Officials advised Braverman against RAF base asylum planon May 12, 2023 at 7:47 pm

Civil servants advised the home secretary to abandon plans to house asylum seekers at a former RAF base in Lincolnshire, it has emerged.

In an email from February, seen by the BBC, a senior Home Office official advised Suella Braverman to stop work on the site at RAF Scampton.

The official noted “significant challenges to progress” on the site.

The Home Office said internal departmental discussions were a routine part of its decision-making.

It comes after West Lindsey District Council, where the base is located, lost its High Court bid for an injunction to stop work on the site.

The internal email was part of evidence referred to during a court hearing on Thursday.

RAF Scampton is one of a number of military sites the Home Office wants to convert into large-scale asylum accommodation to house asylum seekers waiting for their claims to be assessed.

When it announced the plans to convert it in March, the department said it wanted to reduce the cost of housing people in hotels, currently running at around £6 million a day.

The Home Office says up to 2,000 asylum seekers could be housed at RAF Scampton, a base famous for being the former home of the Red Arrows and the World War Two Dambusters squadron.

The council had recently secured £300 million from a developer to regenerate RAF Scampton into a site to be used for tourism, aviation, education and research.

In court, the council’s lawyers said the Home Office’s decision to turn the base into migrant accommodation would “kill off” the plan, calling this “perverse”.

The email, dated 8 February from a senior official in the Resettlement, Asylum Support and Integration Directorate – does not go into detail about the objections but does make reference to the impact of the asylum proposal on redevelopment plans.

It recommends that the home secretary “agree to stop work on proposals for RAF Scampton”, and “immediately notify the local authorities that the Home Office are no longer developing proposals for the site.”

In court, Home Office lawyers insisted the regeneration project had been explicitly taken into account by the home secretary.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the department said the military sites would provide “cheaper and more suitable accommodation for those arriving in small boats”.

“Not only are these sites more affordable for taxpayers, they are also more manageable for communities, due to healthcare and catering facilities on site, 24/7 security and the purpose built, safe and secure accommodation they provide,” the spokesperson added.

West Lindsey District Council is still going ahead with a broader legal challenge to the government’s decision to use RAF Scampton.

Braintree District Council in Essex is also involved in similar legal action over plans to turn Wethersfield Airfield into accommodation for asylum seekers.