PM does not give date for closure of Wethersfield asylum centre

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has refused to put a date on when an asylum centre at a former RAF airbase would be closed.

During the general election campaign the prime minister said MDP Wethersfield, in Essex, which has been used to house single male migrants since 2023, needed “to close”.

“The way to close down and to ensure the taxpayer paying for hotel bills across the country for asylum seekers is to process the [asylum] claims and get control of our borders,” Sir Keir said during a visit to Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

James Cleverly, the MP for Braintree which includes the base, called for the centre to shut and argued it was “better to use hotels than it is to use the large sites”.

Local residents have criticised the use of the base and Cleverly has described it as “an isolated site there is not much for these young men to do”.

“We are processing the claims, as a result of that we have now returned 24,000 people who shouldn’t be in the country back to the country they have came from – that is the highest rate of return for the decade,” Sir Keir added.

The BBC asked the prime minister three times when MDP Wethersfield would close, but he did not give a date.

The Helen Bamber Foundation, a human rights charity whose officers have clinically assessed some of the male asylum seekers on the base, said: “We continue to witness a significant deterioration in their mental and physical health as a result of living there.

“They face extreme isolation, are forced to share rooms, and struggle to access essential services, leaving many feeling trapped in what they describe as an ‘open prison’.”

In February the Home Office increased the cap on the number of asylum seekers who can live at the former RAF base from 580 to 800.

A Home Office Spokesperson has said: “This government inherited an asylum system under unprecedented strain. That has inevitably meant difficult choices elsewhere in the short term, including increasing capacity at Wethersfield.”

In September, the Home Office announced that RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire would not be used for asylum seekers and the site would be closed.

In November, the government ended the use of the Bibby Stockholm barge moored off Dorset to house migrants.

Currently the special development order that allows the government to use MDP Wethersfield to house asylum seekers expires in April 2027, but the government could extend its use beyond this date.