Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department took steps to help tackle overcrowding at Manston short term holding facility in the six months before 1 November 2022.

Before the high number of arrivals from August 2022 onwards, Manston had proven to be a streamlined and efficient asylum processing centre, where biographic and biometric details were taken and assessed against Home Office databases, asylum claims registered and the vulnerable assessed. Since then, the department has taken every step possible to ensure that any period of detention is as brief as possible, arrivals are processed quickly and, where appropriate, given initial asylum accommodation. We have been sourcing more bed spaces with local authorities and in contingency accommodation such as hotels, and we have erected additional marquees at Manston to increase the space available.