Suella Braverman has said she “never ignored legal advice” about sending migrants to hotels from an overcrowded processing centre.
The home secretary said she knew “the importance of taking legal advice into account” and never tried to stop migrants from the Manston processing centre from being sent to hotels.
“At every point, I’ve worked hard to find accommodation to relieve pressure at Manston,” she told MPs in the Commons.
She also said illegal migration “is out of control” and spoke of an “invasion on our southern coast”, with the sheer numbers arriving via the Channel making it impossible to provide accommodation for them.
Mrs Braverman defended herself after days of political turmoil around increasing migrant crossings and following accusations she sent sensitive emails from her personal account to colleagues.
She has not faced MPs since being reappointed home secretary by Rishi Sunak last Tuesday, despite several calls from opposition parties to do so.
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Addressing calls for her to go, the home secretary told MPs in the Commons on Monday: “Let them try.”
Labour had accused the home secretary of being silent on the worsening Channel crisis and overcrowding at the Manston processing centre in Kent, where outbreaks of MRSA and diptheria have been reported.
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The site is only designed to hold 1,000 people, who are meant to stay for just 48 hours, but there are currently around 4,000 migrants there – more than any UK prison population.
Hundreds more people were moved to the Manston facility yesterday, following a petrol bomb attack at the Border Force migrant centre in Dover. Mrs Braverman said the police are not treating it as a terrorist attack.
The home secretary is coming under increasing pressure after a report in The Times claimed she blocked the transfer of asylum seekers from Manston to new hotels and ignored legal advice that the government was illegally detaining people there.
Almost 1,000 migrants arrived in the UK on Saturday as they made the treacherous journey across the world’s busiest shipping lane in small boats to land in Dover.
Image: Manston migrant processing centre in Thanet, Kent
‘Simply isn’t true’
But she insisted several times during questions from MPs in the Commons this was wrong and she has actually approved the use of dozens of new hotels to accommodate migrants since Liz Truss made her home secretary in September, before she resigned and was reappointed six days later by Rishi Sunak.
“On no occasion have I blocked the procurement of hotels or alternative accommodation to ease the pressure on Manston, that simply isn’t true,” Mrs Braverman said.
“Since September 6 over 30 new hotels have been agreed to, they will provide an additional 4,500 bed spaces, many to those in Manston.
“Since then 4,000 from Manston have moved onwards, most towards hotels.”
A Home Office source also said they are “clear she has not ignored any legal advice” over hotels, but two government sources have told Sky News they think the home secretary did ignore official advice and did not sign off on accommodation so people could be processed within expected time frames.
Image: People thought to be migrants at the Manston processing centre
Mrs Braverman also said she was dismayed to have found out when she became home secretary that £150 was being spent, on average, per night for each migrant to be housed in hotels.
Some four-star hotels were being used for asylum seekers, she said, adding: “For me, that is not an acceptable use of taxpayers’ money.”
Mrs Braverman attacked Labour for claiming the migrants arriving via the Channel are refugees and not economic migrants, she said: “Let’s be clear about what is really going on here – the British people deserve to know who is serious about stopping the invasion of our southern coast and who is not.
“Let’s stop pretending they are all refugees in distress, the whole country knows that is not true.”
She said she is “utterly serious about ending the scourge of illegal migration” and fixing “our hopelessly lax asylum system”.
And she added that she is not prepared to release “thousands of people into local communities without anywhere to stay”.
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Video from inside migrant centre
Security breach scandal
Mrs Braverman is also facing calls to go over security breaches during her time as home secretary under Liz Truss.
New PM Mr Sunak has been under pressure over his decision to appoint Mrs Braverman as home secretary since he gave her the job last week, but has stood by her.
She resigned from the same role in Ms Truss’ government after sending sensitive policy documents from her personal email to former security minister Sir John Hayes and another MP’s aide, breaking the ministerial code.
But she was given her job back just six days later after Mr Sunak took over as prime minister.
She told MPs on Monday she has been “clear I made an error of judgement… I took responsibility for it and I resigned”.
The home secretary added it was “wrong, wrong, wrong” that she ever sent top secret documents from her personal email, or any about cyber security or about intelligence agencies that would compromise national security.
Image: How do we solve the immigration dilemma?
In a letter to the home affairs committee released on Monday, Mrs Braverman admitted she sent official documents from her government email to her personal account on six separate occasions during her first six-week stint as home secretary.
She said she apologised to Mr Sunak for the breach she resigned over when he reappointed her as home secretary.
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”