesterday that’s been decommissioned. We’re looking at potential things like student accommodation.
“We’re trying to make sure we’re using accommodation that is secure, that is appropriate, that puts less strain on the communities and reduces the costs that we saw for hotels.”
Ms Turley added: “The public asked us to to reduce the number of hotels, and we want to make sure that we’ve got a sustained system, whilst crucially, at the same time not just reducing the numbers of people that are in the system claiming asylum, but reducing the numbers of people that are coming here in the first place to try and evade our immigration laws.”
Weighing in on the debate, Ellie stressed that military bases “aren’t working either”, highlighting the situation in Piddington and how the village of 350 people has been earmarked for 1,250 asylum seekers.
Ms Turley told GB News that military bases are ‘secure, self-contained, and reduce the pressure on the local public’
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GB NEWS
Ms Turley continued to defend the use of military bases, concluding: “Well, they’re secure, they’re self-contained, they reduce the pressure on the local public.
“I know it’s frustrating for people, but as I said, I know we have to ensure that there is fairness in the system.
“We can’t continue to put all of our asylum seekers into accommodation in certain areas where we’ve over strained it.
“Military bases have provision of services, they keep people contained, they keep them away from the public on a specific site that are specifically used for that, so that they are not within the community and distributed, and that’s our priority.
“Those military bases are a secure site, and it’s important that we continue to house people there where they can be managed well within the system before they’re processed.”