Illegal immigration is ‘out of control’, claims Suella Braverman as she defends actions over Manston centre
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.
Braverman responds to critics who want her gone – live updates
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
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Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
World
UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.
An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.
They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.
Police at the scene. Pic: AP
Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.
There was no immediate information on a possible motive.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.
A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.
Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.
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Four tracks at the station were closed in the evening, and some long-distance trains were delayed or diverted.
Hamburg is Germany‘s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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