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Local Tory councils have threatened to take legal action against the government over its plans to house asylum seekers in disused military bases in their areas.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick confirmed the scheme today, saying “thousands” would be accommodated at former RAF sites in Essex and Lincolnshire.

But Braintree District Council said it was planning to “imminently” apply for a High Court injunction to challenge the proposed use of the Wethersfield airbase amid concerns over the “isolated” location and impact on local services.

And West Lindsey District Council said it was “extremely disappointed” by the plans to use RAF Scampton and was “considering all legal options, including urgent judicial review proceedings”.

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The new housing plans are aimed at reducing the £6.8m a day the government says it spends on hotel accommodation while acting as a deterrent to prevent Channel crossings.

But charities said the military accommodation won’t stop the small boats and is “grossly inadequate” for people who have fled war.

And Labour said the proposals will not reduce spending “contrary to all of the briefing in the papers”.

Making the announcement in the Commons, Mr Jenrick claimed the use of hotels to house asylum seekers has resulted in a loss of tourism and cancelled weddings, saying: “We must not elevate the wellbeing of illegal migrants above those of the British people”.

He said the new accommodation “should meet their essential living needs and nothing more”, adding: “We cannot risk becoming a magnet for the millions of people who are displaced and seeking better economic prospects.”

The minister said the two RAF sites will be “scaled up over the coming months” to house “several thousand asylum seekers through repurposed barrack blocks and porta cabins”.

And he said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “showing leadership” by “bringing forward proposals” to use barracks in Catterick Garrison in his constituency, along with a separate site on private land in Bexhill, East Sussex.

“This government remains committed to meeting our legal obligations for those who would otherwise be destitute but we are not prepared to go further,” said Mr Jenrick.

But he faced a backlash from his own benches, with former home secretary Priti Patel saying the Essex site was not suitable – pointing to another RAF base in North Yorkshire.

She said: “Can I ask why it is deemed appropriate for asylum seeker accommodation to be placed in a rural village in Essex with single men where there is no infrastructure, no amenities, but it was not appropriate for somewhere like Linton-on-Ouse?”

Concerns about the Essex site had previously been voiced by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, the Conservative MP for the area, though earlier deputy PM Dominic Raab told Sky News his cabinet colleague now “fully supports” the policy.

Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP for the proposed site in Lincolnshire, also said using the former home of the Dambusters RAF squadron could jeopardise a £300m regeneration project to convert it into a heritage site.

He said the decision was “not based on good governance but the politics of trying to do something”.

A view of RAF Scampton, in Lincoln, as Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick is expected to announce the use of two RAF sites as he tries to reduce the £6.8 million a day the Government says it spends on hotel accommodation. Mr Jenrick will announce that people who arrive in the UK after making Channel crossings on small boats will be housed at RAF Wethersfield and RAF Scampton. Picture date: Wednesday March 29, 2023.
Image:
RAF Scampton is the former home of The Red Arrows

Transport minister Huw Merriman said voters in his Bexhill constituency would have “great concern” about plans to house asylum seekers in the former Northeye prison turned training centre.

The site is expected to need a considerable amount of work to make it suitable for up to the 1,200 people the Home Office intends to house there.

“I know that this decision will have an impact on local authorities and public services. It will also be of great concern to local residents,” Mr Merriman said.

Jenrick’s words on immigration send a message

As expected, Robert Jenrick today announced plans to house asylum seekers at disused RAF sites in Lincolnshire, Essex, and a former prison in East Sussex, instead of hotels.

He is addressing a subject many Conservative MPs feel very strongly about – one texts to say it is “about time” the government addresses the “hotel problem”.

It is estimated housing migrants in hotels costs the taxpayer almost £7m a day, but there are still plenty of questions about the workability of alternative accommodation.

Local councils are launching legal threats, and transport minister Huw Merriman has said he will be meeting the Home Office to “take forward local concerns”.

Immigration minister Mr Jenrick says the accommodation will “meet essential living needs, nothing more”.

The government hopes the new sites, including a former prison and military training camp, will act as a deterrent, and we understand they will be largely for new arrivals.

In the short-term at least, there is no prospect of moving the thousands of people already in hotels, but Mr Jenrick’s words today certainly send a message.

Opposition MPs also criticised the announcement, with Labour’s Yvette Cooper calling it an “admission of failure”.

Maybe that’s why the home secretary has asked the immigration minister to make it instead,” she quipped in a dig at her government counterpart Suella Braverman.

Ms Cooper said the Conservatives promised four years ago to halve Channel crossings but “they’ve gone up 20 fold since then”, while more hotels have opened up despite repeated promises to stop their use.

“The asylum system is broken because they broke it,” she said.

“They have let criminal gangs rip along the channel. People smuggler convictions have halved in the last four years, even though more boats and more gangs have been crossing. And yet Tory MPs voted against Labour’s plan for cross-border police units to go after the gangs.”

Read more: Sunak could turn the Tories’ chances around – but his party aren’t sold on him yet

There was also anger from charities, with Amnesty International UK describing the government’s argument that its plan will put migrants off travelling to the UK as “utter nonsense”.

Speaking to Sky News, the charity’s refugee and migrant rights programme director, Steve Valdez-Symonds, said: “People don’t get into dangerous boats or on the back of lorries and make dangerous journeys and put themselves in the hands of, quite frankly, very dangerous people on the basis of trying to get some meagre accommodation in a hotel, stuck in limbo in the UK’s asylum system.”

He added that the plan to house migrants on military bases “reflects a continuing failure by the government to simply get a grip on deciding the claims of people who arrive in this country and make asylum claims, something that it’s determined to stop doing, which is why we have this big backlog, and why it is constantly flailing around for places to accommodate people”.

The Home Office is also “continuing to explore” controversial plans to use vessels as a form of accommodation while asylum claims are being processed, Mr Jenrick said, comparing such schemes to those in Scotland and the Netherlands.

The announcement was met with cries of “it’s not the same” from Scottish MPs.

In Scotland, cruise ships have been used to house Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

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Lack of heavy rescue equipment into Gaza leaves hundreds to die slow deaths under rubble

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Lack of heavy rescue equipment into Gaza leaves hundreds to die slow deaths under rubble

It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.

Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.

It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.

The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.

The remains of where the family lived - where loved ones were trapped beneath the rubble
Image:
The aftermath of Israel’s bombing campaign in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City

Salah Jundia
Image:
Salah Jundia

Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.

Then he looked for his father and brothers.

“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.

Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”

Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.

An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.

One of the child victims of the attack on the home in Gaza City
Image:
One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City

One of the child victims of the attack
Image:
Another one of child victims of the attack

Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.

The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.

Palestinians drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image:
Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble

Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble in Gaza City
Image:
Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City

In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.

Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.

He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.

Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.

They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.

It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.

Members of Salah Jundia's family left alive after the attack
Image:
Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack

Salah Jundia and his family
Image:
Salah Jundia and his surviving family

Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.

The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.

“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.

They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”

The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.

In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.

The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.

“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.

He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.

Read more:
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Red dye dumped into US embassy in Israel protest
Israel shot at ambulances over ‘perceived threat’

“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.

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China’s economy surges, but tariffs effect is yet to be seen

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China's economy surges, but tariffs effect is yet to be seen

China’s economy performed better than expected in the first quarter of the year – but it reflects a moment in time before the explosive trade war with the US, which has seen the world’s two biggest economies effectively decouple.

Economists had predicted that gross domestic product would grow by about 5.1% in January to March, compared with a year earlier. In the end, it grew 5.4%.

But these impressive figures obscure the very serious challenges China’s economy is facing in the wake of Donald Tump’s trade war – and it is almost certain growth will not remain this strong as the year goes on.

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Bobble-headed Trump explains China-US tariffs

The worst of Trump’s tariffs came into force in April, meaning they were not reflected in these figures.

In Q1, China faced an initial 10% tariff on all its exports to the US – which was then raised to 20% from 10 March.

But Beijing had planned and prepared for taxes at that level, and thus the impact was pretty minimal.

Growth was also propelled by the fact that exporters rushed to deliver orders in bulk before the tariffs came into force.

More on China

In fact, exports surged a remarkable 12% in March compared to a year earlier, a rate that will not be sustained.

Read more from Sky News:
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The art of doing a deal with Trump
US and UK ‘working hard’ on agreement

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Trump Tariffs: How the 10 days unfolded

Current tariffs on goods sold from China to America stand at 145%. Trade at that price is all but impossible.

Given exports account for a fifth of China’s economy, and consumer confidence domestically is still sluggish, there will be a significant hit to come.

Experts agree China will most likely miss its annual growth target of 5% – the question is by how much.

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Palestinian man forced to abandon loved ones trapped beneath rubble after IDF warning

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Lack of heavy rescue equipment into Gaza leaves hundreds to die slow deaths under rubble

It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.

Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.

It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.

The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.

The remains of where the family lived - where loved ones were trapped beneath the rubble
Image:
The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City

Salah Jundia
Image:
Salah Jundia

Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.

Then he looked for his father and brothers.

“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.

Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”

Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.

One of the child victims of the attack on the home in Gaza City
Image:
One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City

One of the child victims of the attack
Image:
Another one of child victims of the attack

An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.

Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.

The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.

Palestinians drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image:
Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble

Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble in Gaza City
Image:
Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City

In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.

Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.

He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.

Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.

They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.

It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.

Members of Salah Jundia's family left alive after the attack
Image:
Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack

Salah Jundia and his family
Image:
Salah Jundia and his surviving family

Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.

The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.

“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.

They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”

The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.

In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.

The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.

“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.

He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.

Read more:
Israeli air strike hits Gaza hospital
Red dye dumped into US embassy in Israel protest
Israel shot at ambulances over ‘perceived threat’

“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.

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